As adults go about their workday in New York City’s financial district, little minds are occupied with inquiry-based learning. Located directly opposite the New York Stock Exchange is Pine Street School. The international school in New York City is for nursery (two years) to grade eight. It’s the first school in the city to offer the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme together with Mandarin and Spanish immersion.
Admissions Director ROSA NÚÑEZ tells us why the school would appeal to parents who might be moving to NYC. Especially one that prepares children for the future using inquiry-based learning, technology and multilingualism.
What inspired the founding of the school in New York City?
The school opened its doors in 2014 with some of our youngest students; they’re now in third and fourth grade. Our founding families have a passionate commitment to multilingualism, student agency, technological fluency and a future-oriented education. Our aim as a community is to create a secure, caring environment where students optimise their development intellectually, physically, socially and emotionally.
What’s one thing that makes the school unique?
Student agency is fundamental to our school culture. We believe that every child is born a perfect learner. They possess enthusiastic curiosity, a tireless desire to problem solve and a fearless interest in new experiences.
Our job as a school is to nourish those innate qualities by keeping in stride with resources, opportunities, models and challenges that encourage that instinctive desire to understand, grow and contribute.
Tell us about the curriculum.
Our Preschool 2s (Nursery) and Preschool 3s combine Montessori and IB PYP. Together, they build fundamental understandings and, most importantly, independence, inquiry and collaboration skills. We add a dose of Reggio Emilia to imbue the learning with art and creative expression.
As students grow with us from early childhood (Nursery 2s, Preschool 3s and Junior Kindergarten 4s) to Elementary (Kindergarten to Grade Five), they move into a full PYP programme. That’s where they’re expected to become active participants in their own learning.
Our boutique middle school in New York City will be small by design to serve Grades 6 to 8, starting with the 2023 to 2024 school year. The curriculum will follow The Common Ground Collaborative Learning Ecosystem; it will focus on the development of each student within a safe and supportive learning community that nurtures the growth of their academic, social and executive function skills.
We also offer dual language immersion where students have daily instruction in both English and their target language, either Mandarin or Spanish.
How does a day at school look like?
Students are encouraged to ask questions, think critically, work collaboratively, make meaningful connections, and reflect and act. All the while having their natural curiosity about the world around them stimulated.
Inquiry-based learning is nurtured from age two and cultivated into increasingly advanced processes year by year. Typically, by the first or second grade, our students are self-sufficient in developing their own complex inquiries. They also demonstrate impressive self-management and critical thinking skills. We’re not a typical “compound school” where students go days without leaving the school grounds.
Our school is in the original New York City. It’s surrounded by tangible artefacts and monuments to history that changed the world. We’re a block from Wall Street, a short walk from Tribeca, the Hudson River, Brooklyn Bridge and Chinatown.
Beyond our neighbourhood, we have the vast resources of New York and its outer boroughs. They’re filled with arts and languages, international organisations, museums and other cultural institutions willing to open their doors to our students.
Meet the Pine Street School team from your home
Parents can find out more about Pine Street School in New York City, its inquiry-based learning curriculum and its team through teacher-led workshops that the school hosts regularly. These help parents to familiarise themselves with the school’s international curriculum and latest educational research. Visit pinestreetschool.com/events-and-calendar to find out when the next workshop will take place and to register.
Pine Street School
25 Pine Street, New York
pinestreetschool.com
(212) 2352325
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