Our approach to teaching grows out of these core educational principles:

1. The most fundamental task of schooling is to help children learn to use their minds well.
   
   
2. There are many types of important learning experiences for children. Creative and guided play are among the most serious, challenging, and constructive activities that school-age children can engage in. Literacy and numeracy, for example, are most effectively mastered when approached both playfully and systematically.
   
   
3. The study and experience of Jewish life and texts is as important as investigating the other realms of knowledge and skill that children encounter in school. It is no more or less “academic” than reading and math, no more or less “playful” than movement and art.
   
   
4. To help each child excel in his or her studies, the school's task is to offer enough varied activities to let every child shine in as many ways and domains as possible, and to design learning opportunities specifically geared to each child's needs, interests, and styles.
   
   
5. The primary means by which teachers come to know children is by closely and sensitively observing them.
   
   
6. Children never stop learning. The school and the home are equal partners in a child's development.
   
   
7. Calm discourse, sympathetic listening, and profound respect for others are keys to mutual understanding.