Elementary School (2-11 Years)

Welcome to our Elementary School

ISL’s Elementary School proudly offers the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme. With a focus on inquiry and experiential learning, students are encouraged to explore the world around them and to learn by doing. Classroom spaces and learning experiences are carefully structured by our teachers, teaching assistants, and administrators, facilitating a transdisciplinary approach to learning that allows students to apply knowledge and skills from a variety of academic areas.

We are dedicated to the balanced development of all children in the Elementary School, with a belief that in addition to fostering strong academic achievement, we must also provide strong opportunities for positive social and emotional development. We strive daily to offer an active, engaging, and positive learning environment for all students in order to empower them to embrace opportunities, pursue passions, and contribute thoughtfully to the world.

Please explore our website, and if you are already here in Latvia come and see what an excellent and exciting school we have here at ISL.

We have a vibrant, fun, inquiry based program for students aged 2 upwards. Our wonderful teachers engage the students through integrated instruction and global experiences. We also utilize both local experts and the natural world including exciting field trips both inside and out of Latvia.

Our Program focuses on the whole child, in addition to the academic support of your child we also help them develop into well balanced, globally aware students who work together as a community. Our community values are:

Caring
Honesty
Respect
Open-mindedness

We develop these values in all that we do and expect all our community to model them to help guide our students.

Elizabeth Younk

Elementary School Principal

elementary.principal@isl.edu.lv

Primary Years Programme

1. Curriculum Framework

The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable, and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.

Students are actively engaged in learning about issues and themes of universal significance. They are encouraged to be active learners and to become critical thinkers by inquiring into the essential elements of the PYP:

Concepts
Skills
Knowledge
Action

The PYP curriculum framework emphasizes student voice, choice, and ownership in their learning process. The central principle of agency is embedded throughout the three interrelated parts of the curriculum: the learner, learning and teaching, and the learning community.

Students use all the subject areas to inquire into the six transdisciplinary themes of global significance over the course of each year in the PYP:

Who We Are
Where We Are In Place And Time
How We Express Ourselves
How The World Works
How We Organize Ourselves
Sharing The Planet

Assessment at ISL is an ongoing process of gathering, analyzing, and reflecting. Students and teachers work together to monitor, document, measure, and adjust learning. In the PYP students actively engage in assessment and reflection on their learning and on feedback from peers and teachers. Learning goals and success criteria are co-constructed and clearly communicated to assess both the process and product.

2. Early Years (PreKindergarten & Kindergarten)

At ISL we believe that in early childhood, play is the inquiry. When children have choice and agency in how they spend their time, they build rich theories and are intrinsically motivated to explore these through their play. Our Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten spaces promote inquiry and invite children’s innate sense of wonder and natural desire to seek answers to their questions.

Curriculum in the early years is organized by all of the PYP essential elements, and students inquire deeply into 4-6 transdisciplinary units across the year. The four central features of the early years in the PYP are:

Play as the primary vehicle for inquiry with planning for uninterrupted time for play
Building strong relationships with students and their families
Creating and maintaining responsive/interactive learning spaces for play
Offering many opportunities for symbolic exploration and expression

Elementary School (2-11 Years)

Primary Years Programme

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Elementary School

Elementary School

Elementary School

Elementary School

Elementary School

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