Academics

The Countryside Experience

At Countryside School, we believe childhood is a magical time. We understand that each stage in a child's development opens new opportunities for learning and teaching. The Countryside Experience is designed to embrace and enhance each student's unique learning potential.

The first thing a new Countryside student learns is that school is fun and exciting! That's because everything we do is planned and designed to engage a child's innate joy in learning. It's what we believe. It's how we teach. And we reinforce it every day.

The Countryside Experience teaches students how to learn, to respect different perspectives, to collaborate, and to think, write and speak with confidence.

Our unique classroom structure

Our elementary classrooms - Kindergarten/1st grade, 2nd/3rd grade, and 4th/5th grade - are each combined classrooms of approximately 30 students with two teachers, one for each grade level. (Beginning in the 2024-25 academic year, our classroom structure will be Kindergarten, 1st/2nd grade, 3rd/4th grade, and 5th grade but still with a primary teacher for each grade.) Language arts and math are taught in small groups according to ability. In combined classrooms, science and social science topics are on a two-year rotating schedule so that a student experiences all topics during the two years in the classroom.

The multi-age classroom structure works well. It gives students regular opportunities to look up to older role models and to serve as role models for younger students. In addition to developing leadership skills and fostering a community feeling and spirit, these classrooms allow students to develop friendships with more than just the students in their actual grade. Since in the combined classrooms half the class changes each year, new students find it easy to fit in.