The Langley School Viewbook by The Langley School

Admission Checklist Tour campus and/or attend an Information Session Submit application for admissionÂ Schedule student visit Complete parent interview Complete required testing (WPPSI-IV, WISC-V, or SSAT) Submit teacher recommendations and transcripts

Where vital academics meet a deep respect for childhood Preschool through grade 8 in Northern Virginia 1411 Balls Hill Road, McLean, VA 22101 main: (703) 356-1920 admission: (703) 848-2782 www.langleyschool.org

Submit financial aid application (optional)

www.langleyschool.org

Our preschool through eighth grade program might just be the right choice for your child.

Your child means the world to you. And you know childhood happens only once in a lifetime. That’s why, at Langley, we’ve carefully designed a preschool through grade 8 journey that deeply respects these crucial years as a time of steep, complex, joyful, and essential learning.

At Langley, childhood isn’t just a stage to pass through – it’s the whole point. Since 1942, we have embraced and celebrated children’s extraordinary curiosity, playfulness, creativity, and openness to learning. To ensure your child makes the most of every moment, our devoted community commits to living our proven, inquirybased learning philosophy every day. As children live Langley with us, our values – and our school – form a core part of who they become…

Attentive Investing in each child’s curiosity, potential, and individuality It takes time to get to know every child personally, but it’s so worth it. We can tailor the experience according to each child’s particular strengths and interests. -faculty member Even at a young age, your child’s one-of-a-kind personality shines through. He talks almost nonstop. He wants to live in a two-story treehouse. He’s a budding expressionist finger-painter. At Langley, we take the time to know children as the true individuals they are, and not just because it brings us – and them – such delight. Here, forming lasting, one-on-one connections is a crucial part of every school day. Throughout the day, we pause to notice how children feel, how they interact with others, and how and what they especially enjoy learning.

More attentive learning inspires your child to notice more details, ask more questions, and engage more deeply with every experience, even during the earliest years.

Then we tailor our teaching to fully engage each child’s talents and interests, ensuring everyone gets the most out of every lesson. Here, all children feel understood, know they have teachers and advisors to lean on, and maintain enduring relationships with faculty and staff long after they graduate. Experiencing this caring, individual attention every day, your child builds an exceptional self-awareness as a learner and as a person. And, as our partners in your child’s education, you continually learn more about your child, intellectually and interpersonally.

Balanced Creating a curriculum that develops every child’s intellect and emotional acuity My son has amazing energy, and his teachers know just how to nurture and direct it. He’s grown up loving to learn, ask questions, and work with others. -parent She wonders how animals survive in a drought. She asks you if money really can buy happiness – and for whom. She’s writing a novel from the viewpoint of a child in Greenland. Your child’s empathetic awareness and intellectual curiosity grow hand-in-hand – and you want a school that embraces and encourages both aspects equally. At Langley, we know that when children feel secure, understood, and loved – by their peers as well as their teachers – they’re much more open to new concepts and experiences. That’s why our expert teachers carefully tend to your child’s developing emotional acuity – not just to supplement academic achievement,

but to ensure it. By meeting children where they are emotionally and socially, we can judiciously challenge and guide them along Langley’s Arc of Development to strive toward increasingly sophisticated intellectual goals. Our custom-built social-emotional learning program, titled REACH (Raising Emotional Acuity, Cultural Responsiveness, and Healthy Behaviors), works in tandem with our academic program to deepen children’s emotional intelligence and reinforce their intellectual growth. Your child grows up fully equipped to make good decisions, tackle intellectual and personal challenges, manage healthy relationships, and build resilience through both failure and success.

Experts in their subjects and child development, Langley’s teachers balance emotional and intellectual learning, so that each effectively strengthens the other.

Ambitious Equipping all students to confidently fulfill their passion and purpose Langley taught my son that no matter how much you know, there’s always more to discover. He’s carried that constant desire to learn through high school and college, and into his work as a social media entrepreneur. -parent of alumnus He has plans to build a holographic computer. He also wants to play jazz piano at Carnegie Hall, find a cure for Alzheimer’s, and restore coral reefs in the Caribbean. Your child has big dreams. That’s why Langley’s expert teachers work closely with all our students to hone current talents and uncover new capabilities and passions – while posing challenges to spur ever-greater levels of accomplishment. By creating a deeply supportive, invigorating learning environment, our entire community encourages children to take sensible yet meaningful risks, empowering them to grow from both success and failure.

With insightful, expert teachers dedicated to making students’ dreams a reality, your child discovers and pursues individual academic goals sooner.

And by incorporating state-of-the-art learning tools into every subject – from challenging geometry apps in Primary School to our Middle School’s discovery-focused labs – we ensure all of our students know how to employ technology responsibly, nimbly, and effectively. At Langley, children come to see themselves not only as learners, but as scientists, mathematicians, artists, historians, inventors, and athletes. Through comprehensive, intensive exposure to a wide range of disciplines, they graduate with a robust foundation for the next leg of their intellectual journey.

Langley helps students develop not just a list of skills, but a way of living based on mutual respect and intellectual sophistication. -administrator

Inclusive Building a supportive, diverse, engaged community Trust is the bedrock of this school. The partnership among parents, teachers, administrators, and students is truly unique to this community – and what we accomplish together is remarkable. -administrator Whether she grows up to become a biotech researcher, a Supreme Court justice, or an independent film director, you know your child’s future involves working well with others, both next door and on the other side of the world. Since Langley’s 1942 founding by a forward-looking group of parents, we’ve fostered an uncommonly inclusive, collaborative school ethos. We’ve seen generations of children thrive through a carefully tended partnership among parents, teachers, and children themselves.

We strongly encourage you to participate deeply in your child’s education, continually sharing the hows and whys of the Langley program with you as we draw upon your indispensable insights. Experiencing our exciting, engaged, multicultural environment and curriculum throughout these crucial formative years, your child graduates fully prepared for a diverse, global, and relationshipdependent world. Students not only know how to work with different types of people – they actively seek to deeply understand others, collaborate effectively, and model empathy and respect. These skills help ensure students’ success long after their time at Langley.

Our inclusive community builds respectful and authentic relationships that affirm our values, as we work together for every child’s success and well-being.

Joyful Fostering uncommonly optimistic, grounded, energetic young people Every day, the children bounce out of the car and bound into the classroom. They don’t want to go on vacation because they’ll miss school. -parent His laugh stands out in a crowd. He makes a 10-foot-long dragon costume for Halloween. His monologue in the play earns a rousing ovation. At Langley, the only thing better than being a kid is being yourself. Here, children receive unflagging encouragement to discover and enjoy who they are – and who their classmates are, too. Our exuberant assemblies strengthen and energize our entire community. Our no-cut athletics program inspires intentional teamwork, invigorating competition, and lifelong healthy habits. Our visual and performing arts programs build curiosity and creativity from day one.

When children’s learning is more joyful, they think more creatively, build friendships across grade levels, and discover the unexpected more often.

Our service learning programs nurture compassion and spur innovation. And our Big Buddy/Little Buddy program forges powerful bonds across grade levels. Langley encourages students’ identities to grow and evolve in all directions. A star athlete might take the lead in the school play; a computer enthusiast can cultivate a newfound love of painting. In this atmosphere of enthusiastic encouragement and sensible risk-taking, students’ confidence, self-awareness, compassion, and judgment grow by joyful leaps and bounds.

Compassionate Shaping morally driven citizens of the world Our students always notice when someone needs something, and they always offer to help. We all constantly strive to show kindness in large and small ways. -faculty member She rushes to put her arm around a friend who’s hurting. She worries about global warming. She wants to start a neighborhood non-profit to end hunger. Langley celebrates your child’s natural compassion, and our whole community joyfully fosters it, by modeling and sharing kindness and respect every day. In the classroom, in the cafeteria, on the playing field, and in the wider world, we constantly look for opportunities to help others.

Compassionate learning shapes vital citizenship as your child proactively, kindly, and consistently shares the core values we all cherish.

As students open doors for friends and visitors, express gratitude through service learning, intensively collaborate on group projects, and gracefully embrace differences in an ever-growing community, they nurture a deep, abiding, and empowering empathy. As we help children cultivate and direct compassion, they form a steadfast moral compass that guides them and others throughout their lives.

Intentional Devoting extraordinary developmental expertise to the foundational years Langley is a complete experience. The learning goes far beyond tests or report cards – it’s intellectual, social, emotional, and moral. This is a truly valuable education. -faculty member You know that your child’s earliest experiences profoundly shape the adult he becomes – and that he, more than anyone else, must shape that process. Our preschool through eighth grade model intentionally equips children with the intellectual prowess, self-confidence, and self-awareness to make the most of their education. Children begin public speaking in preschool and present research to the class in kindergarten. By third grade, children are leading book club discussions, and by fifth, they’re leading assemblies. In seventh grade, students research and argue a position on energy policy before a mock Congressional panel.

Intentionally culminating in eighth grade, Langley empowers your child to select and apply to best-fit high schools – which is great practice for college applications.

The whole school looks up to our eighth-graders, and they shoulder the responsibility eagerly, fully prepared to lead the school in the ways this high-profile position requires. In students’ last year with us, we draw on the leadership experience, academic achievement, and personal wisdom they’ve cultivated to help them discern and apply to their best-fit high schools. Occurring at a crucial moment in young people’s development, this period of intense reflection spurs students to understand and articulate who they are now – and intend to become.

At Langley, everything builds toward eighth grade. When it came time to apply to high school, I had learned to set my own goals, hold myself to standards, and select the school that was right for me. I still draw on that confidence and awareness as a student at Yale. -alumnus

Here’s what it means to live Langley with us.

Intentionally creating

a campus especially for preschool through eighth-graders.

Our thoughtfully constructed 10-acre campus inspires nearly 500 Langley students to learn in state-of-the-art facilities, including discoveryfocused science labs with dedicated prep spaces, a tech innovation lab with 3-D printer, a rooftop classroom, an expansive turf field, and a 20,000-volume library.

Carefully tending

a supportive, cooperative, engaged school community.

When your child attends Langley, you immediately have the opportunity to join nearly a dozen parent committees, at whatever level of involvement you choose. What better way to make lifelong friends than working together toward our common purpose?

Intelligently investing

in our teachers’ professional development.

At Langley, 83% of our lead teachers have advanced degrees. We invest deeply in professional development to ensure our faculty are experts in their fields. And with a 7:1 student-teacher ratio, our students learn and grow from the one-on-one attention they receive every day.

Proactively fostering compassionate citizenship.

In recent years, Langley students have managed on-campus recycling, supported our neighbors at the American Legion, worked with disabled children, and taken a Middle School capstone service trip â&#x20AC;&#x201C; just some of the ways we live our values in the community and the world.

Exuberantly encouraging

self-awareness through self-expression.

At Langley, music instruction begins in preschool, formal studio art and STEAM classes in kindergarten, and drama classes in fourth grade. By Middle School, Langley students are seasoned artists and performers, choosing their favorite methods of self-expression â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and frequently excelling in several.

Consciously forming lifelong healthy habits.

Beginning in preschool, your child enjoys challenging and fun physical education classes. Langley offers students in grades 5-8 the chance to compete interscholastically in soccer, cross country, volleyball, basketball, lacrosse, softball, tennis, and track and field.

Thoroughly preparing

your Langley graduate to thrive in high school. Our graduates attend a diverse group of high schools each year, ranging from independent day and boarding schools to public, parochial, and magnet schools. Throughout the high school placement process, Langley partners with our eighth-graders to find the school that is the best fit for each individual student. This transformative process fosters personal growth, confidence, and maturity.

Can your child’s school not only teach values, but live them? Can your child’s school fully prepare young people for high school and the world beyond? Can your child’s school be a nourishing, life-changing learning experience?

Your child’s school can be attentive, balanced, ambitious, inclusive, joyful, compassionate, intentional. Your child’s school can be Langley.

We invite your family to live Langley with us – where vital academics meet a deep respect for childhood.

The Langley School is comprised of students, teachers, parents, and staff who believe that a diverse school community promotes learning and growth, preparing students for responsible and compassionate citizenship in the global community. We administer all programs and policies without discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, or any other category to the extent protected by applicable laws.

Submit financial aid application (optional)

www.langleyschool.org

Submit financial aid application (optional)