Lower School

LOWER SCHOOL · GRADES 1–5

In Bancroft’s Lower School, students ask questions, try ideas, share what they notice, and build the skills to take the next step.

Questions grow into research.

At Bancroft School, we bring values to life through the real work students do across the Lower School. In Kindergarten students ask what makes a neighborhood special, how people lived long ago, where light comes from, what makes sound, and how ocean animals live.

THEN IT GROWS: In Grade 1, students become Map Explorers and Australia researchers. By Grade 4, they take on changemaker research, American Revolution book clubs, Wax Museum speech presentations, and Poetry Cafe.

Students learn what community means.

Grade 1 students explore emotions, empathy, friendship, kindness, cooperation, and how their words and actions affect others.

THEN IT GROWS: By Grade 4, they study upstanders and changemakers, asking how individual actions impact a community. By Grade 5, students take on more visible leadership through the Grade 5 play, service projects, and Earth Day activities.

Learning moves across subjects.

In Grade 3, students begin connecting design, technology, art, and storytelling through TinkerCAD, Scratch, classroom-inspired art, and scripted scenes.

THEN IT GROWS: By Grade 5, those connections become more complex. Students create interactive Scratch projects, design in TinkerCAD, and program dancing robots with Python and Microbit, bringing art, design, coding, and performance together in one project.