The Essence of an Epiphany School Education: At its core the Epiphany School experience is about challenging and caring for children. An Epiphany education provides students with strong academic skills, love of learning, community participation as well as a sense of personal responsibility. High expectations and small classes allow for individual attention, which fosters intellectual development and self-confidence. We also want our students to grow in physical and social skills and to develop empathy and awareness of others.

Epiphany provides an atmosphere in which successes are recognized, good manners are fostered and responsible behavior is valued and reinforced. By nurturing, encouraging, challenging, and setting goals as well as limits, teachers help students to maintain balance and a sense of purpose. Children have the opportunity to make developmentally appropriate decisions in a supportive environment. The Epiphany program provides ample structure, but creativity, flexibility and innovation are also very much in evidence.

An Epiphany student’s success depends to a great extent on the partnership between the school and family. Thus, the school emphasizes communication with parents and parental involvement in the life of the school as a fundamental link in the education process.

Accreditation:

Epiphany School is accredited through the rigorous standards of the Pacific Northwest Association of Independent Schools and the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges.

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Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten - The Early Elementary Cluster

The first two years of an Epiphany education are spent gaining strong foundations in academic skills in a highly nurturing environment. In Pre-Kindergarten children progress at their own pace with many wide-ranging experiences. An equal emphasis is placed on play, which establishes self-esteem and helps the children learn to function constructively in a group while gaining academic readiness.

The Kindergarten program emphasizes skill development. There are clear academic expectations and goals, yet mastery of facts is only part of the program. Building confidence and independence also is key. The curriculum is designed so that activities can be accomplished at various levels of difficulty and every child can be successful.

Reading Instruction in the Early Elementary Cluster: The goal of reading instruction in the early and elementary years is to provide a developmentally appropriate reading curriculum for the acquisition of essential language and reading skills. Formal and informal instruction time is dedicated to give students the tools needed for successful reading. Beginning in Kindergarten, phonemic awareness and phonics are supported through individual, small and whole group lessons. Fluency, vocabulary and comprehension instruction is differentiated to meet the needs of diverse and wide-ranging readers. Students have exposure to a variety of reading resources such as phonetically-controlled primer texts, literature-based readers, and trade books.

In addition to essential skills instruction, Epiphany School recognizes that reading aloud to children is the best way to prepare them for learning to read and to keep them reading as they learn and grow. All families are strongly encouraged to choose quality literature from classroom, school, and community resources for reading at home. A love and appreciation of literature coupled with strong foundational skills create elementary readers well prepared for the next stage of reading development.

Oral and Written Communication in the Early Elementary Cluster: Verbal communication is a precursor to written communication for the early childhood program. Expressive communication includes sharing one’s thoughts verbally, through pictures, or through written text and permeates all curricular areas. Throughout these developmental years, students are presented with opportunities to express their views, to nurture their creativity, and to develop their evolving skills. Kindergarten presents the beginning development of penmanship, spelling, process writing, genre, and writing mechanics.

Math in the Early Elementary Cluster: The math program offered during the earliest years builds upon children’s natural curiosity. Math experiences are designed to actively involve students in their grasp of numbers, patterns, and shapes. As they explore, children begin to think and communicate mathematically in order to make sense of their world. Through numerous active and meaningful practices, children develop skills that build a solid foundation for future learning.

Social Studies in the Early Elementary Cluster: Social Studies at this level of Epiphany School serves as the main avenue to learning about ourselves in relation to our families, our school and our community. We stress the development of personal awareness, empathy and interactions through the Second Step program. At the same time we are focusing on developing the students' own independence and responsibility as citizens of our school. We also discuss the wider world around us: families, classmates, the holidays, and our country’s history.

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First and Second Grades - The Lower Elementary Cluster

The First grade program features an innovative curriculum that combines factual mastery, skill development, and critical thinking, as well as a great deal of fun.

The Second grade focuses on various aspects of learning, self-esteem, personal responsibility and increasing mastery of academic skills. It’s a critical transition year for Epiphany students where the academic emphasis is focused not just on responses but how those responses were achieved.

Reading Instruction in the Lower Elementary Cluster: The goal of reading instruction in the lower elementary years is to provide a developmentally appropriate reading curriculum for the acquisition of essential language and reading skills. Phonemic awareness and phonics are systematic, sequential, and central components of the reading and spelling program. Fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension instruction is differentiated to meet the diverse needs of readers ranging from an emergent level to that of fluency. Reading resources are varied and include phonetically-controlled primer texts, literature-based readers, and trade books.

In addition to essential skills instruction, Epiphany School recognizes that reading aloud to children is the best way to prepare them for learning to read and to keep them reading as they learn and grow. All families are strongly encouraged to choose quality literature from classroom, school, and community resources for reading at home. A love and appreciation of literature coupled with strong foundational skills create elementary readers well prepared for the next stage of reading development.

Oral and Written Communication in the Lower Elementary Cluster: A young writer once said: I practice so I can be a good writer. When I write I feel warm, cozy, and excited inside. This sums up the First and Second grade writing philosophy. Essentially, the students are given the tools to become effective communicators all the while cultivating an intrinsic ease and joy in the writing process. The tools incorporate penmanship, spelling, vocabulary, grammar, and writing mechanics. The ease and joy blossom as the children practice using the tools in a variety of genres incorporating an ever expanding source of ideas. Students are encouraged to use words that express their individual voice and independent thinking. Print-rich classrooms, exposure to literature, and teachers who believe in the magic of a pencil in a child’s hand further each student’s writing journey.

Math in the Lower Elementary Cluster: In First and Second grade, the math program builds upon students’ prior knowledge gathered in the earliest years, and emphasizes concept formation through guided exploration and formalized student experiences. Critical thinking and reasoning, as well as rule building and symbolic representation, are skills developed during these years. Student assessment is an extension of classroom activity, and students are solidly supported at whatever level they are. Learning with understanding is an essential element to the math program.

Social Studies in the Lower Elementary Cluster: In First and Second grade, the social studies curriculum supports students in developing their conflict resolution skills, their appreciation and understanding of diverse cultures, and the understanding of themselves in the context of their family, community, country, and the world. Students develop core knowledge in history, geography, economics, civics, and government. The social studies curriculum is also driven by the principles of citizenship which encourage all students to participate in the global community.

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Third, Fourth, and Fifth Grades - The Upper Elementary Cluster

Third grade is an important transition from the Lower to the Upper Elementary Cluster at Epiphany and presents a combination of continued skill acquisition and the beginning of the upper grades’ more project-based curriculum. During this year, students work to gain true independence in their academic skills as the curriculum calls for an application of these skills while tackling longer, more complex projects.

The Fourth and Fifth grades at Epiphany School are housed in their own building and the academic program is intense. Fourth and Fifth grades are transitions between childhood and adolescence and the program is designed to keep pace with the accelerating social and physical growth of the students while getting them ready for their next transition into middle school. Expectations are increasingly high as is the level of educational sophistication. Managing long-term projects, acquiring essential organizational skills, and developing a basic comfort in public speaking are a few elements adding to the rigor of this curriculum. These students are expected to be the leaders of the school and develop life-long skills that serve themselves and their community.

The Language Arts program in the Upper Elementary Cluster: The language arts program in the upper grades reflects a more global and integrated curriculum and delves more analytically into the structure of our language. The purpose and objectives of the language arts program are to develop further each student’s ability to communicate clearly and effectively through both speaking and writing in a variety of circumstances.

Reading Instruction in the Upper Elementary Cluster: The primary goal in the upper grades is to take the more discrete skills from lower grades and use them to bridge the transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” This process begins in Third grade and is heavily emphasized in the Fourth and Fifth grades. Students read widely in many genres in order to understand the human experience and to research and learn new information. Students are taught to apply multiple strategies for comprehension, interpretation, and evaluation of texts. Specifically, they learn to read for details, make inferences, summarize, and analyze written information. Students increase the breadth of their reading, gain an appreciation of literature, and read independently for pleasure.

Oral and Written Communication in the Upper Elementary Cluster: The primary goal in the upper grades is for students to achieve successful written communication. The curriculum emphasizes the importance of the writing process, which includes the steps of pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. It also teaches students the Six Traits of effective writing, which are content, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions. Students are taught to write in a variety of forms and genres and adjust language for audience and purpose. Students are taught to analyze and critique their own work and the work of others as well as reflect on their individual growth as writers. Finally students are taught to present their information orally using effective techniques to engage their listeners.

Math in the Upper Elementary Cluster: In the Upper Cluster math program, students master the critical thinking and reasoning skills developed in the earlier grades. The program is unified through the scope and sequence of our math textbook, which is gradually introduced in Third grade and completely integrated in the Fourth and Fifth grades. The students continue to delve beyond the textbook as well, building appropriate math habits, developing independent problem solving skills, and applying logical reasoning. In addition to a solid foundation in basic mathematics, this program prepares our students to approach math from a more abstract perspective, to communicate using mathematical language, and to relate concepts to real-life situations.

Social Studies in the Upper Elementary Cluster: The Social Studies program in the upper grades takes as its goal the building of understanding and appreciation for the diversity of the human condition. Through project-based, hands-on, experiential learning experiences appealing to all modalities of learning, children study how communities are shaped by location and environment, culture, governance, identity, and values. Classes seek to build knowledge, cultivate inquiry, and develop critical thinking.

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The Learning Skills Program

The Learning Skills Program at Epiphany, initiated in the early 1970’s, is one of the most unique features of the school. In addition to integrating themselves into the Kindergarten through Third grade classrooms, teachers of the Learning Skills Program utilize one-on-one tutoring to address specific student needs. Above all, the Learning Skills Specialists not only support students and teachers in and out of the classroom, but also act as champions for differentiated instruction at Epiphany School.

The Physical Education Program

Physical Education is an integral part of the total education process at Epiphany School and presents a combination of traditional PE classes and an innovative Fit For Life program. Students spend over two and a half hours a week in PE, Fit For Life, Game Days or Intramurals, proving that keeping physically fit is an integral part of the school’s total education process. The program provides movement-centered instructional activities that allow students to develop skills, knowledge and attitudes necessary to enjoy a physically active lifestyle. The ultimate goals of the physical education program are to improve muscular strength and cardiovascular endurance, flexibility, as well as serve as a vehicle that helps children establish self-esteem, strive for achievable personal goals and become aware of the importance of fitness. Team games emphasize skills, strategies, rules of the game and the intangibles such as teamwork, cooperation and sportsmanship. All students explore movement and skill development, concepts of body and spatial awareness, active and safe play, working successfully in groups and making healthy choices.

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Science

Science at Epiphany is a hands-on, inquiry based curriculum, that, starting in Kindergarten, prepares students to be thoughtful observers who are interested in and knowledgeable of their world. Through a myriad of science topics covering the full range of earth science, physical science and life science, students develop skills such as classifying, comparing, predicting, measuring, and describing. In the Upper Elementary Cluster, the investigations become even more rigorous, as we perform our first controlled experiments. The student scientists at Epiphany are encouraged to see science all around them in their lives, and they become enthusiastic science advocates. Lab science is complimented by on-going science units in the regular classrooms as well.

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Music

The music program at Epiphany school is comprised of three basic elements: singing, playing instruments and movement. These act as a vessel for the development of specific theoretical skills – such as note reading, rhythm, and basic theory – as well as music appreciation (which includes history, world music and cross-curricular study) and performance. Academic crossovers occur all the time in music, for every grade level. The music teacher works closely with classroom teachers and other specialists to supplement specific topics or units. During their tenure at Epiphany, students display skill development that includes successful vocal and instrumental modeling. Most importantly, this program fosters every child’s innate love of music and provides them with the tools to be active and enthusiastic listeners and appreciators, as well as participants.

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French and Latin

The French program is designed to provide a multicultural and multilingual experience. A primary goal is to cultivate a lifelong interest in learning language. Students develop an ear for the new sounds, use context clues to make informed guesses as to what is being said, build confidence in speaking French and learn vocabulary. Some of these language acquisition goals are met through explicit teaching, but many are met through exposure to French culture and opportunities to use language. TPR (Total Physical Response - a method that mimics the process of first language acquisition conversations) and vocabulary development activities are used to expose students to French. Humans comprehend language before they speak, so listening is a vital component of language learning. Through the use of the above methods and the creation of a safe environment to experiment with language, a value for and enjoyment of a foreign language is instilled.

The Latin program at Epiphany spans the Fourth and Fifth grades with the foundation being laid in the Fourth grade and, in the Fifth grade, further building and expansion on the following topics: vocabulary and derivatives (English and French), grammar, and Roman history, culture and mythology. The most important skill a child can leave with is the ability to use a dictionary and to recognize the roots and prefixes of words.

Art

The art program aims to teach students to become visually literate, develop self-expression, and experience self-worth. Each project is based on the elements of art and good design (line, shape, form, color, value, space, texture and pattern). As students explore these elements, the principles of art and good design (balance, variety, emphasis, unity, rhythm, movement) are taught to help students organize successful compositions. The development of each child's aesthetic sense and emotional expression are a valuable part of the art curriculum. Art concepts and vocabulary are taught using a variety of techniques and materials. The children are encouraged to experiment and discover through experience. The work of artists from different historical periods and cultures are integrated into the teaching.

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Drama

The Poetry Pageant

One of the oldest traditions of the school is the annual Poetry Pageant, which features the poems, songs and dance of our students in Kindergarten and First grades. This event is the highlight of the week prior to winter vacation.

The Mid-Winter Production

Our Second and third graders take this opportunity to showcase songs, dances and narrations often in connection with the Epiphany's All-School Study. This performance occurs the week before mid-winter break.

The Spring Musical

Each spring fourth and fifth grade students present a musical designed to display their talents and abilities. This is a long-standing tradition that reflects some of the most important values that the school teaches, such as individual preparation, teamwork and public presentation.

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updated May 15th, 2008