Elementary at WHPS
A Different Kind of Elementary Education
Every child brings a different mix of strengths, interests, and possibilities to school. Our program is designed around that reality.
Our teachers have the time and expertise to know children well: what interests them, where they struggle, what makes them laugh, and what they’re ready to learn next. They use that understanding to challenge and support each child thoughtfully.
But reaching a child’s potential involves more than academics. Children need opportunities to explore new interests, find their voice, create, question, build, perform, and play.
The education is ambitious. The community is joyful and down-to-earth. And children have extraordinary room to grow.
From Our Elementary Principal
What I’ve Come to Value Most
After more than 20 years at WHPS, I've had the unusual opportunity to experience this school from many perspectives: as a teacher, as a school leader, alongside generations of children and families, and as a parent myself.
What I value most is the relationships that develop here. I see teachers celebrating small breakthroughs, recognizing when a child needs encouragement, and finding ways to bring out strengths that children may not yet recognize in themselves. Over time, that kind of understanding builds something special between children, teachers, and families.
As our school has grown over the decades, we've been intentional about our class sizes, team-teaching model, curriculum, teacher training, and how we organize the school day. These decisions reflect what we've learned about how children thrive, and they give our teachers the time, expertise, and flexibility to put that understanding into practice.
There are many excellent schools in Los Angeles. What I think is harder to find is this combination: a deeply thoughtful academic program with the warmth and familiarity of a small, down-to-earth community.
We've put a great deal of care into building the learning environment and community we have today. It's a school I feel both proud and humbled to lead, and the kind of childhood I wanted for my own child.
I'd love to welcome you to campus and let you experience it for yourself.
Our Approach
Because Children Don’t Learn in Lockstep
Individualized learning takes more than good intentions or small classes. It requires a school designed to understand what each child needs and respond thoughtfully.
Our approach draws on developmental learning progressions, research-informed maps showing how skills develop from early childhood through 12th-grade expectations, including the steps in between. These learning maps help teachers see what each child has mastered and what comes next.
Teachers regularly examine children's work together. Tests and quizzes tell part of the story, alongside writing samples, classroom conversations, everyday assignments, and one-on-one time with teachers. Together, these reveal each child's strengths, interests, and where more support or challenge may be needed.
A child might be strengthening foundations in one area, working at grade level in another, and ready for advanced work somewhere else. Grade level is an important benchmark, not a ceiling.
Our low student-teacher ratios, team-teaching model, and flexible individual and small-group instruction make this possible. Teaching and learning are deeply personal. Teachers have the time to draw on children's interests, notice when something clicks, and recognize when they're ready for more. They also have the expertise and resources to act on what they learn.
Children are partners in the process. They learn to recognize their strengths, understand what they're working toward and what mastery looks like, and take pride in their progress. Clear goals, thoughtful feedback, and meaningful choices build confidence and ownership of learning.
At WHPS, rigor comes from the right work, not simply more work.
Explore How Learning Progressions Work →Ambitious learning and a joyful childhood belong together.
Core Curriculum
A Strong Foundation With Room to Go Further
Take a closer look at the core areas of our curriculum, with examples of how children learn and what teaching looks like in our classrooms.
Reading & Writing
We use a teaching approach called Literacy Workshop, combining direct instruction in essential reading and writing skills with opportunities to use those skills in real books and children's own writing.
Think workshop, not worksheets. Children read books by real authors, explore topics that interest them, and write for meaningful purposes. Teachers carefully choose books and plan instruction around what each child needs to learn next, while offering choices that keep children curious, motivated, and engaged.
Reading and writing reinforce each other. When children study a genre, they read examples by accomplished authors and discover techniques they can try themselves. They might notice how an author builds suspense, uses dialogue, or organizes nonfiction with headings and glossaries. Teachers model these strategies, help children collect examples they find interesting, and guide them as they experiment in their own writing.
Workshops are active and collaborative. Children read, write, revise, discuss books, share ideas, and sometimes give one another feedback. They have a genuine role in shaping their work, which makes this one of the most enjoyable parts of the day for many children.
Foundational skills are taught explicitly and systematically, including phonics, decoding, fluency, spelling patterns, and word study. Over time, children also develop deeper comprehension, vocabulary, literary analysis, writing craft, and communication.
One-on-one conferences with teachers and flexible small groups focus on what each child is ready to learn next, whether that's strengthening a foundational skill or tackling work well beyond grade-level expectations.
Through WHPS Publishing Celebrations, children share finished writing with classmates, teachers, and families, building pride and a sense of themselves as authors.
Our goal is for children to become confident, thoughtful readers and writers who can use what they've learned independently, in new books, new writing, and new situations.
See an example of individualized writing instruction below.
INSIDE A WHPS CLASSROOMWhat Does Individualized Learning Actually Look Like?Follow a writing unit from an initial writing sample through publication, and see how two teachers use careful planning, explicit instruction, and ongoing assessment to support each child’s growth.Explore a WHPS Writing Lesson
The learning begins before the first lesson
Before a new writing unit begins, children complete a short, independent writing sample in response to a prompt, known as an on-demand assessment. Their teachers study the samples closely. What can each child already do? Which skills are developing? What might be the next step?
Teachers use WHPS Learning Progressions to identify the writing skills each child has demonstrated and what they are ready to develop next. They plan clear learning goals, whole-class instruction, flexible small groups, and individual conferences around that evidence, including greater complexity for children ready for more advanced work. The plan is a starting point, continually refined as children write, receive feedback, and demonstrate new understanding.
A familiar book, a new discovery
Imagine visiting during a lesson about dialogue. Children gather around a familiar, much-loved book. One teacher has selected a passage where a conversation reveals something important about the characters.
“Writers, today we’re going to explore how authors use dialogue to bring stories to life. Sometimes what a character says, or doesn’t say, shows us how they feel without the author telling us directly. Let’s see what we notice.”
The teacher reads aloud with the passage projected for everyone to see, then asks: “What do you notice?” Children turn and talk with partners before sharing ideas. One notices that a character seems angry even though the author never uses the word angry. Another sees how a conversation builds suspense. Someone spots that a new paragraph begins when a different character speaks.
Together, they create an anchor chart, a visible record of their discoveries. In one column, they name the conventions that help readers follow dialogue: quotation marks, capitalization, commas, end punctuation, and paragraph breaks. In the other, they name the author’s craft: how dialogue reveals feelings, develops character, builds tension, or moves the story along. Children see that the mechanics and meaning of writing work together.
Two teachers, listening and responding
While partners talk, both teachers listen carefully. Who can explain how the dialogue changes the story? Who recognizes the punctuation patterns? Who is ready to apply the idea, and who might benefit from a little more guidance? These everyday observations are a form of assessment, helping teachers decide what happens next.
Children return to their own stories and consult the anchor chart. They consider where dialogue might make their writing more effective. One child might be practicing quotation marks; another might be revising a conversation to show a character’s feelings; a third might be using dialogue to create suspense.
Everyone shared the same lesson, but the next step is personal. While one teacher meets individually with writers, the other may work with a small group on a particular skill. These groups change as children’s needs change, guided by our Learning Progressions. And the teaching goes beyond where to put quotation marks. Children also explore how authors use dialogue to bring characters to life, reveal feelings, and tell a more compelling story.
Learning from one another
Partway through writing time, a teacher might pause for a brief mid-workshop teaching point. A student who has tried the new strategy may volunteer to share a revised passage under the document camera. The student explains the choice, and classmates notice what works, offer specific encouragement, and ask thoughtful, constructive questions.
These conversations do not happen by accident. From an early age, WHPS children practice responding to one another’s work with curiosity, kindness, and respect. They learn that useful feedback goes beyond praise: it can mean noticing something specific, asking a question that deepens thinking, or respectfully challenging an idea in a way that helps someone improve it. Over time, they become increasingly comfortable giving and receiving feedback.
As the workshop closes, the teachers connect the day’s discovery to future writing: “Writers, today we saw how dialogue can help a reader understand a character or feel the tension in a moment. Every time you write, you can ask whether dialogue might help tell your story.”
The anchor chart may stay on the wall for weeks. Children may record the strategy in their writers’ notebooks. Teachers revisit the idea and build on it throughout the unit. Learning a skill is rarely a one-day event.
From drafts to a real audience
Across the unit, children may develop several stories, try new techniques, and revise their work. Eventually, each chooses a piece to take through editing and publication. At a WHPS Publishing Celebration, young authors share their finished work with an audience of classmates, teachers, families, or friends. The purpose behind the lessons becomes tangible: they have something of their own to say, and readers who want to hear it.
How do we know the learning lasts?
Celebrating published work is important, but teachers also want to know what children can do independently. After the unit, children complete another short writing sample without the scaffolding of the workshop. Teachers compare this evidence with the initial samples to see which skills have become part of each child’s writing repertoire and which may need reinforcement.
If a skill is not yet secure, teachers revisit it through future conferences, small groups, or lessons. When a child demonstrates mastery, the Learning Progressions help identify the next meaningful challenge. The goal is transfer: children independently applying what they’ve learned to new writing, new contexts, and increasingly sophisticated work.
One small glimpse of an ordinary day
This is an illustrative glimpse of how a WHPS writing unit might unfold, not a fixed sequence every class follows. Behind a lively discussion about a beloved book is careful planning, close observation, explicit teaching, meaningful feedback, and continual adjustment to individual needs.
Children experience the joy of making something their own while becoming more capable, thoughtful, and independent writers. That is what ambitious, individualized learning can look like in practice.
Mathematics
Our mathematics program uses Singapore Math to help children make sense of numbers, think critically, and develop strategies they can apply to problems they haven't seen before.
That thinking begins early. Even in Kindergarten, children explore the foundations of algebra through small, manageable numbers and visual relationships, long before they encounter formal algebraic equations. They learn to understand what a problem means before relying on abstract procedures.
Children start with hands-on materials, move to pictures and diagrams, and gradually work with more abstract mathematics. A simple visual model can show how quantities relate. It helps children explain their reasoning and gives teachers a clearer view of what they understand, not just whether they found the right answer.
We value how these strategies carry over to unfamiliar problems. Teachers continually look at what each child understands and is ready to learn next. A mathematically advanced student who is still mastering a particular skill might work with more complex numbers or problems that deepen their understanding. A child who has mastered a concept may move on to new material, sometimes even at the next grade level. Both are natural parts of how we individualize mathematics at WHPS. The goal is lasting understanding and the confidence to reason through something new.
A Fourth-Grade Singapore Math Example
The problem: Two bags of rice weigh 127 kilograms altogether. One bag weighs 15 kilograms more than the other. How much does each bag weigh?
Students use a bar model to represent the two quantities and see how they relate.
The model gives children a way to see the relationships between quantities and work logically toward a solution.
Gifted & Advanced Learners
WHPS is not exclusively a school for gifted students, but we attract many families whose children have gifted or advanced learning profiles and who are looking for an education with greater academic latitude.
We recognize that giftedness and high academic achievement are not the same thing. Some children demonstrate advanced abilities across subjects, while others show exceptional strengths in particular areas, intense curiosity, unusual ways of thinking, or interests that extend well beyond typical grade-level expectations. Their learning needs can be just as individual as their strengths.
Our approach is designed to respond to that complexity. Learning progressions help teachers identify what children already understand and where they're ready to go next. Flexible learning groups, individualized instruction, and opportunities for deeper exploration allow children to encounter increasingly sophisticated work without being confined to the pace of a single grade-level curriculum.
Many parents of gifted learners tell us they particularly value this combination: their child can experience meaningful academic challenge while remaining part of a classroom community with children their own age, representing a wide range of strengths, interests, and learning profiles. There is room to develop exceptional abilities while also learning from, collaborating with, and building friendships across differences.
The goal isn't simply to move children ahead. It's to give them the depth, challenge, and freedom to develop their abilities fully, within a warm and inclusive community.
Explore Our Approach to Gifted Education →Science
Science is deeply embedded in the WHPS curriculum. As a STEM school, we introduce children to scientific thinking early and build their knowledge and skills year after year through investigations, experiments, engineering challenges, and direct experience with the natural world.
Physical and Earth Science take place in classrooms and throughout our campus. Younger children investigate trees, weather, materials, motion, sound, and light. As they progress, they explore forces and magnetism, energy, geology, the solar system, chemistry, and climate. Children learn to ask questions, design experiments, collect and interpret data, and use evidence to explain what they discover.
Engineering and Technology grow alongside these investigations. Beginning in first grade, children tackle collaborative engineering challenges. In second grade, they enter our Maker program, where they design, build, test, and improve their creations. By fourth grade, robotics adds new opportunities to apply coding, engineering, and problem-solving skills.
Life Science comes alive in our Science & Nature Center, where more than 80 animals provide opportunities for hands-on learning with our two full-time Animal & Nature Studies specialists. Studies progress from animal care, habitats, and behavior to ecology, genetics, adaptation, natural selection, and evolution.
Across these experiences, children develop an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the world and the ability to investigate questions for themselves.
Social Studies & Humanities
History and the humanities invite children to investigate people, cultures, ideas, and the forces that shape our world.
Children explore history and current events from multiple perspectives, examining evidence and asking whose voices are represented, whose may be missing, and why accounts of the same event can differ.
As children grow, we ask increasingly complex questions. Why do societies change? What leads people to challenge the status quo or push for reform and revolution? How do geography, culture, power, and ideas shape what happens next? And what can the past help us understand about the world today?
In Upper Elementary, larger projects bring that inquiry together. In our Finding Your Roots project, students investigate immigration and American history while researching their own family stories, interviewing relatives, examining historical sources, and connecting individual experiences to larger patterns of migration, culture, identity, and historical events.
Research, literature, primary sources, discussion, and presentations give children practice investigating history and supporting their interpretations.
Our goal is not to tell children what to think about the world. It is to give them the knowledge, curiosity, and critical-thinking skills to think deeply for themselves.
Explore Finding Your Roots →Social-Emotional & Personal Development
Social-emotional and personal development are essential foundations for academic learning, often more than people realize. Learning to navigate conflict, make things right after a poor choice, organize belongings, and work with increasing focus helps children become more independent, confident, and ready to take on new challenges.
At WHPS, we teach these skills intentionally. Through Morning Meeting and everyday classroom experiences, children learn, practice, and strengthen skills that support their learning and relationships.
Just as we use Learning Progressions to guide academic growth, we use developmental progressions to help children, teachers, and families understand how these personal and social skills develop over time.
Beginning in TK, children learn to reflect on their strengths, challenges, and progress with increasing independence and accuracy. At our student-led conferences each October and February, children, families, and teachers sit down together to discuss both academic and personal development. Rather than simply receiving a report card, families hear directly from their children, with teachers helping to guide and enrich the conversation. Together, they celebrate progress and identify clear next-step goals that everyone can help support.
Learn more about how these skills develop over time →Lower & Upper Elementary
The WHPS experience evolves as children grow. For decades, we have followed our graduates into middle school and worked with receiving schools to understand what students need to thrive there. We use that knowledge to thoughtfully plan backward from 5th Grade.
In Lower Elementary, TK–1st Grade, we focus on strong academic foundations while helping children develop independence, curiosity, confidence, and a love of learning.
Beginning in 2nd Grade, we gradually change the structure. Children begin working with different teachers, with more opportunities for learning across our 2nd/3rd and 4th/5th Grade communities. As they grow, children may spend more of their academic time in flexible, multi-age groups with others working toward similar goals, allowing readiness and learning needs to matter more than grade level alone.
By 4th and 5th Grade, we intentionally introduce more of the rhythms children will encounter in middle school. Students rotate among teachers and subjects, manage increasingly complex projects and responsibilities, and take greater ownership of their learning.
The transition is gradual. Along the way, children strengthen their independence, organization, self-advocacy, collaboration, and communication. By the time middle school arrives, many of its rhythms, responsibilities, and expectations already feel familiar.
Enrichment Is Built In
More to Explore, More Ways to Grow
Take a closer look at our six specialist-taught subjects, all part of the regular school day beginning in Transitional Kindergarten.
Spanish
Children learn Spanish through conversation, stories, songs, and activities that build vocabulary, listening comprehension, and confidence using the language.
They also explore Spanish-speaking countries through their cultures, customs, traditions, and foods, connecting the language to the people and places where it is spoken.
Music
In TK and first grade, children begin with choral music, developing their voices and learning beat, rhythm, pitch, and listening skills through singing and making music together.
In grades 2–5, instrumental music is part of the regular curriculum. Students learn recorders, tone chimes, and ukuleles, developing their ability to read music and play with others. Their performances are eagerly anticipated opportunities to share what they have learned.
Visual & Performing Arts
In our Art Studio, children explore line, shape, color, texture, and composition by studying artists and works of art from different periods and cultures. They experiment with materials, tools, and techniques, using what they discover to create original work of their own.
Performing arts culminate in major productions throughout the year. Our fully choreographed Winter Show takes place at the Kavli Performing Arts Center in Thousand Oaks. The Spring Show, presented in our on-campus Performance Pavilion, places greater emphasis on student creativity and expression.
Physical Education
Children develop movement skills, coordination, teamwork, and sportsmanship through a wide range of games, sports, and physical challenges. Our longtime PE coach, part of WHPS for more than 20 years, emphasizes participation, improvement, and enjoyment for every child.
For students who want to take their interests further, competitive after-school teams begin in third grade.
Technology & Maker
In TK and first grade, children attend Technology classes with a specialist in our Technology Lab, building foundational digital skills and learning how technology works.
Beginning in second grade, students transition into weekly Maker classes in our dedicated Maker Studio. They code and program robots, build circuits, and experiment with electronic components and physical materials. Through engineering challenges, they imagine, design, build, test, troubleshoot, and refine their creations.
Animal & Nature Studies
Our Science & Nature Center is a teaching zoo and living laboratory with more than 80 animals and two full-time specialists. Children learn through direct observation, investigation, and hands-on experiences with living things.
Younger students explore animal care, behavior, anatomy, habitats, and life cycles. In later grades, investigations extend to genetics, heredity, adaptation, ecosystems, natural selection, and evolution, connecting what children observe in individual animals to larger biological ideas.
Explore Our Science & Nature Center →
Beyond the Classroom
Learning Beyond the Classroom
Learning Across Campus
Our five-acre campus gives children room to learn, move, play, and explore outdoors throughout the school day.
Our Library & Story Room gives children a welcoming home for stories, small-group learning, and regular “book shopping” from an extensive leveled collection, helping them choose books they can read successfully and genuinely want to read.
Adventures Beyond Campus
We extend learning beyond campus, too. Field trips sometimes introduce a new topic, giving children something real to observe and wonder about before deeper study begins. Others extend learning already underway.
By 4th and 5th Grade, overnight experiences offer new opportunities for independence, friendship, and adventure. Children take healthy risks, build confidence, and make memories that stay with them long after elementary school.
Our Graduate Profile
More Than Academic Potential
Academic potential is only part of a child’s potential. Over the years, we began to notice certain qualities emerging again and again in WHPS graduates: the ability to understand themselves, pursue an idea, use their voice, advocate for themselves and others, work through challenges, and take ownership of what comes next.
Those observations became our Graduate Profile and now help guide the experience we create for children throughout their years at WHPS.
Explore Our Graduate Profile →Visit WHPS
Come See WHPS in Action
Come meet our teachers and students, see learning in action, and experience the thoughtful academics and down-to-earth community that make WHPS special.