Marin Primary and Middle School

Marin Primary & Middle School is an independent, coeducational preschool through eighth grade school in Larkspur, California. We inspire joyful learning, honor each child, and build connections to empower all students to make a difference.

At Marin Primary & Middle School, we value connections as the foundation of the best learning environment, tying together our community across academic disciplines, cultures, and stages of growth. Everyone here is known and valued by every member of our community, and these connections are our greatest strength.

Teaching and learning at MP&MS are guided by these precepts:

1. If the student does not learn the way we teach, we change the way we teach without sacrificing the school’s standards. We cherish individual internal differences in students. Our teachers create varied opportunities for students to demonstrate knowledge and understanding.
    
2. We measure each student’s academic success individually. Each student should make a year’s progress in a year, as measured against themselves.
    
3. We expect age-appropriate behavior in the classroom. We make school meaningful without sacrificing each student’s personal nature or the pace of early childhood into adolescence.
    
4. We remember that school is not the student’s idea. We make school as personally and individually meaningful as possible.
    
5. We understand the priorities of our students. Each day, each student asks: Who is my friend? Does the teacher appreciate me? Can I be myself here?
    
6. We put relationships first, curriculum second. The quality and integrity of the relationships between teachers and students ensure a healthy, productive, student-centered balance. Our classrooms are highly productive and low in maladaptive stress while promoting experiences outside students’ comfort zone, which is necessary for growth.
    
7. We see parents/guardians as partners. The quality of parental involvement, formed within respectful and appropriate boundaries, is as much a vehicle for success as the methods and materials in the classroom. We maintain open communication, educate our parents/guardians about how and why our school works, and embrace that parents/guardians are the foremost experts in their children.
    
8. We ask ourselves: How is this child smart? Not: how smart is this child?

20 Magnolia Avenue
Larkspur, CA 94939
(415) 924-2608

Ages: Preschool (starting at 2 years) thru 8th grade

Open hours: 7:45 am to 6:00 pm