Primary Plus at Amber Elementary School
Preschool in San Jose, CA 95117
In July, 1979, Primary Plus opened its doors for elementary school-age children at 3500 Amber Drive. Primary Plus is a preschool and elementary school with grades kindergarten through seventh. The school provides an educational setting that is staffed with warm, personally interested adults who give the students the message that learning is exciting and important. The teachers attempt to establish a learning environment that will allow the children to experience the maximum amount of success possible. Class sizes are small which allows for a great deal of teacher-student interaction.
The Primary Plus program includes both academic day classes and extended day care. Physical education, computer classes, and Spanish are part of the everyday elementary curriculum. A large variety of enrichment programs complete the outstanding student offerings. Students can enroll in dance, karate, music, art, computer, tennis, swimming, golf and a wide range of sports activities. There are team sports available in soccer, basketball, baseball and street hockey for both girls and boys. Many of the students take part in the annual dance production at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts.
- Child Ages:
- 3 years - 10 years
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Our schools’ doors opened in 1968 because of the desire to experience first hand the marvelous thrills and excitement in the world of children. Of interest to the founders is the tremendous amount of learning that goes on each year in young children. It is exciting for us to see all the important loving and guiding experiences of infancy incorporated into the children’s development. We believe we have an opportunity to influence much of what will happen to children as they go through elementary school, junior high school and on into adult life. It also is a real challenge to our staff to provide an environment that will encourage maximum development for children, as positive experiences during the early year’s lead to much greater success in the future
Over all the years of operation, we have maintained a philosophy that encourages what we call a “semi- structured program.” Semi-structured means, to us, that we have a program put together by teachers and others that sets out specific goals each day, week and month for every child enrolled. The children are “led to” not “made to” take part in these activities. We feel that this semi-structured situation allows for specific growth and individual freedom.
One of the important differences in our philosophy has been the fact that we’ve been committed to a particular kind of adult in our school environment. We are proud that our carefully chosen adults truly care about children. We could spend hours and hours going through books writing lesson plans, buying equipment, setting up the preschool; however, the most important factor in any school situation is the adult. It is exceedingly important that when each child enters the school environment, he or she finds an adult who really, truly likes him or her.
It is our hope that each child will leave at the end of the day feeling better about himself or herself equipped with the knowledge that they can accomplish tasks that they couldn’t do when the day began. If we achieve this goal, we add tremendously to the resources that each child takes with him or her as they move up the educational ladder. It is our continued hope that we will be able to provide an environment that stimulates positive feelings as well as a sound curriculum for each child.
