To prepare each child for their next steps— start every step of the way with
program.
How our K-6 learning arc fosters critical academic, social, and emotional skills so students thrive and contribute all their lives
What is pluralism? At PS1, pluralism is our highest aspiration— for our children and our world. It also describes our methods for achieving that goal. The school’s name, PS1 Pluralistic School, intentionally echoes our nation’s motto, E pluribus unum: Out of many, one. As our students master essential skills and knowledge, we ensure they understand themselves as individual learners and human beings, and as members of numerous larger communities.
We can change the world by taking care of these kids now, at this phase of their lives. –faculty member
Why does pluralism matter? By attending to each child as a unique and valued individual, we build a kind, cooperative, dynamic learning community that models the larger world as we think it can and should be: one that considers, honors, and welcomes every person, so all can joyfully contribute their best selves to the greater good. When your child spends their earliest years in this carefully designed educational environment, they step forth prepared and energized to put their values into practice wherever they go. Today, we need such delightful, dedicated, effective thinkers and citizens more than ever.
Learn how pluralism drives our program and shapes our graduates. >
Motivating learning At PS1, pluralism shapes learning at every level. We want students to see education as an exciting lifelong journey powered by their own curiosity, empathy, and expertise—rather than a series of boxes to check or labels to acquire. Our full K-6 learning arc interweaves innovative teaching methods with an inspiring multidisciplinary curriculum, ensuring that self-motivation fuels academic success, and vice versa, throughout students’ crucial early years. Translating pluralism from an ideal into a daily educational practice, we’ve reimagined the traditional classroom to create multi-age groupings called Clusters. In this energizing structure, students of different ages learn from and alongside each other, guided and informed by two full-time teachers who model productive inquiry and spontaneous insight.
Just as no human being is an island, no academic subject exists in isolation. That’s why our Clusters system intentionally supports a complex curriculum that reveals and creates interconnections. Through hands-on, collaborative lessons and projects, students discover how math, art, science, music, writing, reading, performance, and play all illuminate and shape different aspects of a larger whole. This dynamic interplay of structure and content allows us to build conscious self-reflection and self-motivation into every lesson, as students discuss not only what they’ve learned, but why and how. We also know that everyone develops at different rates, in different areas, at different times. Our faculty members meet students where they are at every moment in their journey, ensuring each student develops the academic and personal tools to move themselves forward.
Owning your learning is key. Planning and enacting this program every day requires considerable knowledge, agility, compassion, and time. But the results are evident: our students understand themselves as learners and as people at an earlier age than you might think possible. Because they own their learning, and love doing it, their ambitions and their capabilities keep on growing.
How do we know our program works?
Proven preparedness PS1 recently completed an 18-month research project to better understand how our program shapes students intellectually, socially, and emotionally. We surveyed current parents, past parents, alumni, teachers, and staff, along with middle school teachers and administrators throughout the Los Angeles area. The results were gratifying, though not surprising, as respondents consistently pointed to the qualities we intentionally foster throughout students’ seven-year journey.
The surveys told us that PS1 graduates are: Self-aware Respectful Expressive Inquisitive Collaborative
Problem-solving Connected Proactive Prepared
Ready and energized for the academic and personal challenges of 7th grade, our graduates enroll in LA’s top middle schools— independent, public, and charter, from progressive to traditional and everywhere in between. They go on to flourish in high school, college, career, and life beyond, contributing their distinctive know-how and joyful spirits to all their communities.
Here’s how our pluralistic education makes that happen. >
Youngers Cluster
K|1
Kindergarten and Grade 1
Building identities In the Youngers Cluster, we focus on helping children develop their identities as individuals, students, and community members. This strong intellectual and personal foundation empowers children to seek out and pursue ever-greater challenges, enthusiastically and persistently, throughout their PS1 years and beyond.
For example: Reading and writing: codes and connections We teach reading and writing as critical tools for thinking and making sense of the world. As our youngest students come to us with different levels of experience, we first teach them to see themselves as readers and writers who can decode and encode symbols in words or images. After the teacher introduces a new skill, such as pausing to study a diagram to find more information, students practice the skill with partners. The partners may be at the same level, or a more experienced student can mentor the other, fostering intellectual and social growth for both children. We also teach students to connect their reading, whether fiction or nonfiction, to their own lives and others’, sparking thoughtful conversations and awareness of different perspectives.
The PS1 study: self and community The Youngers Cluster delves into research and deepen our sense of community through a two-month-long study exploring our school’s many dimensions. Students make a mural map of the campus, adding features as students discover them. They interview teachers and administrators about their work and about PS1’s history. Our children share their findings in a presentation to the school. They also make a book about PS1 and proudly donate it to our school’s archive.
Bridge Cluster
1|2
2|3
Grades 1 and 2
Grades 2 and 3
Pushing yourself while learning from others In the Bridge Cluster, students further develop their self-management skills, as they cooperate with classmates on larger projects and discover different ways of approaching the same problem. Building intellectual, social, and emotional agility together, our students learn how to think, work, play, and make a real difference in a rapidly changing world.
For example: Jigsaw: ocean layers For this comprehensive study of the ocean, students divide into small groups, and each researches a different layer: sunlight, twilight, midnight, and abyssal. Each group learns about their zone from a variety of sources curated by their teachers, including books, videos, and diagrams. Their research covers multiple topics such as measuring depth, the effects of sunlight or its absence, how and why different animals live in each zone. The groups then present their findings to the class, answering questions while their fellow students take notes. Together, the whole class assembles a detailed, informative picture of the natural world.
Math: motivation and differentiation Students strengthen their math skills through collaborative and independent work. Our approach is iterative, adding greater difficulty as students master concepts, and reflective, as they share with their teachers and the class how they arrived at the correct answer. Through this process, students learn different approaches to solving the same problem—developing persistence as they try varied methods and respectfully offering and receiving help. As they uncover their own best methods for finding solutions, students grow increasingly confident and excited and ask their teachers for harder problems— so differentiation occurs organically, not through assigned levels or labels.
Middles Cluster
3|4
Grades 3 and 4
Engaging the wider world In the Middles Cluster, our integrated studies examine people’s relationships with each other and their physical environment, deepening self-reflection, cultural awareness, and proactive problem-solving. To ensure students understand the influence they can exercise and the responsibilities they hold, we create meaningful projects that inspire extended engagement.
For example: The Chumash study: geography and culture Our multifaceted study of traditional Chumash culture reveals how geography influenced the people’s daily lives before the mission period. We take field trips to historic Chumash lands in the Santa Monica Mountains, the Channel Islands, and nearby beaches. We also visit the Chumash Indian Museum, the Huntington Library, the Theodore Payne Nursery, and other institutions to learn how the Chumash adapted to and influenced their environment. Students conduct group and independent research and create tools and artifacts to better understand transportation, food, family life, and so on. As they carry out and share their work, students learn how to communicate respectfully with and about people from different cultures, acknowledging biases and combatting stereotypes.
Climate change: investigating and mitigating Extending our studies of land and people, we consider the ways our culture affects the environment today. We read extensively, conduct experiments, and share ideas big and small about how to address this global challenge. We grow plants in our classroom, measuring their effectiveness as carbon sinks, and design cities of the future using analog and digital tools to propose real-world solutions. These intensive themed units strengthen the intellectual and personal skills students need to make positive changes in our increasingly complex global community.
Olders Cluster
5|6
Grades 5 and 6
Imagining and preparing for a new world In the Olders Cluster, students draw on all the experiences, skills, and insights they’ve developed throughout their PS1 years to get ready for what comes next. Through artistic imagination and concrete analysis, they examine the complex functions of different societies—large and small, real and imagined—as we guide them toward the new world of middle school.
For example: The fantasy study: imagination, community, and science To help us perceive the rules, both overt and hidden, that govern various societies, we begin by reading fantasy novel series, such as Ranger’s Apprentice, Overlander, and Artemis Fowl. Working in small groups, students uncover and reveal the rules of these imagined societies to their peers. Students then write their own fantasy stories, and as a further challenge, base their characters on the behaviors of chemical elements—reinforcing scientific principles while spurring artistic innovation. Connecting these investigations to students’ own lives, we discuss how middle school is a world both similar to and different from PS1. How might our fantasy study help students better understand and engage in the new communities they are about to enter?
The news: journalism, history, and perspective Our visit to the Los Angeles Times printing press sparks deep consideration of how we perceive and share information. We learn from an editor and columnist about the distinctions between reporting and opinion writing; we consider how people’s different stakes in a matter can influence their perspectives. Back in the classroom, students write their own reports and opinion pieces about historic events, and discuss how their responsibilities as reporters and columnists— combined with their own preexisting notions—shape their viewpoints. Through these thoughtful exercises in world-building and world-inhabiting, Olders students emerge as creative, critically thinking citizens, equipped and excited for middle school and all that comes next.
Benchmarks and assessments How we foster intrinsic motivation— and greater achievement Assessment is a means, not an end. As experts in child development, we know that growth in any area never follows a straight line. Think of children as they learn to walk: they often fall, struggle to get up, and rush forward, only to fall again. And the next thing you know, they’re climbing a tree. It’s the same with education: for every child, learning includes frustrating troughs and apparent regressions along with periods of steady progress and sudden, astounding leaps. We don’t assess students through traditional grading, because such a system can’t account for the individual nature of each child’s development. Equally important, traditional grading tends to create external motivation: students work for the grade, rather than to learn the material. They don’t own the knowledge and therefore don’t retain or expand it. In short, the grade becomes an end, not a means. In contrast, our goal is to foster intrinsic motivation through assessments and benchmarks that promote more profound, lasting, and joyful learning.
PS1 students strive to exceed standards— and expectations. At every level, our teachers craft lessons to fulfill widely adopted standards, including the California Common Core Mathematics Standards, the Next Generation of Science Standards, and the Columbia Teachers College Reading Program. But we want our students not only to meet these standards, but to exceed them. And the best way to do that is to use assessments that inspire curiosity, optimism, and ongoing improvement.
To that end, we use a variety of formative assessment methods, covering academic, social, and emotional progress, and always offer a path for revision and growth. Starting in the Middles Cluster and continuing through Olders, we provide numeric rubrics, sharing them with students at the outset of each lesson. As they work, students and teachers constantly check the rubrics together, so children know where they’re succeeding and where they need to do better. And even students receiving top numbers seek ways to push themselves further. Growing up with these rigorous, comprehensive, and reflective assessment methods, PS1 students enter 7th grade holding unusually high expectations for themselves—and filled with confidence that they can tackle any challenge.
Curriculum overview LANGUAGE ARTS Reading Our teachers are trained in the Columbia University Teachers College Reading Program, which emphasizes phonemic awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension strategies. We define reading proficiency as the student’s ability to access print accurately and fluently and to relate what they read to vocabulary and content knowledge.
Writing Our goal is for every child to find their voice as a writer. PS1 teachers are trained in the Columbia University Teachers College Writing Workshop model founded on the work of Lucy Calkins and Donald Graves. We embed grammar teaching and learning into the writing process, so students have the widest range of tools to express themselves clearly and vividly.
Speaking and listening Active listening and sharing ideas are central tenets of the school’s pluralistic mission. Whether communicating with teachers or peers, in small groups or in front of an audience at all-school Circle Time, students practice articulating their thoughts, listening to one another, and building on one another’s contributions.
MATH We teach mathematical learning as a process of constructing meaning to make sense of concepts, and which requires perseverance and willingness to meet challenges. The mathematics curriculum consists of three carefully integrated components: Cognitive Guided Instruction, California Common Core Mathematics Standards, and the Bridges math program.
SOCIAL STUDIES Social Studies themes often provide connecting questions or concepts in a Cluster’s transdisciplinary study. Social Studies themes follow a developmental trajectory: our youngest students learn about things close to them, such as families, identity, and heritage; as children get older their circles expand to the broader Los Angeles community, then California, the United States, and our global community.
SCIENCE We take a three-pronged approach to our science curriculum that follows the Next Generation of Science Standards. The majority of the design and engineering work occurs in The Studio, our maker space, while the majority of the disciplinary core ideas lessons happen in the classroom. The school addresses a broad scientific theme every year, and the themes rotate between Physical/Earth Science and Life Science.
SERVICE LEARNING Through Service learning, PS1 students experience first-hand how they can make a difference in the lives of others. PS1 has supported many groups in our area, including Step Up on Second, The Ocean Park Community Center, Boys and Girls Club, Sunshine Retirement Home, and Access Books.
LEARNING EXPEDITIONS
MUSIC
At all grade levels, our students’ learning environment includes much of Southern California, as we link concepts and ideas from the classroom to the community. Recent field trips include visits to the Santa Monica Library, the California Science Center’s space shuttle Endeavor exhibit, Olvera Street’s Dia de los Muertos altars, and the annual all-school camping trip to Leo Carrillo State Park.
Our music program integrates curricular themes through song and genre. Students learn to read, write, and perform music from a wide range of cultures and historical periods using a variety of Orff, percussion, wind, and tonal instruments. Students can study instrumental music through our partnership with the Santa Monica Youth Orchestra.
SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL LEARNING We know that each child must feel seen, understood, and loved in order to learn, take risks, and be a contributing member of the community. Our developmentally calibrated program works to bring out the best in each child, so they can become the best version of themselves.
TECHNOLOGY Technology is a part of the daily life of the classrooms, as a teaching and learning tool, rather than an end in itself. Advanced digital technologies form an integral part of the design and engineering projects that students produce in The Studio, our innovative maker space.
ART Because we incorporate visual art into every subject, we give students the experiences, tools, and techniques to develop as serious, expressive artists. In our wonderfully equipped studio, we explore color, line, form, and perspective in a variety of media; study artists and art history; and discuss and critique works of art from around the world.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION Our PE program takes a holistic approach to developing confident and capable citizens who practice sportsmanship, teamwork, and fair play. We offer a wide variety of sports and innovative activities including basketball, soccer, lacrosse, Frisbee, yoga, dance, circus arts, football, and ropes courses.
LIBRARY Our Library is the literal heart of the school, open before, during, and after the school day for faculty, children and parents. Our extensive collection of fiction and non-fiction materials supports the curriculum as well as our students’ leisure reading and individual passions.
The seven-year PS1 journey leads to this...
Portrait of a PS1 Pluralistic School Graduate A PS1 graduate is:
SELF-AWARE
Demonstrates a strong sense of identity and resilience as an individual and a learner
RESPECTFUL
Exhibits kindness, consideration, and mindfulness of others
EXPRESSIVE
Confidently articulates thoughts, ideas, and emotions
INQUISITIVE
Eagerly satisfies curiosities and acquires new knowledge
COLLABORATIVE
Considers others’ ideas and points of view to deepen understanding
PROBLEM-SOLVING
Investigates problems, sets goals, and develops solutions encompassing multiple perspectives
CONNECTED
Balances needs of self and others; contributes meaningfully in community and society
PROACTIVE PREPARED
Embraces responsibility to stand up to exclusion, prejudice, and injustice; advocates for change Intrinsically motivated to meet the challenges of middle school and beyond
You can see how much expertise, ingenuity, consideration, and love go into every PS1 day, on behalf of each PS1 child. And the outcomes are more than worth the effort. We’re so proud of our students—and of all the teachers, parents, administrators, and community members who teach and nurture these marvelous human beings. The Portrait of a Graduate isn’t an endpoint, though. In learning as in life, these delightful, impressive, and essential young people are just getting started. Because they started with PS1.
To create a more thoughtful, insightful, start and beautiful world for everyone with
child.
We hope your family will learn and grow with us. For more information, contact the Admissions Office at 310-394-1313 ext. 107 or admissions@psone.org.
We came here because I wanted my kids to love learning, and PS1 kids have that love.
–parent