Lower School
NURTURING CURIOSITY, CREATIVITY AND COURAGE
The lower school is an exceptional community devoted to discovery and growth. Our teachers create an environment where they build on shared understanding and experiences in a conversational and hands-on learning environment.
Innovative teaching and small class sizes allow students and teachers to fully engage and develop as critical thinkers, writers, and problem solvers. We teach a curriculum that continually expands their knowledge, builds character, and provides leadership opportunities from fourth grade through graduation.
We believe that experience is the foundation of learning. We nurture curiosity, creativity, and courage through a challenging curriculum, exciting experiential learning excursions, and a focus on fine arts and fitness.
Exploratories
Lower school students take physical education and fine arts classes as part of their exploratory activities. This is a favorite time of day for students as they engage in sports activities or study artists, musicians, and playwrights. During exploratories, you might find our fourth graders playing volleyball or kickball or matching emotions to their drawings of concentric circles during a study on artist Wassily Kandinsky.
Experiential Learning​​
Lower school students engage in hands-on learning experiences throughout the year. They travel to museums, outdoor venues, and places like the Georgia Aquarium. These experiences provide students with genuine connections with each other and an awareness of cultures and worlds outside their community.
Character Development
We don’t just talk about character, we live it! Our mission is to thrive in life by elevating character and intellect! The two go hand in hand.
Character development starts at the lower school with the Tallulah 12 and our house system, which begins in fourth grade and continues through graduation.
The Tallulah 12 is a set of guiding principles that inspire character, confidence, and commitment.
Houses bring students into the school community through collaborative projects and friendly competition. Incoming fourth graders and new students are inducted into a house - the Owls, Ravens, Wolves, or Hornets. Each house is composed of students from fourth to eighth grade. As students build relationships across grade levels, they cultivate community, build social connections, and step into leadership opportunities.
Learn To Swim Program
All incoming lower school students participate in the American Red Cross Learn to Swim program each year. By providing all of our students with the basics of swimming, we are able to springboard into fun and exciting aquatic activities like water polo and synchronized swimming; and if they so choose, competitive swimming in the middle and upper school grades. In addition, the benefit of proficient swimming and water safety lasts a lifetime.
Counseling & Academic Resource Center
Counselors provide a range of student learning and behavioral services. Counselors support all students with academic achievement strategies, emotional growth, interpersonal skills management, and planning for postsecondary options.
We do this collaboratively through individual and small group counseling, classroom guidance, grade-level meetings, and various learning activities based on the Tallulah 12. They are designed to teach self-awareness, responsible decision-making, relationship skills, social awareness, and self-management.
The school counselor provides bi-weekly school counseling/classroom guidance lessons with fun, interactive activities to help teach essential life skills.
Technology
From online educational games to immersive virtual reality, TFS students have an abundance of technological resources, including interactive boards in every classroom, a 1:1 laptop program, Z space labs, virtual reality, campus-wide internet access, computing classes, and IT support.
Lower School Clubs
Our lower school students have additional opportunities to participate in extracurricular activities through on-campus clubs. These clubs allow students to explore their passions in a fun environment where they continue to build their curiosity, creativity, and courage!
- Tome Society (Literary Club)
- Synchronized Swimming/Water Polo
- Community Swim Team
- Golf Club