Lower School

“To know of many things is not the same thing as having been shaped by them, taken them in, made them one’s own – accepting their formative power and thereby being further equipped for the task of living well.”

- Wilfred McClay, historian and author

Classical education aims to inform the minds and transform the hearts of students, enabling them to receive, understand, and be shaped by what is true, good, and beautiful.

The classical experience in the lower school promotes the love of order, precise and edifying language, and objective standards of goodness, truth, and beauty. Our content-rich curriculum alongside a faculty that is equipped and passionate about delivering this curriculum is what makes the lower school so special at Atlanta Classical Academy.

Our lower school is uniquely positioned to build the foundation for learning by establishing a solid catalog of basic knowledge and skills.

Students are taught systematic and explicit phonics, develop academic vocabulary, learn the structure of a sentence, write in cursive, and memorize great poems, all to gain mastery in literacy, which leads to eventual critical thinking and logical analysis.
Our approach to numeracy is focused on mastery, achieved through our curriculum’s intentional sequencing of concepts, which transitions beautifully from the concrete to the abstract. Students gain a depth of knowledge by progressing through our curriculum. Past concepts are continuously connected to new material, causing students to think through concepts and learn by building on past learning.

Lower School New Family Guide

Lower School Academics

Literacy

Literacy is central to our teaching at Atlanta Classical Academy. We equip our students with the knowledge to become great readers and writers, and we use a systematic phonics program to teach reading through spelling and writing.

We teach students to read by:

Presenting a thorough, explicit, multisensory explanation of the sound-symbol relationship for the spelling patterns of English (phonics)
Teaching the rules and consistencies that govern the use of English words

Students hear a word, say the word, write the word, and read the word all while discussing the rules behind each spelling pattern.

In Kindergarten, our students begin learning the sounds of the 72 phonograms and various spelling rules that make up our English language. Each grade progresses with this knowledge as students learn more difficult words. In fourth through sixth grades, students learn the Greek and Latin morphology behind their vocabulary words.

Students write every day. Starting in Kindergarten, students begin writing sentences that are dictated by their teacher and begin writing original sentences by the end of the year. By sixth grade, students are ready for advanced composition as they have progressed from the basics into more sophisticated writing through their journey in lower school.

Finally, through the learning of word recognition (phonological awareness, decoding, spelling rules) and language comprehension (vocabulary, language structure, verbal reasoning, background, and literacy knowledge), students are equipped to read great books. Starting from second grade, each grade reads four to six books together each year, and our teachers lead enriching and thoughtful discussions of these books during class. We want to fill the minds of our students with rich ideas, and reading great literature enriches students’ experience of the world.

Numeracy

“Mathematics is the art of explanation. If you deny students the opportunity to engage in this activity – to pose their own problems, make their own conjectures and discoveries, to be wrong, to be creatively frustrated, to have an inspiration, and to cobble together their own explanations and proofs – you deny the mathematics itself.” – Paul Lockhart

ACA uses a Singapore Math approach to Mathematics. We use this approach because it aligns with our classical pedagogy of asking good questions to help students uncover the beauty and wonder of organizing and connecting different numbers, shapes, and ideas.

We approach math by moving from the concrete to pictorial to abstract, making the same progression and helping students think their way through increasingly difficult problems. We can pose challenging problems to students because we allow them to work with the building blocks before working with the big picture.

Students are learning fewer skills and concepts explicitly but instead use the skills and concepts together and throughout larger topics. Each year, students at all grades spend time on topics like place value, adding & subtracting, multiplying & dividing, mental math, and bar models. But in each grade, these topics progress to more difficult skills and concepts. Students will compare the concrete and pictorial representations of these concepts with the abstract and see if the connections remain true. A Singapore Math Approach presents students with difficult problems, giving them the opportunity to uncover how what they already know connects to new discoveries.

Through this process of concrete to pictorial to abstract and the spiraling of the same fundamental topics with changes to skills, our students gain confidence in explaining their thoughts and ideas, increase automaticity in mental math, and are well grounded for higher-level abstract math classes in secondary school.

Classroom Environment

Atlanta Classical Academy is small by design, allowing every student to be known, challenged, and supported. Each grade, from kindergarten through twelfth grade, is limited to 54 students, creating a close-knit community where meaningful relationships flourish. We have one full-time, lead teacher per classroom, with assistant teachers, literacy and mathematics specialists, and instructors in art, music, foreign language, and physical education providing additional support and enrichment. This collaborative approach ensures that each child receives individualized attention while benefiting from a rich, well-rounded classical education.

Our small size fosters a culture where students, teachers, and families share a strong sense of community and purpose. Classrooms are calm, orderly spaces where students learn to listen attentively, speak respectfully, and engage thoughtfully with challenging ideas. As they grow in knowledge and wisdom, students also develop habits of responsibility, self-discipline, and mutual respect that prepare them for success both inside and outside the classroom.

At the heart of our school culture is the intentional cultivation of virtue. Students are encouraged each day to practice our Seven Core Virtues—Courage, Courtesy, Honesty, Humility, Perseverance, Self-Government, and Service—in the classroom, hallways, lunchroom, and on the playground. These virtues are woven throughout our curriculum and reinforced through daily interactions, helping students develop strong moral character alongside academic excellence. When knowledge and virtue meet, it produces wisdom, and this is the end goal of an education at Atlanta Classical.

Sixth Grade: Leaders of the Lower School

Sixth grade is a transition year at Atlanta Classical. Class sizes expand, students become the leaders of the lower school, and the school day begins to mirror the structure of the upper school. Students transition from learning with one or two teachers to working with three content-area teachers, helping them build the organizational skills, independence, and confidence needed for seventh grade and beyond. Sixth grade is intentionally designed to prepare students for the expectations of the upper school while providing expanded opportunities to grow academically, develop as leaders, and take greater ownership of their learning.

Academic transitions:

Students transition from one or two teachers for all subjects to three teachers.
Students receive a locker for storage.
Teachers intentionally develop students' executive functioning and organizational skills, helping them successfully navigate increased independence and responsibility.
Homework gradually increases in both consistency and expectations, preparing students for the pace of the upper school while remaining developmentally appropriate and manageable.
Students attend two "specials" classes each day (Music, Art, and PE).
Students remain with the same homeroom group throughout the academic day while interacting with the rest of the sixth grade during specials, recess, and lunch.

New Opportunities:

House System
Lockers
Rotating Classes
Athletics
Middle School Dances
Middle School Musical
Kindergarten Buddy Program
Introduction of Latin
Sixth Grade Leadership Retreat