Our Perspective

When we look at a child, we see a whole person. Someone made in the image of God with endless potential and an innate desire to know and a curiosity that propels learning, for a lifetime. We see minds hungry for ideas. It is our job, our mission, our calling to cultivate an atmosphere best suited for your children to thrive.

While our teachers are passionate and more than capable of instructing your child, they have a strong method which guides their approach. It is in the strength of this that we maintain our consistency across the variety of personalities and backgrounds leading in the classrooms. It is also the steadying force in your child’s growth as they move upward through the grades. Subjects and certain elements of the approach shift to meet their maturity, but the core remains consistent.

As a teaching environment for educators, we believe there is none more well-suited than Ambleside. Teachers love their pupils and get to share with them in that enthusiasm for learning. The relationship between each subject and the substance within them provide just as much food for the mind of the teacher as each child. The ideas are engaging at any age. As teachers and fellow learners, it’s an invigorating place to be.

Small class sizes only enhance the engagement. Students receive far more personal attention and the atmosphere is much simpler to preserve. Visitors often remark how “peaceful” it is to walk down the halls, a subtle murmur of bright conversation seeping through the doors to each classroom. Our size also encourages children of all ages to interact daily. An 8th grader is often seen helping a preschooler to straighten a tie before chapel. Relationships grow through the intermingling of a community and so we encourage everyone to be a role model to one another.

The Ideas that Drive Us.

  • Whole Person.

    Your child is not a vessel to be filled, but rather a complete person who is wonderfully made with an innate desire to learn and infinite potential. By viewing a child in this way, we work to remove any obstruction to that natural desire, and provide inspiration through knowledge.

  • Habits.

    The perfect learning atmosphere and environment is marked by peace and order. Structure and habits must be in place for the next layer of learning to begin. While still being fully allowed to operate in the fullness of their youth, teachers walk alongside your child helping them form sixteen academic and moral habits that will serve them for a lifetime. “Train up a child in the way he should go and it will not depart from him.” Prov. 22:6

  • Love of Learning.

    The love of learning is believed to be an innate part of each child. Every person enters the world with a bright-eyed curiosity and a deep desire to know. We believe it is a school’s job to fuel this with great ideas presented in profound works of literature, art, music, observation, the sciences, and relationship. Traditional systems of education leave little room for curiosity.

  • Lifetime Contributers.

    You child’s education is pursued with fullness of life in mind. This means Ambleside not only prepares your child for college and a rich vocational life, but also forms them to become excellent friends, spouses, givers and members in any community.

  • Relationship.

    It’s at the heart of everything we do. We believe all truth comes through relationship. Ambleside students develop a grounded understanding of their place because, to us, education is cultivating rewarding relationships with God, Self, Others and Creation.

  • Ideas.

    Knowledge is not just information—facts and figures to memorize for a test. Knowledge leads to ideas which inform us of the greater world that God has created. Ideas serve the mind like food serves the body. It’s important to know information, like when the Declaration of Independence was signed. But curiosity is driven by the ideas surrounding this information, such as the meaning of Liberty, Justice and Freedom.

  • Role of Parents.

    Education should be a collaborative effort between teacher and parent, it is essential to providing the fertile soil for life-long growth. Families are a vital part of our existence.

  • Role of Teachers.

    Teachers are highly trained in a methodology that channels their leadership to continually fuel a child’s growth. They are role models in the habits they have developed and their continued love of learning. This enables them to avoid elements which may stifle a child’s curiosity while simultaneously allowing them to cultivate your children with excellent habits, rich books, and powerful ideas.

 

Are you interested in digging deeper and exploring more about our approach?

Real Stories

The names of the following are fictitious as a courtesy to our families, however the story is a truthful account.

Kathrine has a couple of sons.

They are vivacious, curious and apt to find a bit of rambunctious trouble wherever they are. They are good kids and dearly loved by their mother. Years before they became school-aged, she had researched the schooling options in Fredericksburg, Texas and the surrounding area. At that time she didn’t fully understand what the needs of her children might be, but she knew Ambleside was different in some way. She wasn’t fully confident how she might navigate these waters when the time came. There are so many options and so much responsibility to the lives of these children. How could she put them in a place that wouldn’t ruin them?

A friend of hers once said, “If I’m giving up the best hours of my child’s day to a school, it better be worth it.”

The time came for the boys to go to school. The decision, which was so eminent, reached her doorstep.

She began scheduling meetings at schools, Ambleside among them.

Her impression was forming as she walked to the front door of the building, she soon connected with the atmosphere of the place. It was Beautiful. Her first interaction was a smiling one with the relational Head of School. He walked her through the guiding philosophy, the emphasis on developing relationships, habits, and a curious mind. He walked beside her through the halls and into living classrooms, awake with attentive faces. She wanted to see more.

“It’s obvious that the inside of the place is what matters,” she later remarked.

On a second visit she brought her boys. They walked and talked their way through the halls as they met teachers, peers and the Head of School. An older student stopped and asked them questions, wanting to make them feel welcome. The atmosphere suited them. There was something more. Something good. Today she describes it as, “Feeling warmth, Integrity, Love.”

Kathrine and her two sons enrolled.

One year later she feels, “Like a better parent.” The patient environment is rubbing off on her and she feels her integral role, alongside the school, in her children’s lives. Ambleside isn’t replacing her, it’s enhancing her home. “My kids are different now. They are thoughtful of others, compassionate, emotionally aware and connected. They know how to verbalize their emotions. When they do need discipline, it’s not punitive. It’s very kind and relevant to their growth. The good boundaries lead to good habits, and my boys see how disruptions ruin the atmosphere for everyone.”

“When I pickup my boys from school they are happy, invigorated, maybe a little tired, but always eager to get back the next day. One of them told me, ‘Mom, I love school. I get to see friends and learn things other people don’t even know!”

When you visit our campus, you will meet these boys. You won’t know it’s them, but you can fancy a guess. Look for that light still gleaming in their eyes. That youthful wonder. That intrepid desire to learn, and that rough and tumble Kid nature we all expect to see digging in the dirt at recess.