Learn Spanish (Spain): Son estudiantes y van a la escuela. - They are students and they go to school.

The verb ir (to go) is highly irregular in the present tense. Instead of keeping a stem and adding normal endings, the whole word changes. For "they go", the correct form is van.

Why do we need the word a after van?

In Spanish, whenever you use the verb ir (to go) to talk about moving to a destination, you must follow it with the preposition a (to). You cannot just say van la escuela.

The English meaning has the word "they" twice, but there is no Spanish word for "they" in this sentence. Why?

In Spanish, you can usually drop subject pronouns like ellos or ellas (they) because the verb form already tells you who is doing the action. The verbs son (they are) and van (they go) already have the "they" built into their plural forms.

Why does this sentence use son instead of están for "they are"?

Spanish has two verbs for "to be": ser and estar. You use ser (which becomes son for "they") to talk about identity, professions, and traits. Being a student (estudiante) is treated as an occupation or identity, so it takes ser.