Green Schools / Green Schools Bali / Primary School

Primary School

Nurture & Inspire

Our Primary School is where we build the foundations of our children’s learning. Their curiosity, their joy of learning, their ability to develop friendships, and their individuality are all fostered throughout the five Primary School year groups.

At Green School Bali, Primary School refers to the learning offered from Grade One through to Grade Five. Students typically become seven years old during the academic year they join Grade One and eleven years old during their last year in Primary School.

Primary School is where we give children the space to ask really big questions, to build connections, to learn how to respectfully disagree and most importantly to begin to express themselves as individuals. Primary School students strive to gain core competencies in Mathematics and Literacy in a highly supportive learning environment. Student-guided, hands-on projects promote entrepreneurial thinking, environmental education, practical skills, and the arts.

We guide our students as they become effective collaborators and communicators, empowered decision-makers , and thoughtful risk-takers. . Our holistic approach engages the whole child by finding a balance between skills, values, social-emotional awareness, and academic competencies.

Indonesian and international homeroom teachers together as a team oversee all aspects of learning including pastoral care while building safe, nurturing and responsive spaces and communities and providing a deep connection to the local culture. Inspiring specialist teachers in Green Studies, Balinese and Visual Arts, Music, and Physical Wellbeing curiosity-driven learning experiences to ignite a passion for learning.

Our Primary School’s open-air classrooms inspire students to connect with their environment, chase adventure, and pursue their passions. It is a time for fun, laughter, exploration, and inquiry while building relationships, expressing creativity, and getting dirty, in and outside of the classrooms. To hear more about our Primary School Learning Neighbourhood, view the video below.

"The sense of community and friendship is what makes our school special, and we eagerly anticipate the connections and shared experiences that unfold here for our students. Our playful, nature-based approach to learning inspires curiosity and creativity, and finding solutions in the natural world with enthusiasm and optimism nurtures a lifelong love for learning in all."
Pana Asavavatana – Head of Lower School

Primary School Community

We believe in the importance of students having a sense of belonging in their grades and belonging to a wider community of learners. Feeling safe, understanding that they are a valued member of the community and building lasting relationships, truly are at the heart of successful learning.

This sense of belonging is nurtured in many ways throughout the week. In classrooms, teachers facilitate community meetings, build class agreements centred on our IRESPECT values and hold regular community-building activities. Our weekly Primary School assembly allows students, teachers and parents from across the grade levels to share their learning experiences, to connect as a community and to join together in song and dance. It is a celebration of the diversity, energy and enthusiasm of our community. The Primary School also unites for celebration days, sports events, community ceremonies and many festivals. We create links between classes and grades with regular, facilitated sharing sessions and encourage teachers to build links with our local Balinese community.

Developmental Archetypes

In Primary School we understand that learning is not a ‘one size fits all’ proposition, but rather needs to be evolving, adaptive and responsive to the developmental and environmental readiness of our learners. At Green School Bali, we address this by relating different stages of our Primary School to developmental archetypes.

Learners in Grade 1- 3 : “Guardians of the Earth”

As Guardians of the Earth, learners increase connections to the Earth and her gifts, leading to authentic feelings of stewardship. Building on a love for the natural world, our Guardians explore, question, and care for the world around them. We tend to the worms wriggling in the soil of our gardens, protect the delicate blossoms of the butterfly pea as they open in the warm sunlight, and care for all of the beautiful creatures who share the Green School campus with us.

We love getting our hands dirty with experiential learning in the gardens, drawing on the beauty all around to inspire curiosity and a passion for learning. As learners grow, we also begin building foundational reading and math proficiencies—essential tools that help our students read, understand, and communicate with the world around them. These academic building blocks are integrated naturally into their learning journey, supporting both literacy and numeracy through meaningful, real-world experiences.

We are the soul and spirit of Green School’s care for our natural world—and our spirit burns bright!

Learners in Grade 4 – 5: “Warriors of the Earth”

As Warriors of the Earth, our reverence for the earth as our teacher solidifies. Warriors are heartfelt, inquisitive, and enthusiastic advocates for the amazing environment in which we live. We follow our passions, are energetic investigators, and are emerging activists.

At this stage, we also begin preparing students for the transition to Middle School by strengthening academic rigor—particularly with a deeper focus on Math and Literacy proficiencies. Learners are encouraged to develop greater independence, growing into more self-led, responsible, and curious individuals.

The Warriors of the Earth dig deeply into personal wonderings and observations. We develop projects born from our own learning and linked to our respect for the natural world. Warriors of the Earth are entrepreneurial thinkers and ardent communicators, sharing our passions with the community. We strive to become change-makers, growing a global movement through our deeply rooted, locally focused projects. We are the embodiment of Green School’s drive for local-to-global change—and we are powerful!

The Green Literacies in Primary

Proficiencies

Proficiency-based learning focuses on discrete intellectual competencies that require repetition and practice to support skill and concept development. Proficiencies are taught in direct sessions and through broader units of enquiry, often and importantly being intertwined with the focus of the current thematic exploration. Interactive assessments (not tests) are used to gain an understanding of children’s strengths and areas for development and as a basis for teachers’ planning.

Proficiency learning in Primary School meets children where they are on their own learning journey, providing the support, revision, and challenge that each student needs to succeed.

Green School has developed literacy and maths programmes designed to fit with Green School’s unique vision, mission and educational philosophy. This scope and sequence can also be matched to other curricula around the world and understood by educators broadly.

Interdisciplinary Approaches to Learning Journies

Specific learning journies form the core of the Primary Timetable. These units are based on a particular theme and provide the framework for teachers and students together to integrate learning from all subject areas and use real-world experiences. They are called ‘thematics’ by the students. They provide opportunities for students to ask questions and follow their own paths of inquiry. These themes provide learning is holistic in that it engages multiple styles of intelligence and it builds on the Green School principle of wall-lessness by encouraging collaboration between homeroom and specialist teachers. These links and connections allow for learning to be deepened, extended, and applied to solving real-world problems and making a difference NOW in their communities.

These frames of learning can also be thought of as a practise-apply-try paradigm:

Practise: Where we practise and improve discrete intellectual competencies across different proficiency disciplines.
Apply: When we can apply the skills we have been practising and develop these through exciting and engaging thematic units.
Try: Where we can have a go at new, exciting, challenging and risky activities through hands-on, active experiences.

Thematic learning in the Primary School follows an arc of discovery designed using the principles of permaculture. These thematics are explored differently in each grade but follow a carefully designed sequence.

Example Thematic Learning Unit Overview

Be The Change [6-7 weeks]

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

– Margaret Mead

Permaculture Principle: Small and slow solutions

Key Themes:

Developing a sense of empowerment to be able to make a difference
Understanding how to give back in meaningful ways
Learning how to ask questions, find information and identify solutions to identified problems.

REAL Learning Outcomes:

Students gain a sense of ownership and authority over their projects [REAL]
Children develop collaboration and communication skills [REAL]
Children have the chance to actively take part in making a difference and become changemakers [REAL]
Students share their knowledge and understanding of challenges being faced by their community in age and developmentally appropriate ways [REAL]

Project Focus
Grade	Grade 1	Grade 2	Grade 3	Grade 4	Grade 5
Focus	Litter Monster	Everyday Heroes	Sustainable Solutions (class/individual projects)	ARTivism	FOOTPRINTS

Experiential Learning

Experiential learning at Green School is the “hands-on, getting dirty” part of Green School. Whether it means working in the school gardens, creating art, building out of bamboo, learning first aid, or carrying out work experience, you will find students exploring and problem-solving around the campus and around Bali. Students in every Learning Neighbourhood engage in real-world practical projects that deepen their understanding of their physical place in the world.

In Primary School, experiential learning involves a number of components and happens in all of the spaces that we are in throughout the day.

Specialist Experiences

Practical specialist subject experiences are offered weekly – Green Studies, Visual Arts, Music and Physical Wellbeing. In these programmes, students generate a deeper understanding of themselves as learners and are offered the chance to step outside of their comfort zones and express their curiosity and creativity in a variety of ways. The main focus of these experiences is on real-life, hands-on connections with Indonesian studies, particularly in the Arts and Music. Shadow puppets, Gamelan, mask making, coconut leaf weaving, Jegog, ink painting, Angklung and much more.

Elective Experiences

Elective activities across the Primary School provide students with an increasing sense of ownership over their learning and their schedules. This programme is designed to honour and value the wonderful creativity and curiosity innate in primary-age children. By being given the opportunity to truly follow their own interests and passions, children develop a deep sense of pride in, and ownership of their learning. Elective activities across Primary School provide students with an increasing sense of voice in their learning and begin to build the bridge to Middle School for our older Primary School learners.

Jalan Jalan (to go traveling and exploring) programme

Is central to experiential learning in Primary School. Children learn in mixed-age groups, participating in a variety of practical, hands-on activities ranging from service learning, enterprise education, practical arts, natural connections and outdoor/physical education. Jalan Jalan offers the opportunity to engage with our campus in different ways, to give something back to our community or to build connections outside the boundaries of Green School.

Through Jalan Jalan, students get an opportunity to experience project-based learning and understand their role as not just students at a school, but as responsible citizens in our society. Regular interactions and engagements with local communities also develop them as a whole and offer them learning opportunities outside our bamboo campus.

During the Jalan-Jalan elective, children work in mixed-age groups choosing to participate in a variety of practical, hands-on activities. These choices come from a range of areas: service learning, enterprise education, practical arts, student-led projects, and outdoor/physical education. They offer the opportunity to engage with our campus in different ways, to give something back to our community or to build connections outside of the boundaries of Green School.

Green Studies

Green Studies is a way of experiencing, investigating, understanding, and explaining our natural, physical world and the wider universe. It involves being fully immersed in nature with wonder and awe by generating and testing ideas, gathering evidence – including by making observations, carrying out investigations and modelling, and communicating and debating with others – in order to develop a deep love for nature with knowledge, understanding, and explanations.

By studying Green Studies, children:

Develop an understanding of the world, built on theories, observations and experiences in the natural world
With curiosity learn that the natural world involves particular processes and ways of developing and organising knowledge and that these continue to evolve
Use current knowledge and skills of the natural world for problem-solving and developing further knowledge
Use knowledge and Green School skills to interpret the natural world to make informed decisions about the communication, application, and implications during

Wellbeing

Wellbeing in the Primary School truly embodies the principle of wall-lessness. It incorporates social-emotional learning, physical wellbeing development, community building, strong and positive relationships as well as elements such as mindfulness, gardening, and play. Wellbeing also relates to our students developing strong and positive relationships with themselves, their peers, faculty, parents, their community as well as their environment.

Social-emotional

Social-emotional learning in Primary School happens everywhere, all the time including in directed lessons in the classroom, as part of our Teman-Teman (friendships and connections) programme, whilst playing around our nature-infused campus, during conversations around the lunch table or when there has been an argument between friends. Being able to recognise our own emotions, to understand how to build relationships and of course having strategies for how to overcome problems are all key elements of this programme.

Physical Wellbeing

Physical Wellbeing is so much more than Physical Education! Teachers emphasis the importance of exercise and physical health, support students to develop an understanding of fair play, give space for practising cooperation, and celebrate the successes of others. Taking turns, working together, and having a part to play are all vital skills developed through physical wellbeing lessons.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness in Primary School allows space for developing social, emotional and behavioural skills which play an integral role in self-development. Mindfulness offers strategies for helping students to focus their attention, improve self-regulation skills, build resilience and develop a positive mind-set whilst at school and in life. Mindfulness as a practice in class and school-wide is a feature of each day.

Piket/Helping Hands

Piket/Helping Hands programmes allow students to take an active role in caring for their classroom, their gardens, and the campus as a whole. By assuming responsibility for caring for these spaces, children develop a sense of pride in the spaces and a deep feeling of belonging. Having responsibility for sweeping the classrooms in the morning, taking care of and packing away the tikar mats at the end of the day, watering a bed of flowers or vegetables, taking out the class compost after lunch, or cleaning off the whiteboards are all examples of the types of responsibilities that make up a piket programme.

Bahasa Indonesia & Indonesian Studies

Indonesian is our home. We are privileged to call the island of Bali and the nation of Indonesia home. Indonesian Studies in Primary School allow us to feel connected to our place in the world, to learn about and from the amazing islands, people, cultures, languages and traditions of Indonesia. Learning has no boundaries, but we believe it needs to be grounded and relevant to the world around us. This local-to-global learning allows our students to immerse themselves in local cultures and traditions and also prepares them to work with local communities and become truly global citizens.

Budaya Cultural Studies

Budaya Cultural Studies are woven through the fabric of much of our Primary School learning and bring the magical nation of Indonesia to life. It might be through finding out about the volcanoes in Java, the flora and fauna of Kalimantan, the lives of incredible Indonesian heroes such as Ibu Kartini, planting rice and learning about the rice cycle, and through making models of the revolutionary Subak system of irrigation from here in Bali. Local learning at its truest!

Bahasa Indonesian Language

Bahasa Indonesian Language learning allows students and teachers to feel connected to the generous people who make up the Indonesian community here at Green School Bali and beyond. Developing conversational and day-to-day language skills allows students to make connections, ask questions, understand the world around them and show respect to our Indonesian hosts.

Balinese Ceremonies

Balinese Ceremonies are the meaningful heart and soul of our Primary School programme and community. These celebrations are practised out of respect for the culture of the island on which we live. Learning how to make the delicate kwangen and canang offerings used in the ceremonies; cleaning, preparing, and tidying away the spaces used for the celebrations; taking part in the ceremonies themselves and receiving blessings from friends, teachers, or local elders, are all important and regular elements of our Primary School. And yes, parents are invited!

Footprints Project

Footprints is a Grade 5 Capstone project, fuelled by a student’s desire to leave behind a positive footprint for the community and the environment. It is a time for them to follow their interests and bring their passions to life. It is a time for students to be reflective as they transition from Grade 5 to Middle School and consider what they would like to give back to the world.

The Footprints journey culminates in an exhibition where students showcase their projects, learning, and experiences and where the rest of the Green School community can celebrate the achievements of these young changemakers. One of the many ways in which Primary School students are nurtured to become changemakers, the Footprints capstone provides our Grade 5’s with a platform to think big, share their ideas and start affecting change from an early age. You’re never ‘too young’ to change the world.

Other Activities

In these programs students generate a deeper understanding of themselves as learners. They offer our learners the chance to step outside of their comfort zones and express their creativity in a variety of ways. The arts and culture of Bali also feature across our festivals and assemblies, and are taught as part of the Visual Arts and Performance Arts practical lessons.