Academics

Lower School

Welcome to the St. Margaret’s Lower School. Our Lower School program is designed to prepare your child for a life of learning, leadership and service. In keeping with our mission and guiding force, we focus our program on learning through commitment, leadership through character development, and service through community.

Learning Through Commitment

St. Margaret’s Lower School is committed to upholding high academic expectations. Our best asset, aside from our students, is our highly educated, caring and professional team of educators. Whether it be our commitment to small class sizes with classroom and special subject teachers engaged in the learning of each child, robust science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs, our excellence in teaching language arts and the humanities, a vibrant visual arts and music program, or our support in developing the whole child through our training in positive behavior support systems and character education, we continue to grow professionally and adapt our program in order to meet the needs of each and every student at St. Margaret’s.

Leadership Through Character Development
 
Our faculty and students are proud to live by the six pillars of the Character Counts program: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship. Our Lower School Student Leadership, faculty and parents work hard to continue to model and teach each of these character traits. Our first weeks of school focus on behavioral expectations for life at St. Margaret’s. Homeroom and Specialist teachers, Co-Teachers, and administrators model and teach these traits and guide students in making good decisions in their social, emotional and academic lives. St. Margaret’s Tartans are taught pro-social behavior as they learn to navigate their ever-changing minds and bodies. We reward this PAWsitive behavior with Class Dojo points, incentives, special privileges and much more. Our professional community instills morals and values in fun and engaging ways. There are spirit days and reward days where the excitement is almost palpable and all the while the children are reminded that PAWsitive character is what great leaders are made of.
 
Service Through Community
 
Our community consists of our students, professional community, and families. We foster an atmosphere in which all feel they have a voice and an integral part in the St. Margaret’s family. We work hard to enhance communication with parents and students through regular face-to-face, web and email-based correspondence. We communicate each child’s progress through the use of a custom-designed ‘progress report showing achievement toward or above benchmark over time. We host grade-level meetings, parent workshops, and send weekly grade-level newsletters that center on social, emotional, and academic well-being.
 
The students feel a strong sense of community and school spirit through our dynamic Student Leadership groups. Exciting information is shared with our students regarding PAWsitive character events and incentives throughout the year via student-generated videos shown each Monday in Chapel. The administrative team is committed to building strong relationships with all professional community members. These strong relationships then foster a community in which we participate in seasonal and yearlong service learning. These service opportunities are intentionally tied to the social science, science, social justice standards, and social emotional curriculum while also using the themes in the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
 
As a St. Margaret’s alumni and parent, I can personally attest to the way our Lower School prepares students for the academic challenges of Middle School, Upper School and university life. Like our Middle School, we are careful to measure the success of our students in more significant ways than just through test scores. We measure our program and the needs of each child through various forms of assessment and use this data to drive instruction. Our program offers so much to foster the development of the whole child.
 
Thank you for your interest in St. Margaret’s Episcopal School. Please feel welcome to contact us for additional information as you consider our Lower School program for your family.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Blount ’87
Lower School Principal

Lower School News

List of 3 news stories.

St. Margaret’s Episcopal School

31641 La Novia Avenue
San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675
(949) 661-0108
 
Translation? ¿Traducción? 翻译?:

An Independent Preschool Through Grade 12 College-Preparatory Day School in Orange County California

Non-Discrimination Policy
St. Margaret's Episcopal School does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, religion, sexual orientation or national and ethnic origin in the administration of its educational, admission, financial aid, hiring and athletic policies or in other school-administered programs.