Academics

Lower School

Welcome to the Lower School at Nardin Academy!  The early years of a child’s life holds great significance for who they aspire to be. Our focus for each child is to instill a love of learning, an understanding of oneself, to develop strong morals and values, and grow in independence and self-confidence to accomplish all they can as they contribute to our global community.

Our school environment strives to provide a child the opportunity to explore, investigate, and make connections across their learning. Their educational experience should be experiential within a supportive, academically inspiring, and respectful environment that meets the needs and readiness of each individual child. There is not a “one size fits all” approach when it comes to teaching and our highly skilled and compassionate educators understand the depth of that.  

Social Emotional Learning
 
In the Lower School, we understand the important role that social emotional learning plays in a student’s daily life.  Recess and mindfulness are part of each and every day.  Individual grade levels meet daily for their morning meeting, and all members of  K-4 gather together monthly for a community morning meeting.
 
The faculty has attended workshops focusing on the Responsive Classroom approach and applies this methodology to our Lower School environment.
 
Responsive Classroom is a student-centered, social and emotional learning approach to teaching and discipline. It consists of a set of research, and evidence-based practices designed to create safe, joyful, and engaging classrooms and school communities for both students and teachers where students develop strong social and academic skills and every student can thrive. Click Here to Learn More 
 
To complement the Responsive Classroom methodology, the Lower School character education program implemented within our mindfulness classes is the Fly Five curriculum.
 
Fly Five is a social and emotional learning curriculum developed on the core belief that students need to learn a set of social and emotional competencies, namely cooperation, assertiveness, responsibility, empathy, and self-control (C.A.R.E.S.) to be academically, socially, and behaviorally successful in, out of, and beyond school.  

 
Nardin’s Lower School will provide for your child an atmosphere where learning is exciting, challenging oneself is encouraged, and feeling secure and confident in exploring one’s own interests and abilities is always welcome!

Warm regards,

Monica Padmanabha
Lower School Principal

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A private, independent, Catholic school in Buffalo, NY, with coed Montessori, Lower and Middle Schools and a college preparatory High School for young women.

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