Elementary School | Grade 1-5

In Elementary school, our students use the building blocks from preschool to learn how to learn, preparing them intellectually and socially for the educational and life journey ahead.

Our approach to bilingual instruction opens up exciting opportunities in developing critical thinking skills and moving our students from concrete observations to abstract reasoning, a fundamental element of the French Curriculum.

Nadine Kaston, Director of Elementary

A French education works like a spiral. From a child's earliest years, their education has an intentional scaffolding of skills, competencies and knowledge that build upon one another year after year. The Lycée starts with these time-tested learning strategies in a bilingual setting that integrates all that families have come to expect from top New York City elementary schools.

Beginning in first grade, classroom instruction takes place 80% in French and 20% in English, with students engaging in French, history, science and math with their French homeroom teacher, who is paired with an native English-speaking teacher for English and special projects. Unique among bilingual schools, French language instruction is concentrated to ensure our students achieve true written fluency, which can be challenging in an English-speaking environment that surrounds them in New York City.

Language development is at the core of our primary school. In order to become bilingual, children need to experience the many dimensions of language (listening, speaking, reading and writing) in both languages in a motivating, reassuring environment that makes sense to them. We look at bilingualism as its own language and not merely the combination of learning both at the same time.

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Bilingual Students

Bilingual students are also learning the benefits of pluriculturalism at the youngest of ages. Surrounded by students and staff from so many cultures, they naturally expect and appreciate that people are different — in how they speak and in their cultures. This gaining of emotional intelligence and cultural competence leads to the greatest gift of all: our students make friends — and know how to make friends — with children from around the world.
Emotional Intelligence

At the Lycée, this learned empathy is combined with teaching students how to recognize, label, and manage their emotional state in order to unlock their intellectual and critical-thinking potential. We are proud to be pioneers in the field of Social and Emotional Learning in partnership with Yale University’s Center for Emotional Intelligence.
Cursive Writing

While we know implementing smart education innovations is important, we don’t lose sight of the true and the tested. For instance, we still focus on cursive writing instruction as a vital learning tool. The actual motion of writing is connected to the brain’s ability to process and learn information.
Arts Instruction

The arts hold pride-of-place centrality at the Lycee. Our primary students enjoy the benefits of a vigorous arts instruction program with a cross-curriculum approach. Sculpting, drawing, painting, storytelling, and music-making fill our hallways and classrooms. And our students learn that right-angles apply to both geometry and Kandinsky…