The Native School

The Native School is a 100% place-based, outdoor forest school offering preschool and kindergarten classes across North County San Diego. Our nature classrooms are located throughout San Diego, utilizing a variety of local ecosystems as our teacher and classroom. Our foundation is based on the Scandinavian Forest School model, equally intertwined with the Reggio Emilia approach to education, California State Standards of Education and Creative Curriculum. We embrace inquiry, exploration, discovery, and student self-determination at our core. Our school was founded on the Reggio Emilia inspired belief that children possess a hundred languages, meaning countless ways of thinking, expressing, comprehending, and witnessing through their environment and observations. Student interests become the vehicle for developmental and educational standards to be embedded and integrated as teachers facilitate deeper understanding, becoming the catalyst to a genuine love for learning. Teachers utilize their roles as scaffolders, offering guidance and assistance while also honoring each students’ emergent learning process. Students are challenged to problem solve beyond their current abilities, fostering confidence in their emerging skills and honoring the extraordinary potentials of their hundred languages.