Academics
Academics at Lafayette
Lafayette Elementary School is committed to academic excellence for every child. Our data demonstrate our success in academic achievement, but that only tells a part of the story. The real heart of our academic excellence is found in a blend of taking a balanced academic approach, committing to each individual child and motivating all students to meet high standards. Our commitment ensures that students experience hands-on integrated learning with solid development of foundational skills.
Language Arts
At elementary schools across the district, a new English language arts (ELA) instructional resource has enhanced learning in the classroom. Officially adopted in 2017, the Center for the Collaborative Classroom (CCC) integrates social and emotional learning with literacy.
The instructional resource addresses the core reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills that students need to thrive academically and socially. CCC focuses on building up students’ foundational skills in vocabulary, independent reading, and phonemic awareness. Additionally, CCC is filled with diverse literature, reflective of the multicultural perspectives in the Seattle Public Schools’ community.
The three programs of CCC (Being a Reader, Making Meaning, and Being a Writer) frame a research-based ELA curriculum. Walking into a CCC classroom, visitors will notice a flurry of activity, contained within a structure where the teacher is the conductor, but students are at the center of their learning.
Math: Envisions
enVisionmath2.0 Common Core is a comprehensive mathematics curriculum for Grades K-5. It offers the flexibility of print, digital, or blended instruction. enVisionmath2.0 provides the focus, coherence, and rigor of the Common Core State Standards. Project-based learning, visual learning strategies, and extensive customization options empower every teacher and student.
Science: Amplify
Learn more about Amplify Science
The newly adoption Seattle Public Schools K-5 science curriculum is Amplify Science. It is the product of a collaboration between the University of California, Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science and the instructional technologists at Amplify, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Institute of Education Sciences, and the National Science Foundation.
Amplify Science’s instructional model allows students to access their prior knowledge and to connect past learning experiences to the present. Students have the opportunity to ask questions and define problems about the natural and designed world, design investigations in which they collect and analyze trends and patterns in their data, engage in argument form evidence in both writing and through discourse with their peers, develop conceptual scientific models of physical phenomena, and to communicate their findings from their investigations.