Academics that nurture the whole child

Narration is the basic methodology of Charlotte Mason education. Narration is an active retelling of what the student has heard and learned. Such a retelling requires the use of the child’s whole mind as well as her memory, and demands careful attention to a single reading of the source, without review and repetition.

Ambleside students do the scholar’s work of the first-hand reading of primary sources of literary merit that present inspiring ideas in all subjects, not dry, predigested facts and texts. Their study also includes direct contact and observation of real objects from nature (plants, minerals, animals, the elements), and art, music, and other human disciplines (maps, instruments, machines).

The school offers a small student-teacher ratio (16:1 maximum) and an emphasis on guiding and developing a child’s relationships with others—peers, younger children, elders, authority, and self. Instruction focuses on the development of the child as a whole person.

Students are evaluated on their growth in their relationships, study habits, and attitudes, as well as their knowledge. Exams and daily narration work in all subjects largely consist of broad essay-type questions, answered orally in the lower grades. Narrating daily and at exam time is an opportunity for students to showcase and demonstrate the knowledge they have acquired. It’s a call to synthesize and summarize, master and make sense of main ideas and facts while developing the child’s competence in clear thinking and verbal expression.

Ambleside provides a broad and varied curriculum for every student through direct encounter with great literature and primary sources in history, with art, music, science, mathematics, geography, language, nature, and handwork.

 We strive to offer students the richest materials along with our highest expectations of what they can accomplish. We expect every student to learn and grow to their full potential as a person, born in the image of God, into a vast inheritance.