Lower School
Welcome from the Director
Dear Prospective Families:
Welcome to Renbrook’s Lower School! We are a community of learners in grades one through four. As a faculty and staff, we are grateful each and every day to spend our time in the company of children who love learning, sharing their thinking, and helping one another.
Our division serves as a bridge between our students' early childhood schooling and their middle school years. We are housed in the Nelson Building on campus, which provides learning spaces and classrooms designed specifically for this age group. Our classrooms are spacious, allowing for flexible seating and learning centers. In addition, our teachers and students utilize many of Renbrook’s outdoor spaces as pop-up classrooms providing opportunities for outdoor learning, fresh air, and movement.
Grade level teachers in the Lower School work to develop positive and sincere relationships with their students and families. We believe the rapport between teacher and student and teacher and parent plays a vital role in supporting young children's growth and development.
Each morning grade-level classes begin with Morning Meeting intentionally designed to provide opportunities for our students to build community, confidence, self-regulation, and joy. As the school day progresses, students engage in their core academic subjects and various special area subjects such as library, Spanish, PE, art, STEM, and music. Daily recess for all Lower School classes is a priority allowing our students an opportunity to freely play among one another and build cooperation, self-regulation, sportsmanship, and fitness.
Community is truly at the heart of Renbrook’s Lower School program. As students work together learning new ideas and building skills, they read for pleasure and meaning, write with purpose and to entertain, debate with passion, question with curiosity, and apply new knowledge in thoughtful ways. I feel so very fortunate to be a member of the Renbrook Community and work alongside such talented teachers and amazing kids. Every day is full of adventure and wonder here in the Lower School!
Sincerely,
Julie Schlossinger, Ed.D
Julie Schlossinger is the Head of Lower School at Renbrook. She has worked as a preschool, kindergarten, grade-four teacher, and administrator for over twenty-five years. Julie earned a BA in Writing and Child Development from East Carolina University, an MSEd in Educational Leadership from Bank Street College of Education, and a doctorate in Educational Leadership at the University of Hartford. Julie believes all students can learn at a high level when provided a school setting that prioritizes positive student-teacher relationships, places equal emphasis on social-emotional development and academics, gives students choice in their learning, and where a cohesive team of relationships is built among parents, teachers, and administrators in support of each child.
