Each fifth-grader takes a different “Quarter Rotation” in each of the four quarters. Those classes are: Performing Arts, Visual Art, Technology, and Spanish. Students at St. Andrew’s begin both Mandarin and Spanish in PK3. In middle school, students continue both languages, with the fifth-grade students taking Spanish. These courses are taught through hands-on activities involving much student interaction, including class discussions, group work, and problem solving, and they expose students to cultural traditions and conversational vocabulary.
In addition to peforming arts electives, sixth-grade students also have quarter rotations, with four different classes meeting for nine weeks over the course of the year. These quarter-length classes include: technology/coding, Mandarin and Spanish, and visual arts. For the language component in the sixth grade, students take both Mandarin and Spanish. Language courses are interactive and project based, and they are meant to foster broad, conversational skills and cultural awareness. Exposure to both of these languages - which start at St. Andrew’s in PK3 - is a nice transition into the moment when students select a language to focus on explicitly in seventh grade.
