Private School for Girls in San Francisco Bay Area

Hamlin School, San Francisco:
For over 140 years, The Hamlin School has provided girls in the San Francisco Bay Area with the finest education possible. The Hamlin campus is located in the middle of Pacific Heights and stretches from Broadway to Vallejo. Parents who seek a challenging contemporary education for their daughters should consider Hamlin, which provides a sound scholastic environment for qualified students from kindergarten through eighth grade. Most of our families live in San Francisco, although we have a significant number commuting from the North Bay and some from the East and South Bay. At Hamlin, girls are taught to step forward with their ideas, questions, and opinions and to use their critical thinking skills to make the world better. We expect our girls to recognize and treasure their interdependence while celebrating their individuality and diverse backgrounds.

Lower School:
Students in the Lower School, guided by a caring and highly trained faculty, become readers, writers, mathematicians and athletes. They explore the world of science, the arts and learn about their world. We have high expectations for every student. Our understanding of child development-- and particularly how girls learn best-- creates a safe environment where students are encouraged to stretch and step out of their comfort zone. We offer and encourage many activities where success may not be guaranteed, but where students may have new insight about themselves and their talents.

Understanding that young students learn best by doing, we create learning situations where students can explore, discover and make connections to previous learning. In short, the Hamlin Lower School is a place for girls to explore their role as citizens of the world and to practice and build skills in academics, the arts, leadership, and athletics.

Middle School:
Upon entering the Hamlin Middle School, one immediately senses a common purpose. Girls and their teachers are engaged in a learning process characterized by inquiry, critical thinking, and relevance. Whether they are examining good and bad friendships among the Greek deities and applying those attributes to their own lives, taking their resting heart rate and noting its increase after aerobic exercise, or using laptops to locate current events, each student is building her competence, confidence, and learning strategies.

Language Arts:
The ultimate goal of the language arts program is to ensure that students are able to use language to address their own needs as well as the needs of their communities and the greater society. Students are given opportunities to engage in a wide array of experiences with language and to compose many different types of texts that draw upon their imagination and involve the use of literary language. They are guided to develop competencies over time in a developmentally appropriate sequence. We strive for this goal through valuing joyfulness and intellectual curiosity. Through the language arts curriculum, teachers strive to engender in their students compassion and confidence in an atmosphere of good humor and kindness.

Math:
Problem solving throughout every grade is a key focus. Girls move from chip trading in kindergarten to graphing quadratic functions in eighth grade. Students are engaged in independent and cooperative problem-solving activities. They are encouraged to take risks, to estimate, and to rely on a number of strategies such as making an organized list, drawing a picture, making a model, and looking for patterns in order to solve a given math problem.

Social Studies:
The social studies program at Hamlin strives to achieve historical, ethical, cultural, and geographic literacy across the K-8 curriculum. There are two distinct sequences of content taught in the social studies program. From kindergarten to third grade students expand their scope of awareness and understanding. During kindergarten and first grade students learn about themselves and the other students in their class. During second grade they expand the study to include communities, neighborhoods, and the city of San Francisco. Third grade focuses on Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Science:
The kindergarten through eighth grade science program is designed using an upward spiral model, so that knowledge can be constructed in a supporting, engaging, and developmentally appropriate environment. Concepts in biology, geology, environmental science, physics, chemistry, engineering, health, and foundation skills are introduced and developed throughout a student's time at Hamlin.

Foreign Language - French and Spanish:
The design of the language program at Hamlin grows from the core belief that the purpose of learning a language is communication. Accordingly, we place at the center of our planning the student’s ability to comprehend another language and to actively use it to express herself. We design activities that include all aspects of communication—listening, speaking, writing, reading, and the use of non-verbal modalities. We introduce students to different cultures, showing them that one key aspect of communication involves understanding both one’s own and the other’s cultural norms; we help them to see that their own cultural givens are particular, not universal.

Arts:
The over arching goal of Hamlin’s visual art program is for each girl to deeply understand that art is a viable and powerful method for expressing herself. The curriculum encourages the student to trust her unique vision, to be unafraid of art processes and artwork, to recognize and appreciate moments of inspiration, and to speak knowledgeably about the way art affects the world.

Phsyical Education:
The physical education and athletic program at Hamlin strives to teach the girls how they can be healthy and fit into their adult lives. We teach this through the variety of games and sports activities offered to the students from Kindergarten to eight grades. The games and activities in the physical education curriculum (skill building, lead-up games, volleyball, basketball, badminton, softball, soccer, fitness activities, yoga, and dance) help develop cooperation and inspire healthy competition and sportsmanship through daily participation