Stages 1-3
Children are born into the world with a capacity to learn, we value them as confident and capable from birth. Your child is naturally curious and as he or she hypothesises and experiments, the critical skill of learning to learn is born.
Children in this age group are also learning to express themselves in other ways, the ‘Hundred Languages’. Creative development through visual and performing arts allows your child to develop his or her talents and imagination. The provision of open ended resourcing and valuing process over product means that natural talent is nurtured and your child’s unique perspective is valued and built upon.
Parents are a child’s first teacher and collaboration with parents plays an essential part in supporting the holistic development of your child. The process of consultation and collaboration with parents allows us to support parents in their role as the most important part of a child’s life. By providing an environment that feels safe, children will be able to feel confident enough to express their needs through a sense of belonging and well being. Happy children grow in confidence and resilience so strong relationships with staff and peers are very important to us.
Stage 4
This is an exciting time in a child’s development as they develop socially and emotionally and our Stage 4 environment invites cooperative play, offering large areas for creative activities, block play and small world, enabling lots of children to play together. Language development is rich and children will create rich and imaginative worlds in their play. Children begin to enjoy playing with others and will begin to invite other children into their play so the collaboration process of learning becomes even more important at this stage.
It is at this stage that we begin to introduce our Atelieristas, creative specialist teachers who help your child develop skills to bring a richness also to their ‘hundred languages’. Specialist teaching in Art, Dance, Drama, Sports and French forms part of the core curriculum of the day. Reflection time at the end of each session allows children an opportunity to summarise and review the things that they have discovered and to make important connections.