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"Free the child’s potential, and you will transform him into the world."
Play, the Seed for learning
We encourage purposeful play that helps children to develop their interest, motivation and capabilities; we provide children with experiences where they have opportunities to wonder, think about, observe and create.
During play we observe our children with wide eyes and open minds to make sense of their actions, speech and representations so that we can create further learning opportunities to match their forms of thought.
Decision Making
The development of independent learning and self-regulation relies upon the ability to make effective decisions. Teachers enhance such development by providing the child with a range of work spaces and open ended materials to choose from. In such an environment, exchanges and negotiations take place and children’s ideas are taken seriously. Children and teachers collaborate to decide what projects to embark on, what materials are needed to extend the play, what we could add to our playground or even if they are content with the school menu.
Teachers collaborate with children and make informed decisions from daily observations on how best to support each child’s growth and development at an unhurried pace. We place importance on children’s decision-making in their learning, allowing more time for relationships to grow and thinking to deepen in the living classroom.
The child is the centre of the curriculum
Fulfilling this responsibility forms the cornerstone of the curriculum. This means that the curriculum is designed to meet the developmental needs of each individual child. We focus our attention on the individual child, and the individual child in group settings. We use observation as an integral part of our daily work. We take the child’s point of view, by asking ourselves what is the child figuring out, what theories are they testing? The child’s strengths and current abilities are determined through a cycle of listening, observing, recording, analysing and planning. listening, observing, recording, analysing and planning.
We act upon the knowledge we gain from the assessment by planning realistic and challenging goals that motivate the child to engage in provocative and challenging experiences
The Inquiry Curriculum
“Nourishing children’s form of thought with worthwhile content”
In line with our commitment to produce the best in early childhood education and to be innovative and open to change, we have adopted the inquiry curriculum using the project approach. Project work is a comprehensive approach which creates a vibrant classroom culture that focuses on relationships and inquiry Children learn across experiences and across curriculum. Over a year, the children work on class projects, spontaneous group projects and self- managed projects. When responding to children’s strengths, abilities and dispositions, the teachers consider each child’s developmental level and what skills the child should be learning next based on their interests and developmentally appropriate learning outcomes.
They then plan experiences to move the child forward on the learning continuum in the foundation learning areas of personal, social emotional development and physical development, scientific inquiry and mathematical thinking and communication, language and literacy.
Documentation
Documentation is highly valued as it is used as a tool to make children’s theories and learning visible and teachers’ teaching visible. It is used as a medium for dialogue with parents, teachers and children about the children’s group stories and their discoveries.
The purpose of high quality documentation of children’s work and ideas is to guide quality early childhood programmes – a cycle of documentation, reflection and action . Documentation provides an insight into the child’s thought processes during his/her work individually or in a group setting and particularly of their increasing knowledge, skills and dispositions. It thus provides a complex view and detailed picture of the child. It is a pathway to acknowledge and celebrate a child’s accomplishments and help him or her to continue their learning journey. Children can see how they are progressing over the year. When children see that we take a serious view of documenting their work, we communicate to children that we value their work, we value them.
We teachers must see ourselves as researchers able to think, and produce a true curriculum, a curriculum produced from all the children.”
