Elementary Program Description

Students who enroll in our school have two course options: The Open Plan Program or the English Immersion Program. The Open Plan Program is a Japanese medium program with a progressive approach to education that gives priority to personalizing instruction, meeting student’s individual needs and talents, and fostering creativity.

The English Immersion Program at Katoh School mirrors the curriculum of the Open Plan Program but is taught in both English and Japanese. Founded in April 1992, the English Immersion Program is based on successful immersion programs from the US and Canada where foreign language is taught not as a subject but rather used as the medium of instruction. Our program is a partial immersion program: students spend between 50% - 60% of their day studying in English and the other part of their day studying in Japanese.

Our school follows the Japanese national curriculum and is accredited by the Japanese Ministry of Education. We currently have approximately 280 students enrolled in grades one to six. Each grade level has two classes of approximately 20 – 25 students. At each grade we one or two native English speaking homeroom teachers and two Japanese homeroom teachers. Grades four, five, and six also have subject specialist teachers for Science, Art and Music.

Subjects are generally divided by language. Japanese and English teachers do not generally co-teach the same subject in both languages. English Language Arts, Math, Science and Life Study are allocated to the English-speaking teacher and taught entirely in English. Japanese (Kokugo) and Social Studies in the upper grades are taught in Japanese by the Japanese teacher.

Teachers do not teach in self-contained settings. Instead, each grade level is set up in a cooperative teaching arrangement. Teachers specialize in two or three areas of the curriculum and teach these subjects to all the students at that grade level. Each teacher has their own classroom but the students move around to the other teachers at that grade level to study different subjects over the course of the day. We have no school bells but our school day is broken up into six 45-minute periods with a 5-minute break between each class. Special after school classes are also offered to assist where necessary.
From grade 3, all immersion students participate in weekly cultural and sporting club activities together with the students from the Open Plan Program.

Daily Timetable

朝の会Morning Meeting	8:20 ～ 8:35
1時間目Period 1	8:40 ～ 9:25
2時間目Period 2	9:30 ～ 10:15
3時間目Period 3	10:20 ～ 11:05
4時間目Period 4	11:10 ～ 11:55
昼食Lunch	12:00 ～ 12:15
読書Reading	12:15 ～ 12:30
掃除Cleaning	12:30 ～ 12:45
昼休みRecess	12:45 ～ 1:10
5時間目Period 5	1:15 ～ 2:00
時間目Period 6	2:05 ～ 2:50
帰りの会Closing Meeting	2:50 ～ 3:05

Teacher’s official work hours are from : 8:00 ～ 4:40.