Learn Spanish (Spain): Los niños son pequeños y no van a la escuela. - The children are small and do not go to school.

van is the 'they' form of the present tense verb ir (to go). It is used here because it refers to los niños (the children). The verb ir is highly irregular and doesn't look like its infinitive form, so you just have to memorize its present tense forms: voy, vas, va, vamos, vais, van.

Why is it a la escuela (to the school) when the English translation is just 'to school'?

In English, we often drop 'the' for general places like school, hospital, or work. In Spanish, you generally need to keep the definite article for these places. So, you must say a la escuela (to the school).

Why is the word no placed before the verb van?

In Spanish, to make a sentence negative, you simply put no directly before the verb. Unlike English, which often adds 'do not' or 'does not', Spanish just uses no right in front of the action.

Why does the sentence use son for 'are' instead of están?

Both ser and estar mean 'to be', but ser is used for basic characteristics and descriptions. Since being small (pequeños) is a physical description of the children, we use son, which is the 'they' form of ser.