Pedagogic Proposal
We champion a socio-interactionist pedagogical model, meaning we encourage children to actively experience and interact with their environment through creative activities, promoting active learning. Our teaching methodology is exclusive and aims to ensure the holistic development of our students.
To achieve a high-quality education, we base ourselves on the following values:
International Curriculum
The International Early Years Curriculum (IEYC) is a new research-based curriculum recognising global best practice in early childhood education and the developmental needs of 2- to 5-year olds. It supports key areas of learning through holistic enquiry and play-based approaches that cover all curriculum areas including personal, social and emotional development.
Children learn through creative, thematic units that relate to their lives and capture their natural curiosity. Learning is active, engaging, and fun. Children are encouraged to learn and develop knowledge and skills at their own pace, with diverse opportunities to explore and express their ideas in playful ways
In addition to academic learning, it is essential that children develop personal qualities that are going to be expected from them when they become adults in the future. The learning experiences are designed to encourage children to be:
Inquisitive
Be curious and ask questions
Engage in new experiences
Express new discoveries and make connections in learning
Develop personal interests through exploration
Adaptable
Explore new cultures and traditions
Develop strategies to cope with changes and unfamiliar situations
Explore new roles
Explore different ideas
Resilient
Developing strategies to cope with with frustration, disappointment, and loss
Addressing challenging tasks
Persevering in tasks even when success is not instantaneous
Ethical
Demonstrate appropriate behaviors depending on the context
Reflect on behaviors
Identify when actions are right and wrong
Be honest
Consider the consequences
Reflecting upon choices
Making beneficial choices
Communicative
Express ideas using verbal and/or nonverbal means
Use different forms of communication in a wide range of contexts
Receive, interpret, and respond to various forms of verbal and nonverbal messages
Reflective
Reflecting on own and other learnings
Overcome challenges by considering solutions
Consider personal strengths
Consider areas for improvement
Cooperative
Develop collaborative skills
Become aware that there are different roles and responsibilities in groups
Take turns and share
Empathetic
Demonstrate kindness and consideration
Be attentive to the different needs of people, living things, and the environment
Participate in activities that impact
positively on people, living things, and the environment
Consider the feelings and needs of others
Global Mindset
Become aware of different countries
Become aware of similarities and differences between children's way of living
Developing a growing understanding beyond that related to one's own nationality and identity
Learning and playing with others beyond one's own friendship group
Brazilian Curriculum
Our educational objectives are based on Brazilian National Curricular Parameters for Early Childhood Education, the Law of Directives, the National Curricular Guidelines, the National Common Curricular Base, and the Bases of National Education in effect. The experience fields constitute a curricular arrangement that takes in concrete situations and children’s daily life experiences intertwining them with the knowledge that is part of the cultural heritage. The definition and designation of the experience fields are also based on the DCNEI in relation to the fundamental knowledge to be provided to children and associated with their experiences.
There are six developmental areas that are fundamental to our Early Childhood Education program, which are aligned with Braziliam BNCC. The developmental areas ensure the right condition for children to learn in situations in which they can play an active role in environments that call them forth to solve challenges, in which they can infere meaning about themselves, others, and the social and natural world.
Live together
Living with other children and adults, in small and large groups, using different languages, expanding knowledge of self and others, respect towards culture and differences between people.
Play
Playing daily in different ways, in different spaces and times, with different partners (children and adults), expanding and diversifying their access to cultural productions, their knowledge, imagination, creativity, emotional, bodily, sensory, expressive, cognitive, social, and relational experiences.
Engage
Engage actively, with adults and other children, as far as planning the school management and the activities proposed by the educator to the accomplishment of daily life activities, such as choosing games, materials and places, developing different lingos and elaborating knowledge, deciding and standing for their belifs.
Explore
Explore movements, gestures, sounds, shapes, textures, colors, words, emotions, transformations, relationships, stories, objects and elements of nature, in and out of school, expanding their culture knowledge in its forms: arts, writing, science, and technology.
Express
Express, as a dialogic, creative, and sensitive self, needs, emotions, feelings, doubts, hypotheses, discoveries, opinions, inquires through different lingos.
Self-knowledge
To known oneself and build their personal, social and cultural identity, comprising a positive self-image and their groups of belonging, among experiences as care, interactions, games and languages lived inside the school, in their family and in community.
Projects
(Financial education, sensory experiences, nature, creativity, autonomy, movement)
In project work, children have the opportunity to think about important themes from their environment, reflect on current events, and consider life outside of school.
Projects are designed for children to learn to think, study, research, and express opinions. They are developed and executed WITH the children, not FOR the children.
And the Curriculum?
We know that for learning to take place, a curriculum must be organized in a way that is meaningful for both children and teachers. Repeating the same sequence of content each year, as if knowledge were an unchanging reality, does not align with this approach. Projects allow for the possibility of learning different knowledge in a non-linear way and through multiple languages. After all, how can we predict a year-long work program when we don’t yet know what questions, curiosities, or inquiries the children will bring?
It is common to think that the project process unfolds spontaneously, but the teacher’s role must be intentional. It is their responsibility to organize strategies and materials, acting as a guide who points out to various paths the group can take. For this, listening and dialogue are essential.
Early Years
The International Early Years Curriculum (IEYC) from the International Curriculum Association (ICA) is based on research recognized as best practices for the development and education of children aged 1 to 5 years. The program is implemented in alignment with the BNCC (Base Nacional Curricular Comum) and is grounded on key areas of learning, using a project-based approach that includes personal, social, and emotional development.
Play is an essential aspect of all children’s learning and development. Learning occurs when experiences guided by teachers and initiated by children combine natural curiosity with a supportive developmental environment.
Children are encouraged to learn and develop knowledge and skills at their own pace, with various opportunities to explore and express their ideas in a playful manner. Learning should be motivating, engaging, and fun, opening a world of wonders for children where personal interests can flourish.
The International Curriculum from the International Curriculum Association (ICA) provides an international curriculum and professional learning for over 1,000 schools, more than 15,000 teachers, in over 90 countries around the world.
Elementary – Primary Years
For elementary education, we use both the International Primary Years Curriculum (IPC) from the International Curriculum Association (ICA) and the Base Nacional Curricular Comum (BNCC). By aligning these, we can provide our children with active, personal, and cultural learning experiences.
The classes operate from the inside out, meaning there is always a focus on transforming our environment for society. But how?
Through questions raised by the students and their interests, a project is born. In this way, learning becomes more meaningful as they feel heard and connected to the topics being studied. This enables them to analyze the challenges presented more critically and to create solutions for them.
An approach through experiences that connect our children with their individual skills helps transform not only the school community but the world!
