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About Our School

Located in the Village of Wakefield neighborhood of the town of South Kingstown, Wakefield Elementary School (WES) serves students in grades kindergarten through fourth grade in 16 classrooms. Downtown Main Street shops are just across the river behind the school. The area is known as a relaxing seaside community with frequent family events including parades, cultural arts exhibits and free concerts. The close proximity to The University of Rhode Island in Kingston offers many benefits to residents and our entire school population.
GrammerSchool1920.gifThe original Wakefield Grammar School was destroyed by fire during the night of March 11, l963. The present Wakefield Elementary School was built in l964 and had a new wingWESpic.gif  dedicated in 1990. The school had nine principals from 1964 to present.
 It housed kindergarten through fourth grade for many years and then changed to serve grade one through grade six for eight years. In 2000 it became home to kindergarten through fifth grade students and is now a K-4 school again with all of the district's 5th and 6th graders attending the Broad Rock School.
WES has maintained a strong reputation as a quality educational environment which seeks to foster the social/emotional and rigorous academic needs of its students.

Students are recognized and celebrated for positive actions that reflect a peaceful and caring environment. The South Kingstown District continues to work vigorously to implement a school wide Positive Behavior Interventions Support program (PBIS) based on a model for teaching and recognizing expected behaviors.  Our school is utilizing this system to enable all students and staff to clearly understand the behavioral expectations in our school. We will provide positive behavioral support and reasonable consequences. We are embracing this philosophy in an effort to build a truly caring community in which every child and adult feels connected and respected through a common language and a personal commitment on the part of staff, students and parents.

Wakefield School has also received professional development in the Olweus Bully Prevention Program.  Our school began implementation of this program in September 2014.  Our goals are for students/teachers and parents to learn the definition of bullying and to imbed the 4 anti bullying rules into our curriculum and into our daily lives.  As with PBIS our work together in the Olweus curriculum will strengthen the character of our school community.

South Kingstown has made the transition to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).  Our teachers in partnership with the Dana Center (Austin, TX) and the Rhode Island Department of Education have developed curriculum to align with the CCSS.  Teachers continuously participate in Job-Embedded Professional Development in order to stay current in research based best practices.  Our School Improvement goals are based on data that drive our instruction as we seek to meet the needs of “ALL KIDS-EVEYDAY”.  Wakefield School is proud of the community partnerships it has formed and the level of family engagement that exists. We are committed to providing the academic rigor necessary for all students reach their full potential and become successful life-long learners.