Private School in San Francisco, CA

Children's Day School, San Francisco:
Children's Day School in San Francisco's Mission District excels as a community of learners who believe in a better kind of learning and possess the passion and skills to shape and continually grow the school. We are an independent, co-educational school for students in preschool through eighth grade. We serve families in San Francisco and surrounding Bay Area communities. Children’s Day School provides children with an education that reveals itself not only in how well children write, think mathematically and investigate questions, but also in how much they love school, their classmates and their environment.

Preschool:
We follow the guidelines for early childhood teaching developed by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). Guided by research about how children most easily develop and learn, we practice developmentally appropriate teaching in three, mixed-aged preschool classrooms. In a developmental approach to teaching, teachers know that decisions about what should be learned, and how and when it would best be learned, vary by child.

At CDS, preschoolers learn through play. Play is children's work; it is the way that young children discover, interpret and come to understand the world. Through both cooperative and independent play, children explore, test ideas, acquire information and draw their own conclusions. For example, imagine a group of children building a block structure. During that activity, students are simultaneously learning fractions, cooperation, taking turns, the properties of wood, making plans, disappointment, acting as a leader or follower and the excitement of completing a project.

Elementary School:
Our students progress through each of the elementary grades (grades K-4) demonstrating the skills of excellent writers, researchers and mathematicians. Besides acquiring solid academic skills, they develop a facility for expressing themselves in writing and rigorously pursuing intellectual questions and challenges. Importantly, they also demonstrate remarkable self-discipline, and show an ever-increasing enthusiasm for learning.

Our teachers create benchmarks for progress and assemble portfolios of student work to provide parents with concrete assessments of their child's progress in each academic discipline. Written progress reports are prepared twice a year (January and June) and parent-teacher conferences are held twice a year (August and November). The Educational Records Bureau (ERB) standardized test is given to students from third through eighth grades.

Middle School:
At Children’s Day School, we know that in middle school (grades 5-8) challenging academics must be delivered in a way that supports and encourages students during this critical time of tremendous intellectual, physical and emotional growth and change. We are proud of our uniquely accepting school culture that embraces differences and delights in diversity because we know this means our middle school students are safe to be themselves—freed from the pressures of conforming to some external view of what to wear, what to say or with whom to be friends.

If you’re a CDS student, during your middle school years:

You will not be afraid of academic challenges. We believe in academic excellence, and at CDS you will be able to stretch for new academic experiences because you’ll know you are encouraged even if you make mistakes. After all, mistakes are opportunities for learning! Working both individually and collaboratively, you will learn to think critically, to write competently and to research in depth. You will navigate a rigorous curriculum that includes math (through Algebra 1), science, humanities (language arts and social studies) and Spanish, as well as lots of opportunities for athletics and many arts offerings including classes like sculpture, painting, Shakespearean monologues, comedy and music. You will leave CDS academically prepared for challenging high school coursework. Our high school counseling will help you identify and choose the high school that’s the right fit for you.

Summer Camp:
Open to all students in the Bay Area, CDS offers summer camp in four, two-week sessions and one, one-week sesssion.