Primary School
Hands on Learning
At St. Martin in the Fields School, we integrate abilities and disciplines with the purpose of offering a significant and stimulating learning experience. Our educational project promotes creativity, cooperative learning, autonomy and critical thinking.
We provide orientation and we accompany our students in their process of evolution towards developing their capabilities. We stimulate self-esteem, self-discipline and social skills.
Academic objectives
Starting in first grade, the students will begin to recognise the reality in which they are immersed and to develop their personality. The emphasis will be placed on their capacity for self-awareness and change, for learning about the world and making an impact on it, for gaining access to the different social and cultural contexts, for learning to respect the various points of view while analysing and appreciating them in the framework of ethical principles at all times.
We work towards establishing a strong relationship with the systematic acquisition of knowledge, the value of discipline in the achievement of great goals, the wealth provided by collective work in learning and the acknowledgement of fulfilled goals. We believe that IT is an enriching tool in the daily tasks of both our teachers and students.
Addressing Information Technology not only implies another object of knowledge but also a multiplicity of possibilities that fosters dynamic and creative work.
The educational proposal brings together the various study areas, with the contribution of technology and the complement of international relationships the students will establish through the Twin School Abroad project, allowing them to attain an education that goes beyond the primary school and prepares them for greater intellectual challenges.
Prof. María Eugenia Alonso
Vice-Principal
Primary Headmistress English Section
Prof. Mónica Piccini
Primary Headmistress
Spanish Section
Prof. Florencia Passone
Pedagogical Coordinator
Primary Spanish Section
English at Primary
We focus on the acquisition of a second language creating a genuine bilingual experience where English is used as spontaneously and fluently as Spanish.
As from the first years in Kindergarten, our students are immersed in a linguistic context where the use of English is fully natural since it is related to all the school’s activities in spontaneous interactions.
We implement our own curriculum, based on the current teaching systems in Great Britain and the United States of America, in which English is included and integrated to all curricular areas.
We combine skills and disciplines to provide an experience of meaningful and stimulating learning to “Learn to Learn”.
Our educational project fosters creativity, cooperative learning, personal autonomy, self-discipline, and social and emotional skills.
We work hard offering the highest objectives and achieving our goals by consistently performing our tasks every day. We are committed to teach our students to overcome challenges and frustrations, guiding them to attain the best within themselves, each at their own pace, in their own special and unique manner. We are devoted to shape individuals with strong ethical and moral foundations, always observing the “Golden Rule”, loving your neighbor as yourself.
ART: Specific Objectives for Primary
Music:
Our main objective is to form students capable of producing and listening to music, being familiar with renowned composers and strengthening the knowledge of the elements that make up the language of music by means of the recognition of sound, intensity, duration and rhythm of different melodies.
Our approach sees music as a means of expression and communication of feelings and ideas, appreciating the students´ own learning efforts when acquiring the necessary performance techniques of a given musical instrument, their place in the orchestra as a whole and the valuing of the finished work.
We foster the appreciation of the public performances students give both from the artistic point of view and the learning process itself. Thus, various genres and musical styles permeate our classrooms and are recreated instrumentally and chorally.
Every year closes with a musical performance where all students participate, in which we prioritise the pleasure given by music and the various feelings experimented through it.
Plastic arts:
We lead our students towards the development of their aesthetic expressive capabilities by means of the use of various materials and stimulating the gradual knowledge of the characteristicsof each of the plastic elements and their expressive use, paying attention to the real or imaginary context that surrounds the image – two-dimensional initially – until students are able to grasp the three-dimensional concept and the one of volume.
Famous plastic artists come to life in our classrooms – Berni, Xul Solar, Molina Campos, Picasso, Fader, Ferrari and Dalí hmong others – by being revisited and recreated by students in their own creations.
We take National Holidays as a starting point to integrate our artistic production with the historical concepts studied in the social sciences. Towards the end of the year we set up an exhibition of the production of all our students.
Phisical Education: Specific Objectives for Primary
We aim at educating, knowing and promoting the identification of our own body, fostering the development of physical, expressive and communicative capabilities by means of the self-knowledge of the body as a means of expression.
Thus, our programme sets out to develop motor skills combined in activies and games to foster our students´ motor functions.
In first grade students start the preliminary physical training and upon initiating the second cycle – fourth grade – students begin to participate in Sports competitions with other institutions.
Our athletics and sports lessons are conducted by specialised teachers in the area, prioritising the value and teaching of Physical Education as a means of socialisation.
Activities
Book Fair – A week devoted to reading
Every year, the Language Department dedicates the Book Fair week to a series of activities oriented to foster the habit of reading in our students. The proposal stimulates the children to approach literature through a variety of activities that allow them to discover and recreate the wonderful world of ideas offered by books.
Several authors have accompanied us on different occasions. In addition, the children have the chance to visit the Book Fair with their parents to browse and buy books by new authors, both in Spanish and in English.
We can thus assert that on this tour, which brings readers and writers together, each page in each story confirms that reading is worthwhile, and that becoming a reader is worthwhile.
Parent-Teacher Conferences
Twice a year, the school invites all parents to an individual conference with their children’s grade teachers during which they can talk about the evolution and performance of their sons and daughters in every area and receive detailed information about the various aspects of the evolution and work produced during the term.
Special Celebrations
Interhouse Competitions are held in the classrooms with the purpose of promoting the acquisition of knowledge through games and recreational activities.
In this way, learning tables and verbs, doing mental arithmetic and playing word games encourage recreational and dynamic learning that takes on a new significance through the concept of play.
Special Celebrations
Our institution is noted for being a large family within which celebrations are good opportunities for getting together. Grandparents’ Day or the visit of a special guest, Easter, Children’s Day, Spring Day and Halloween, among others, are occasions for open-door celebrations at St. Martin’s.
Value-enhancing projects
As an expression of our commitment to a comprehensive education of the human being, we developed this Project, conceived and designed to strengthen in our students the link of empathy between peers, the tolerance toward the differences that are hard to accept and respect in others. We thus hope to help create people whose positive attitudes allow them to interact within their respective peer-groups.
Field Trips
Each year, towards the end of October, and for ten days, the Sixth and Seventh graders set out on their Field Trip to Carihue. This occasion proposes a wealth of life and working experiences to the students while it fosters and enhances their comprehensive formation.
Outings: At different times of the year, every grade goes on school outings to address topics in the different learning areas, thus increasing the interest for research through direct experience by reinforcing knowledge already acquired and generating a new repository of instruction and expertise. Specialised teachers and expert guides accompany the children on these outings.
