We believe young children will learn best in school if their early childhood is spent in long hours of nourishing relationships and unstructured play. Learning to submit to a routine, helping with chores, running, jumping, climbing, and spending long hours outdoors provide a great foundation for learning. These are the years for careful formation of early habits –attention, obedience, and self-control among a few. Our Kindergarten Program allows children time to make the transition from home to school without neglecting this important foundation for learning. And, having kindergarten 5 mornings per week allows them to be in school when they are fresh, but still have time for rest and play in the afternoons. We offer optional Ambleside Afternoons, which include home-like activities, such as baking cookies, playing outside, story time, etc. for those whose children are ready for a longer day, and whose schedules necessitate this time.

Ambleside covers 16 subjects a week because our philosophy is to spread a rich feast, to offer many avenues for learning, and to allow the mind of the child to appropriate knowledge. Subjects are taught in short lessons so that the habit of attention can be developed. Poetry, literature, phonics, read aloud, dictation, composition and grammar might, in another school, be grouped under Language Arts. In the same way, world and American history, citizenship, geography might all be grouped under Social Studies. We teach these subjects separately because we are committed to having short lessons (to cultivate the habit of attention) and frequent change (a change is as good as a rest).

Actually, we give more than grades at Ambleside. Our students receive an extensive written evaluation of their academic as well as their character development twice a year. In addition to weekly assessments in math and grammar, twice yearly our students have week-long essay exam periods that are an important educational evaluative tool at Ambleside. The reports of progress and the exams are further supplemented by parent teacher conferences where the parents and teachers discuss strong and weak areas and strategize on ways to partner and improve the whole student. Our goal is for students to be engaged learners, more interested in gaining knowledge than in getting a grade or besting a classmate. We have found that greater understanding and learning happens when our students search their papers for teachers’ comments rather than glance at a grade and feel self-satisfied or discouraged. We would rather put before our students the challenge of doing their best work, than the contentment of just getting the grade they wanted. In our classrooms students rarely ask, “Do we need to know this?” They simply apply themselves to learning.

Narration, in simplest terms, is “telling back” whatever has been read, seen, or heard. A student who narrates is asked to use the author’s own language, sequence and detail in their retelling, not in a parroted way, but in a way that makes the material their own. Narration, at Ambleside, is used in all subjects, including the disciplinary ones. Narration is a simple, yet powerful, tool for the development of the mind. As a result, children learn to acquire knowledge from books; select, sort, and classify ideas; supply both the question and the answer; visualize; express themselves readily, fluently and with vitality; assemble knowledge into a form that can criticize, hold an opinion, or bring one thought to bear upon another. We narrate – in some way – most lessons. While frequently oral, narration may also mean using manipulatives to illustrate equivalent fractions; diagramming the parts of a dissected mushroom; acting out the story of Joseph; painting a picture of a scene from a reading; writing a thoughtful essay; or providing examples of “prevarication” in a class on ethics.

Teachers at Ambleside must have a daily commitment to Jesus Christ, and must be creative, thoughtful, engaged learners with broad interests and educational knowledge. Teachers who thrive at Ambleside enjoy ideas, read regularly, and are passionate about our philosophy and willing to adapt old ways of teaching to a challenging approach. We value experience with teaching children, graduate education, and we require at least an undergraduate degree.

A philosophy is simply a set of answers to questions. In reality, all schools follow some philosophy, even if it is “we do what we want”, or “we do a little of this and a little of that”. Most cannot articulate a philosophy, but use a materialist/behaviorist approach that attempts to manipulate children into learning. The philosophy to which Ambleside adheres is cohesive and consistent with a Biblical view of the child. It has been extensively applied in real life with thousands of children and has proved to be both practical and profound. We know of no other philosophy of education that is so consistent with a Christ-centered worldview, and that fosters both excellence and humility in student and teacher alike.