In the Upper School we extend experiential exploration to an intellectually rich program utilizing adolescents' need for social collaboration, choice and voice, hands-on engagement and inquiry into the world around them. Upper School classrooms are characterized by joyful debate and dialogue, mutual trust and respect between teachers and students, and active engagement in a middle school program that celebrates adolescence.

As adolescents work to find their place in the world, they benefit from a community where they are known and supported.

A Typical Day

A visitor to Any Classroom in the Upper School might see...

Students collaborating over analysis of a historical document, deliberating possible methods for solving an equation, working closely with a teacher one-on-one, reading in small groups, or hanging out in the net below the treehouse with new and old friends. Daily academic work includes a program that integrates the academic subjects of Social Studies, English, Math, and Science as well as Art, Ceramics, Physical Education and Choice elective courses taught through interdisciplinary inquiry and exploration.

  • There is a sweet spot with homework - not so much that students are overwhelmed but enough that adolescents are learning the skills needed for life beyond Peninsula. The homework load is scaffolded across a student’s journey through the Upper School and increases from 2-3 tasks per week in 5th grade to 1 hour or more every night in 8th. Homework is limited to high quality practice, such as math problem sets, studying for assessments, writing, or work on school projects, and is assigned to help students build executive functioning and independent problem solving skills. These executive functioning skills and habits of mind are a critical part of preparing students for success in High School and beyond.

  • The Choice Program, offered 4 times a year, is a unique Upper School Experience that widens students’ exposure to different disciplines and skills with teachers from around the school. These are short, 8-day and 12-day programs, during which children of mixed ages spend about forty-five minutes a day focusing on a special topic selected from a menu of options designed by staff. Choice topics are wide ranging and may focus on history, writing, sciences, sports, handcrafts, or any of the arts. Recent Choice classes include the World and History of Tea, Making Various Types of Dough, Film Critique, Songwriting, Backpacking, and Learning Basic Computer Assisted Design.

  • A foundational component of community building in the Upper School is our camping program. All Upper School students go camping twice per year, once in the fall and again in the spring. The fall trip includes the whole Upper School. In the spring, students camp with their grade level class. The trips are organized by the students with teacher support. Students plan, shop for and cook all the meals, organize activities during the trip, negotiate with friends around how to share a tent. Camping provides each group time to build and strengthen relationships with each other and with their teachers. As Peninsula students advance in age and grade, their camping trips progressively grow longer and involve more student- led planning, thoughtfulness, and responsibility.

  • The Upper School’s deep foundational work in Social and Environmental Justice helps students develop a critical understanding of social issues and fosters empathy and awareness, for oneself and others and for our planet. It enables students to recognize and challenge stereotypes, biases, and injustices. Questions of equity and justice are integrated directly into the curriculum content through the questions we ask, the texts we choose, and the actions we take in our community. This work necessarily goes beyond the classroom, including students' lived experiences outside of school and in planned excursions off campus. Through a deeper understanding of global and local issues and injustice, students become transformative changemakers in their communities.

  • In 5th and 6th grade students conference with teachers in advance of the family/teacher conferences to reflect on their experiences. In 7th grade, students join the spring teacher conference to engage more directly with their families and teachers about their strengths and growth edges in preparation for 8th grade and High School enrollment. By 8th grade, students lead conferences and are able to reflect on their social, emotional, and intellectual progress as students and soon to be Peninsula Alumni.

  • Each year students might participate in after school activities such as student organized dances and team sports. Every year looks a little bit different depending on the desires of the class. In 8th grade in particular, students might devote class time to planning a school dance or fundraiser, and another year the class might focus more on camping planning, or decide they would like to plan an additional field trip. The Upper School encourages students to organize based on their interests, facilitating involvement in various sports programs when possible, and helping students find ways to practice community organizing around subjects that interest them most. All classes in the Upper School work on projects together that build in student responsibility as the years go on, growing students' capabilities to independently organize and consider how they would like to be active contributors to the Upper School, and broader school community.

8:45 Arrival
Upon arrival students connect with friends and teachers and settle in for the day.

9:00 School Begins
At the start of the school day in each classroom, there is a daily schedule on the board. After a morning greeting and discussion of the day ahead, class begins.

9:05 Project Work
Interdisciplinary and thematic work encourages students to make connections between projects and across subjects. Today, students in 5th grade are building a 3-dimensional paper maché map alongside a unit on California geography. In 6th grade, students are exploring cuneiform writing during a history unit on ancient civilizations hands-on in ceramics by forming clay tablets and trying their hand at the cuneiform alphabet. In 7th grade, students are working with primary sources from the Harlem Renaissance as part of an American History unit on race. As students are considering this question, they will also build towards an end of unit, arts integrated project. In 8th grade, students are going as a class to PE to participate in a game of Soccer on the Big Field to build collaborative skills and teamwork.

10:10 Mathematics
Students work on math tasks that encourage mathematical questioning, problem-solving and reasoning. Students work in pairs or small groups which requires collaborative problem solving and mathematical discourse. Support is offered when students need extra practice and extensions are given for those who want it. As students advance towards Algebra and High School mathematics, they begin to use online tools and learning management systems to facilitate familiarity with those tools. Assessments and grading practices also become more traditional in preparation for high school.

11:15 Projects, Grade level work, and Science
After mathematics, students in each grade engage in various projects. By 7th and 8th grade, the program consists of deeper, sustained units of instruction that meet everyday. On this particular day, seventh graders have Science class where they are learning about human body systems. As a final project, they draw full-size human bodies and present them to the lower school through a gallery walk. In the Spring of 8th grade, students will design, create and install an art exhibit memorializing Holocaust victims and honoring individual children during their time in the Terezin Ghetto in Czechoslovakia.

12:00 Lunch & Recess Time
We recognize that developmentally students need to move their bodies and their brains while building deeply connected relationships. To nurture this aspect of adolescent development, time is built into the day for this.

12:50 Reading, Writing, Continuing Projects
Interconnected with their inquiry in other parts of the program, students explore essential questions through reading, writing, and other projects. For example, in 6th grade, in connection with their study of ancient civilization, students read A Single Shard, a novel by Linda Sue Park, about a young boy in ancient Korea.

1:35 Studio Activities Time
In the afternoons, students are encouraged to go to one or more of the many specialist studios available each day, which include Art, Ceramics, Library, Woodshop, Weaving, PE, Science, or Music. Students can also choose to spend this time catching up on missed work, seeking support from teachers, or connecting with friends.

2:35 Work Jobs
At the end of the school day, students across the school contribute to the community by ensuring that the school is ready for the next day. This is a regular opportunity for some Upper Schoolers to interact with students from across the school by helping in Preschool classrooms by taking out the trash and recycling; Upper Schoolers make regular contact with younger students on our campus, to foster community and build relationships across ages.

2:45 End of Day Meeting
In the last part of the day, students gather with their teachers and peers to reflect on the day, plan ahead for homework and ongoing projects and reconnect as a class community before heading home.