Why Barnard?

Barnard Mandarin Magnet Elementary offers students the unique opportunity to learn the Mandarin Chinese language, the fastest growing language in the world. Barnard is located in the Pacific Beach area, and is part of the Mission Bay Cluster of San Diego Unified School District. Our students in Universal Transitional Kindergarten through grade 5 come to us from all over San Diego County.

Our teaching staff are highly qualified and trained in teaching Mandarin as a second language.

Our highly qualified, and trained, teaching staff, immerse all students in Mandarin Chinese instruction. Our UTK classroom experiences the Mandarin language through songs and movement activities throughout the year. Kindergarten classrooms follow a 80/20 immersion model, in which students spend 80 percent of their day learning Mandarin and English instruction is 20 percent of the day. Grades 1 – 5 follow the 50/50 model. Students spend half of their instructional day in Mandarin and the other half in English.  Students successfully develop the ability to use the Mandarin language in a natural context, which accelerates the acquisition of the Mandarin language.

Each classroom is equipped with an i21 suite (document camera, Smartboard, and computer devices for each student), which enables students to utilize technology as a tool to demonstrate learning through various multimedia presentations.

The blending of a world language program with a challenging English curriculum enables Barnard students to use their knowledge of diverse cultures to think critically, act globally, and become thoughtful, responsible, and successful global citizens.

Barnard also integrates the Six (6) Ancient Chinese Arts, to complete our students’ learning of the Mandarin Language. These cultural arts classes include abacus, Kuiban, calligraphy, tai-chi, arts, music, dance, and literature.