Make the Most of the Years That Matter Most
From the earliest preschool years through fifth grade, children change enormously. They are building academic foundations, but also discovering what interests them, what they're good at, how they respond to challenge, how they relate to others, whether their ideas matter, and what they may be capable of.
At WHPS, we believe reaching a child's fullest potential means developing all of it.
Preschool through fifth grade is one intentionally designed journey. Grounded in child development and research on how children learn and grow, each stage is intentionally designed to build on the one before it, with our Graduate Profile serving as a guiding vision for where that growth can lead. Teachers continually ask: What does this child understand now? What captures their interest? Where do they need support? Where are they ready to stretch? And what new experience might reveal something in them we haven't seen yet?
The academic goals are ambitious. So are the personal ones.
By fifth grade, our students know how to think deeply, pursue an idea, solve a problem, use their voice, advocate for themselves and others, and take ownership of what comes next. They leave knowing more about the world, more about themselves, and far more about what they're capable of.
Visit WHPS and you'll see these qualities taking shape long before fifth grade.
Learning That Grows With the Child
Children don't develop according to one timetable, and even within the same child, readiness can vary enormously from one area to another. Our curriculum is designed around that reality.
In Preschool, Learning Often Begins With Curiosity.
Teachers keenly observe children's interests and development, sometimes introducing provocations, materials, or questions designed to spark new curiosity. From there, they build immersive units of study that weave in intentional goals across language, early literacy and mathematics, science, creativity, problem-solving, and social development.
The interests may emerge from the children, but the learning is carefully designed by the teachers. Teaching children at the intersection of their highest interest and readiness can unlock extraordinary motivation, potential, and deeper learning.
In Elementary, Personalization Becomes Increasingly Precise.
Teachers use developmental learning progressions, ongoing assessment, flexible grouping, and individual goals to understand where each child is now and what they are ready to learn next.
With two fully qualified teachers in the classroom and approximately a 12:1 student-teacher ratio, classes offer a diverse peer community while remaining intimate enough for substantial individual attention.
A child can need support in one area while working well beyond grade-level expectations in another. The goal isn't to move every child faster. It's to keep every child growing.
A Wider World, From the Very Beginning
Children can't discover interests and abilities they haven't had the opportunity to encounter. At WHPS, those opportunities grow with the child, from specialist experiences introduced during Preschool to a full range of arts, language, movement, science, nature, and technology by TK, with Maker joining the regular school day beginning in second grade.
These aren't simply extras around the edges of school. They give children more ways to make connections, uncover strengths, and discover where they come alive as learners.
Science & Nature
Outdoor inquiry, animals, ecology, observation, experimentation, and increasingly sophisticated life science.
Technology & Maker
Technology and coding grow into robotics, design, building, testing, troubleshooting, and Maker beginning in second grade.
Arts & Expression
Visual art, music, performance, publishing, and frequent opportunities to create and share work with others.
Language & Movement
Spanish, physical education, movement, teamwork, communication, coordination, and growing confidence.
Some Schools Have a Science Lab. We Have a Teaching Zoo.
Our Science & Nature Center is an on-campus teaching zoo with more than 80 animals. Children don't simply learn about the living world from a page. They observe it, care for it, ask questions about it, and investigate it up close.
The science grows with them. Early experiences center on wonder, observation, care, vocabulary, and questions. Over time, students move into increasingly sophisticated study of ecology, habitats, behavior, heredity, genetics, adaptation, animal cognition, and evolution.
The animals and natural spaces aren't attractions beside the curriculum. They're part of how children learn.
A Full Experience Without Piecing It Together Yourself
Much of what families might otherwise piece together across several places is already part of life at WHPS. The regular school day is unusually rich, and before and after school, children can remain on campus for extended care, sports, classes, and other activities.
For families, it means fewer transitions. For children, it means more of the day spent with familiar people in a community they already know.
Finding Their Voice
Academic development is only part of the growth that becomes visible across these years. Children are also learning who they are, how they relate to others, and how to take increasing responsibility for themselves.
From an early age, children have a seat at the table in becoming who they are.
They make meaningful choices, set academic and personal goals, reflect on their progress, and begin to recognize their own strengths, challenges, and what helps them succeed.
As they grow, they learn to seek feedback, ask for help, advocate for themselves and others, work through disagreements, listen to different perspectives, and take greater ownership of what comes next.
Finding your voice isn't simply learning to speak confidently. It's learning to know yourself, listen to others, and understand when and how to use your own voice well.
The WHPS Graduate
Everything we build across the WHPS journey becomes increasingly visible by fifth grade. Our graduates don't simply know more. They know more about themselves and know how to use what they know. Along the way, they develop interests, opinions, strengths, values, and a growing sense of what matters to them.
Our curriculum emphasizes teaching for transfer. Children develop deep understanding, then learn to apply it beyond a lesson or test, in authentic work, unfamiliar problems, new situations, and their lives.
They Read Beneath the Surface
Read increasingly complex texts, develop their own tastes and interests as readers, consider perspectives beyond their own, draw nuanced inferences, and support interpretations with evidence.
They Write With Voice and Purpose
Write across genres with sophistication, pursue ideas and subjects that matter to them, shape writing for audience and impact, revise substantially, and develop a voice that is recognizably their own.
They Solve Complex Problems
Approach complexity with confidence, break difficult problems into manageable parts, identify patterns and connections, test assumptions, compare strategies, and apply what they know when the path forward isn't obvious.
They Speak With Confidence
Express ideas with clarity and conviction, explain and defend their thinking, listen genuinely to others, disagree respectfully, and engage thoughtfully even when perspectives differ strongly.
They Know Themselves and Advocate for Others
Recognize what matters to them and what they stand for, advocate for themselves and others, engage thoughtfully across differences, navigate conflict, and turn concern into constructive action.
They Own Their Growth
Know their strengths, challenges, interests, and emerging passions. They set meaningful goals, seek and use feedback, take pride in who they are, and understand what helps them keep growing.
A question can become a scientific investigation. An idea can become a published piece of writing. A difficult math problem can lead to several strategies and a debate about which works best. A design can be built, tested, fail, and become something better. A book can open questions about another time, culture, or point of view.
This is teaching for transfer in action.
Students don't simply learn something well enough to demonstrate it back to a teacher. They learn to use what they know in new contexts, authentic work, and increasingly, in the world beyond the classroom.
They don't just know more. They become increasingly capable of doing something meaningful with what they know.
Our greatest measure of success isn't simply how far a child has gone by fifth grade. It's how prepared they are to keep discovering just how far they can go.
What Others See in Our Students
In our most recent WASC accreditation renewal, the visiting committee recognized many of the same qualities that define the WHPS experience: the strength of our community, students' developing sense of identity, their ability to advocate for themselves and others, and their preparation for what comes next.
The committee also heard something especially meaningful directly from our students: they described WHPS as a place where they can be themselves.