Eight programs, one coherent K-8 curriculum.

Lower School

Kindergarten through Grade 4

A literacy-rich, play-grounded foundation where children learn to read, write, count, and care for one another with equal attention.

Our lower school is built on the conviction that the early grades are the most important grades. Mornings are devoted to small-group literacy and structured math instruction using a phonics-first, evidence-based curriculum. Afternoons are for science, art, music, and recess on a six-acre wooded campus.

Highlights

• Two lead teachers in every K-2 classroom
• Phonics-first reading curriculum, Heggerty and Fundations
• Singapore Math from Grade 1
• Daily 45-minute outdoor recess, plus PE three times a week
• Spanish or Mandarin from kindergarten

Middle School

Grades 5 through 8

A challenging, advisory-anchored middle school program that prepares students for the area's most rigorous independent and public high schools.

Middle schoolers move between specialist teachers for math, science, humanities, world language, art, music, and PE, with one advisor who knows every student well. The curriculum is rigorous but humane: students learn to write a real argument essay, conduct a primary-source history project, and finish algebra and high school biology before 9th grade.

Highlights

• High school algebra completed by Grade 8
• Advisory program, 8 students per advisor
• Project-based humanities with primary sources
• Two-week capstone in Grade 8, every student presents
• Two foreign language tracks, four-year sequence by graduation

STEM & Innovation

K through 8

Hands-on science from Day One, with a dedicated STEM teacher in every grade and a real lab from Grade 5.

Wren students do science the way scientists do it. They observe, hypothesize, build, fail, revise. Lower schoolers spend forty-five minutes a week in the maker lab. Middle schoolers run a year-long Independent Investigation in Grade 7. Graduates routinely place into Honors Biology and Honors Geometry as 9th graders.

Highlights

• Dedicated STEM teacher in every grade
• K-4 maker lab and 5-8 wet lab
• Robotics elective with FIRST LEGO League team
• Year-long Independent Investigation in Grade 7
• Coding sequence: Scratch in Grade 3, Python in Grade 7

Arts

K through 8

Visual art, theater, and a working ceramics studio, taught by practicing artists who keep their own studios off campus.

Wren treats the arts as a core academic subject, not an enrichment. Every student takes visual art twice a week through middle school. The 8th grade performs a full-length play each spring. Our visual art teacher, Eleanor Park, has work in the permanent collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

Highlights

• Visual art twice a week, K through 8
• Working ceramics studio with two kilns
• Full-length spring play in Grades 7 and 8
• Annual student exhibition at McGuffey Art Center

Music

K through 8

Orff-based general music in lower school, two choirs, and a middle school string ensemble that performs at the Paramount each spring.

Every Wren student sings in choir from kindergarten through Grade 4. Beginning in Grade 4, students choose between continuing in chorus or joining the string ensemble. The middle school choir and ensemble perform a full concert each fall and spring, including an annual evening at the Paramount Theater downtown.

Highlights

• Choir for every student, K through 4
• String ensemble from Grade 4, taught by UVA faculty
• Two annual concerts at the Paramount Theater
• Private lesson coordination on campus, optional

World Language

K through 8

Spanish or Mandarin from kindergarten, with a four-year sequence in middle school taught by native speakers.

Language acquisition is most effective when started young and sustained. Every Wren student begins either Spanish or Mandarin in kindergarten and continues through 8th grade. Middle schoolers travel each spring on a cultural immersion trip: Costa Rica for Spanish students, Taipei for Mandarin students, on alternating years.

Highlights

• Spanish or Mandarin from kindergarten
• Native-speaking faculty in every section
• Four-year middle school sequence
• Eighth grade cultural immersion trip

Outdoor & Place-Based

K through 8

A six-acre wooded campus with a streamside outdoor classroom, weekly field studies, and a multi-night camping trip every year from Grade 3 up.

Our six acres include a creek, a meadow, a small orchard, and a stand of old oaks. Lower schoolers spend a class period a week in the outdoor classroom. Middle schoolers take a four-day camping trip in the Blue Ridge in the fall and a weeklong Chesapeake Bay environmental field study in 8th grade.

Highlights

• Six-acre wooded campus with creek and meadow
• Outdoor classroom one period per week, K-4
• Fall Blue Ridge camping trip, Grades 3-8
• Grade 8 weeklong Chesapeake Bay field study

Social-Emotional Learning

K through 8

A school-wide social-emotional curriculum, two full-time school counselors, and an advisory program that knows every middle schooler well.

We treat the well-being of every child as the precondition for academic learning, not a separate program tacked on at the end. Two full-time counselors are available for every student. Lower school uses the RULER framework; middle school uses an advisory-based program adapted from the Stanley H. King Counseling Institute.

Highlights

• Two full-time school counselors on staff
• RULER framework in lower school
• Middle school advisory, 8 students per advisor
• Quarterly social-emotional progress reports