Welcome to the Sidwell Friends Lower School. We are a small but dynamic community including children in Pre-Kindergarten through Fourth Grade. The Lower School faculty works together to foster intellectual and personal growth for each child. Our students discover the value of learning through traditional instruction combined with varied experiences including assemblies and class plays, field trips and visiting speakers, simulations and classroom partnerships. Our commitment to the broader community is carried out through community service activities including weekly vegetable cutting for Martha's Table and an ongoing partnership with a local public school. The entire Lower School community including children, parents, faculty and staff shares in this commitment to service.

Perhaps what best describes Sidwell Friends Lower School is what I wrote in my book, A Child in the Principal's Office, published a few years ago:

"I hope in the years to come that we debunk the myth of either/or. The best schools are places with both quality and humanity, high productivity and high sensitivity. We need to make certain that our children work hard and enjoy their work; that we assist kids who do not meet our standards and insist that standards not be lowered; that we expect our students to be taught basic skills and allow for individual creative expression; that we value individuality and community, self-expression and self-discipline, diversity and commonality, humor and seriousness, work and play.

We need to balance and keep in perspective the paradox of lively calm and tranquil excitement. We need our schools to be alive with spirit and yet spiritual; noisy with learning and quiet with reflection; full of independent thinkers and thinkers who are receptive to the ideas of others; brimming with joyful learners and serious pursuers of knowledge."

Richard Lodish
Lower School Principal
Associate Head of School