The Early Years (EY) Department offers a dynamic educational programme for children aged 2 to 7 years. All our classrooms are spacious and well-resourced, each with between 1 and 4 teaching assistants, depending on the needs of the students in each class.
Children are enrolled into age-appropriate classes for the academic year and are assessed prior to entry. Children should have reached the right ages before September 1st of each academic year.
Curriculum
The processes of learning and teaching are designed to support students’ emergent and individual pathways of development in Early Years. The central features are:
Play
Relationships
Learning Spaces
Mathematics
Language & Literacy
Science & Technology
Social Studies
Personal & Social Education
Art
Drama
Symbolic Exploration & Expression
Play
involves choice, is adaptive and promotes agency
Teachers in Early Years support play through:
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creating and maintaining engaging learning spaces
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scheduling uninterrupted playtime indoors and outdoors
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noticing and responding to students' emerging thinking processes, interests, and theories to extend learning
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monitoring and documenting students' learning and development through play and offering scaffolded learning experiences.
Relationships
build foundations for home, school, and family
To establish relationships with families the foundations of which expand when students enter school. Teachers support the development of relationships through:
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regular conversations with parents and legal guardians
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acknowledging and respecting each student's individuality
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connecting with individual students through conversations, documentations and acknowledgments.
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recognising opportunities for students to learn to self regulate during play and offer support and feedback
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uninterrupted playtime in engaging learning spaces
Learning Spaces
promote exploration, wonder, creativity, learning, and risk-taking
Teachers create safe, stimulating, and inviting learning spaces by:
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offering a range of open-ended materials
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arranging and rearranging materials as invitations for learning
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creating areas for roleplay. block play, mark-making, expression through the arts, and so on
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involving students in the design and construction of play areas
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creating displays that reflect the process of students' learning
Symbolic Exploration & Expression
transfer student learning and experiences to other contexts
Effective language and mathematics learning and teaching is based on students' developing ability to listen to and speak with others and to understand and use symbols.
The development of understandings of language and mathematics are interwoven and intentionally explored through strategies such as:
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games
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rhymes, poems, and stories
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play
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conversations
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mark-making, drawing
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problem-solving, reasoning
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counting, patterning and sequencing
