The school is housed within the campus of Columbus Avenue Baptist Church in uptown Waco (1300 Columbus Avenue, Waco, TX 76701). While we are not directly affiliated with the church, we both share the goal of serving and ministering to the families of our city. We have a private entrance on 14th Street for student drop-off and pick-up. There are well-appointed rooms for each class with plentiful natural light. We also have use of the 1.5-acre pecan grove, Migel Estate grounds, old chapel, and portions of The Center for parts of our weekly schedule.

For students in Kindergarten through 1st grade, we offer classes five half days per week with the option to extend to five full days by opting into Ambleside Afternoons. For students in 2nd grade through high school, we offer classes five full days per week, Monday through Friday.

Our daily schedule is 8:30 AM-3:30 PM Monday through Friday. However, the use of our time within each day is very unique to the Ambleside method of education. All our days include multiple outdoor free-play breaks for all students, either in the pecan grove or on the Migel Estate grounds.

After-school care past normal school hours is currently being considered but is not currently offered for the 2024-25 school year. 

We believe young children learn best in school if their early childhood is spent in frequent hours of nourishing relationships and unstructured play. Learning to submit to a routine, helping with chores, running, jumping, climbing, and spending long hours outdoors provide a great foundation for learning. These are the years for careful formation of early habits –attention, obedience, and self-control among a few. Our Kindergarten and First Grade classes allow the option for children to make the transition from home to school slowly without neglecting this important foundation for learning. Having the option for Kindergarten and First Grade to attend five mornings per week allows them to be in school when they are fresh, but still have time for rest and play in the afternoons at home. For both Kindergarten and First Grade, we offer optional Ambleside Afternoons, which include home-like activities, such as baking cookies, playing outside, story time, etc. for those whose children are ready for a full school day and for students whose family schedules necessitate this increased time at school.

In order to ensure all students are relationally known by both their teacher and fellow classmates, our classrooms will be held to 12 students or fewer in most cases. 

A philosophy is simply a set of answers to questions of “why?” behind everything done at the school. In reality, all schools follow some philosophy, even if it is “we do what we want,” or “we do a little of this and a little of that.” Unfortunately, most schools cannot articulate a clear philosophy of education, but instead fall into a materialist/behaviorist approach that attempts to manipulate children into learning, even if unintentionally.

The philosophy to which Ambleside adheres is cohesive and consistent with a biblical view of the child and how a child best learns. It has been extensively applied in real life with thousands of children across the Ambleside network since 1999 and has proved to be both practical and profoundly successful. We know of no other philosophy of education that is so consistent with a Christ-centered worldview and that fosters both excellence and humility in student and teacher alike.

Narration, in simplest terms, is “telling back” whatever has been read, seen, or heard. A student who narrates is asked to use the author’s own language, sequence and detail in their retelling, not in a parroted way, but in a way that makes the material their own. Narration, at Ambleside, is used in all subjects, including the disciplinary ones. Narration is a simple, yet powerful, tool for the development of the mind. As a result, children learn to acquire knowledge from books; select, sort, and classify ideas; supply both the question and the answer; visualize; express themselves readily, fluently and with vitality; assemble knowledge into a form that can criticize, hold an opinion, or bring one thought to bear upon another. We narrate – in some way – most lessons. While frequently oral, narration may also mean using manipulatives to illustrate equivalent fractions; diagramming the parts of a dissected mushroom; acting out the story of Joseph; painting a picture of a scene from a reading; writing a thoughtful essay; or providing examples of “prevarication” in a class on ethics.

Actually, we give more than grades at Ambleside. Our students receive Reports of Growth, extensive written evaluations of their academic as well as their character development twice a year. In addition to weekly assessments in math and grammar, twice yearly our students have week-long essay exam periods that are an important educational evaluative tool at Ambleside. The reports of progress and the exams are further supplemented by parent teacher conferences where the parents and teachers discuss strong and weak areas and strategize on ways to partner and improve the whole student. Our goal is for students to be engaged learners, more interested in gaining knowledge than in getting a grade or besting a classmate. We have found that greater understanding and learning happens when our students search their papers for teachers’ comments rather than glance at a grade and feel self-satisfied or discouraged. We would rather put before our students the challenge of doing their best work, than the contentment of just getting the grade they wanted. In our classrooms students rarely ask, “Do we need to know this?” They simply apply themselves to learning.

Teachers at Ambleside exhibit the dispositions that make them wonderful educators and shepherds within an Ambleside learning environment. Most importantly, our teachers must have a substantive Christian testimony and a vibrant Christian life. They must be humble, teachable, loving shepherds who are able to foster a peaceful, joyful learning environment. They will be individuals who love to learn, are eager to grow, and are determined to see growth in others. Our teachers are committed to deepening their understanding of Charlotte Mason’s philosophy and growing in the Ambleside method of education. All Ambleside teachers will hold at least a Bachelors degree and have quality experience teaching and shepherding children. Many of our teachers will hold advanced degrees with recognized achievements in a diversity of pursuits.

Considering that teachers shepherd classrooms and directly impact students, we see our school’s faculty as its most important asset. Therefore, we have chosen to be intentional and thoughtful in our search for founding faculty for the 2024-25 school year. 

Mr. Justin Perry, Mrs. Allie Osborn, and Mrs. Autumn McMurry teach our Form III (7th-8th grade) class.

Mrs. Leah Caldwell and Mrs. Autumn McMurry teach our Form II (4th-6th grade) class.

Mrs. Elizabeth James teaches our Form I (K-3rd grade) class.

Mrs. Valerie Kocel teaches music to all grades.

For more information on each of our teachers, please visit our Staff/Board page.