First Grade Lead Teacher

Thrive Education Partners is seeking a First Grade Lead Teacher for a growing independent school in Miami, Florida. This is a full-time, on-campus position beginning as soon as a strong candidate is identified, and the teacher is employed directly by the school.

The school believes children learn best when their academic, emotional, and physical development are supported together, and the program is built around that premise rather than adding it on top of a conventional curriculum. Instruction is expected to be rigorous and hands-on at the same time, with longer-term projects, cross-curricular connections, and real-world application running through the year rather than appearing as occasional special activities.

First grade is one of the most formative years in a child's education, and the lead teacher carries the academic, social, and emotional development of the class.

The right candidate is an experienced primary-grade educator who wants both autonomy and accountability. Strong curricular resources and clear expectations are in place, and what the school asks in return is that you use your own creativity and professional judgment rather than following a script. This is an especially good fit for a teacher who wants to help build something, brings ideas forward, works through problems with colleagues, and treats coaching as part of getting better.

The position follows the school calendar, Monday through Friday on campus, with a recurring late day for faculty meetings. The teacher works closely with the elementary principal, instructional specialists, and grade-level colleagues, and is expected to build direct, proactive relationships with families.

The school describes itself as an entrepreneurial school, and it means that literally: students design and run real ventures, and financial literacy sits alongside reading and math as something explicitly taught. Project-based learning is the default mode rather than an occasional unit, with instruction built around hands-on challenges that reach past the textbook into real problems. Emotional intelligence, mindfulness, and personal purpose are taught directly and woven through the academic day, so a teacher here is responsible for how children learn to regulate, connect, and persist as much as for what they know.

Days include STEAM work, robotics, speech and debate, frequent field trips, and outdoor and farm-based learning on campus, and class sizes are small enough that individualized attention is a working condition rather than an aspiration. Students are expected to develop self-awareness, resilience, creativity, and independence on the same timeline as their academic skills.

Families are treated as genuine partners, and teachers build proactive, thoughtful relationships with parents rather than communicating only when something goes wrong. The culture is both high-expectation and highly supportive: teachers are given meaningful autonomy and encouraged to bring ideas to the table, and they are also coached closely and held to what they commit to.

• Design and deliver first-grade instruction that balances academic rigor with inquiry, creativity, and hands-on work.
• Build a classroom that is organized, bright, and calm while remaining active, with students meaningfully engaged rather than passively receiving instruction.
• Differentiate instruction for individual learning needs while holding high expectations for every student.
• Use the established core curriculum as a starting point, bringing your own judgment and imagination to how learning experiences are built.
• Run longer-term projects as a consistent feature of the year, with cross-curricular and entrepreneurial connections built in.
• Teach independence, confidence,…