Alexander Charles Morton-Wright
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Designing the Ideal Early Childhood Education Program
Type of Program
Private International Kindergarten combining the curriculum of IBPYP with its interdisciplinary themes and student-led project-based learning (PBL) inquiry with HighScope's plan-do-review philosophy. For comprehensive character development of children, the IB learner profile will be used, but with a development, a checklist to clearly assess student progress. HighScope's active participatory learning will be used for small group teaching sessions and their SEL conflict resolution . The classroom environment will be modelled off the Reggio Emilia approach integrating nature into the classroom with a strong focus on natural light and plants. The classrooms will have exterior doors to seamlessly switch to outdoor play. All classrooms will open out into a central piazza with open community play areas with access to courtyards with views of the surrounding community.
IBPYP Approach
The IB learner profile describes a broad range of human capacities and responsibilities that go beyond academic success and imply a commitment to help all members of the school community learn to respect themselves, others and the world around them.
The IBPYP transdisciplinary themes include; who we are, where we are in place and time, how we express ourselves, how the world works, how we organize ourselves, and sharing the planet.
Inquiry-based and student-centered education with responsible action at its core, enabling students to learn between, across and beyond traditional subject boundaries. The framework serves as the curriculum organizer and offers an in-depth guide to achieve authentic conceptual inquiry-based learning that is engaging, significant, challenging and relevant.
High Scope Approach
Plan-Do-Review: Children make choices about what they will do, carry out their ideas, and reflect on their activities with adults and peers. By participating in the plan‐do‐review process, children gain confidence as thinkers, problem‐solvers, and decision-makers. Learning how to act with intention and reflect on the consequences of their actions. Abilities that will serve them well in school and throughout their lives.
Active Participatory Learning: needs five ingredients to be successful. Materials, manipulation, choice, child language and thought, and adult scaffolding.
Conflict Resolution: HighScope uses conflict as a teachable SEL moment and has a six-step process to scaffold children’s understanding of conflict resolution.
Reggio Emelia Approach
Reggio classrooms aim to integrate with the surrounding environment including the rest of the school and its community. Believing children can best create meaning and make sense of their world through environments that support sustained, complex, changing, and varied relationships between people and a world of experiences, ideas and the many ways of expressing these ideas.
Physical Environment: Reggio preschools integrate nature into the classroom with a strong focus on natural light and plants. Classrooms open out into a centre piazza (public square) with open community play areas and access to courtyards with views of the surrounding community. Large windows in classrooms and on walls are used to increase natural light and exterior doors in each classroom to seamlessly switch to outdoor play.