Thousand Oaks Primary School

840 Colusa Avenue, Berkeley, California 94707, United States

At Thousand Oaks, they are a united and supportive community where students learn to appreciate cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity. Their teachers are trained in the use of our district-approved curriculum; many staff use culturally responsive teaching strategies to engage all students and, in particular, colored students. They seek to educate the whole child and offer a wide range of enrichment programs including: gardening, music, science , physical education, and visual arts.

They believe in providing a safe, supportive environment for students to learn. We teach and reinforce school-wide rules and standards through positive behavioral support.

They provide additional assistance to students through guidance and academic involvement. Their school site offers a fantastic learning atmosphere and their teachers are highly trained to provide sound, comprehensive academic instruction.

Their committed, highly trained and professional teaching staff differentiate instruction within every classroom, trying to reach every child to the level they need to be successful. This includes teaching lessons for the whole class, as well as for small reading and literacy classes. Teachers also use team-teaching and graduation-level collaboration methods to reach each child at their own level of achievement.

Thousand Oaks' bilingual reading Specialists work with small groups and individuals to promote literacy learning for children who need it. Support workers offer extra adult and small group assistance during the school day to help children meet the next level of achievement. These activities are complemented by small, teacher-led, post-school workgroups.

Since September 2010, the Berkeley Public Schools elementary classrooms have begun to incorporate the Readers' Workshop as a focal point of the literacy programme. The model comes from the Columbia University Teachers' College and has had excellent success in narrowing the gap in achievement with the New York Schools that are part of their programme. Instead of textbooks and ditto sheets, the Readers' Workshop is a vast classroom library with interesting books spanning students' reading levels. Students will spend more time reading and writing and talking about what they're reading. The small group reading with the teacher will start in the sense of the Writers' Workshop. Teachers will be receiving several hundreds of dollars worth of books for their libraries.

English Language Development (ELD) is a state-of-the-art initiative to develop the English skills of all students , especially those who learn English as a second language. A strong ELD program empowers students by helping them communicate more effectively in both written and oral languages, as well as by improving their understanding and listening skills.

Technology is taught by a classroom teacher in grade K3, while our fourth and fifth graders are taught by a technology specialist. The curriculum is based on the Science System FOSS / Full Option developed by the Lawrence Hall of Science. The annual Science Fair of Thousand Oaks supports their science curriculum. This year's non-competitive event relies on parent volunteers to help organize and run the event.