Welcome to our Early Years Program, an innovative Reggio-inspired International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Program (PYP) where we emphasise the power of learning through play. Where your child will be provided with opportunities to explore and discover their world.
“We don’t just educate; we nurture curiosity, creativity, and lifelong learners”
Inspiring Curiosity and Inspiration
Our Primary Years Programme (PYP), in the Early Years, sparks and fosters a sense of curiosity and exploration in each child. This learning approach encourages students to ask questions, seek answers, diving deep into conceptual understanding. Many hands-on projects are waiting for your child to be discovered, keeping them engaged and motivated while making learning a fun and exciting adventure. It’s not just about acquiring knowledge; it’s about unlocking the joy of discovery
Play is the way your child develops their understanding about the world. As children are provided with opportunities to play they are:
- trying new ideas,
- finding out about things,
- reinforcing knowledge and skills,
- thinking imaginatively,
- exploring their feelings and learning to control their emotions and
- taking risks.
Reggio-Inspired PYP
The Early Years (for children aged 3 to 6 years old) is grounded in the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program (IBPYP) and takes inspiration from the Reggio Emilia approach. Its embodying principles are centred on respect, responsibility, and community. It encourages organic exploration and experiential learning, fostering a child's natural curiosity and drive for understanding.
Under this holistic framework, the environment is recognised as the 'third teacher', providing enriching opportunities for interactive collaborative learning. By promoting a student-led approach, where questions, investigations, and discussions drive the learning process, the Reggio-inspired PYP program encourages children to cultivate their unique perspectives and develop independent thinking skills and empowers children to take action.
How do we support play at ISL Qatar?
Through our interactions - There is a vital connection between interactions and learning. Teachers play a key role in developing and supporting children’s thinking, reasoning and communication. We do this through:
- our discussions with children,
- questions posed to our students,
- encouragement of the ideas and feelings of each individual as well as
- the integration of the thoughts and opinions of every student into our planning.
Through the use of our environments - Learning is impacted by how the space, equipment and materials are arranged. We believe in using our environments as the third educator as it has the potential to spark and sustain learning as well as foster healthy relationships. We purposefully arrange the learning spaces and organize the materials to stimulate and engage children into deeper and more complex types of play. Our environments provoke our students to initiate questions, emotions, ideas and questions.
Through home-school connections - We believe in the importance of family commitment and active involvement in children’s learning. Positive relationships between families-teachers-children are developed through our open communication and sharing of the learning journey.
Project Work
A process of learning through projects that follow the inquiry cycle. This process has a few distinct features:
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Holistic Approach: Children learn through working together and using their creativity, mostly through play.
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Symbolic Representations: Children express themselves through the 100 languages, meaning they have access to multiple mediums of expression that encourage their cognitive learning. This could be through drawing, building blocks, modelling and more.
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Guided Exploration: Children explore themes and events relevant to them under the teacher’s guidance.
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Long-term Perspective: Some projects may last up to several months, making way for deeper inquiry, where children build meaningful connections.
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Multi-modal Learning: Project work encourages multi-dimensional and multichannel interactions with the environment.
Multilingual Mother Tongue Program
Starting in EC2 (4-5 years) your child will have the choice of either receiving their home-language (12 languages currently offered) or Spanish/French/Arabic acquisition, in addition to the English as the main language of instruction.
The 'Atelier'
This is a term that originates from the French language and is commonly associated with a place of artistic creation and collaboration. In the Early Years, our students visit the ‘atelier’ to work with our ‘atelierista’ in a space that is full of materials, mediums and tools that allows students to further their inquiries, explore new ideas, and express themselves. In the ‘atelier’, they might use art, music, graphic design, coding, or tinkering, among other things, to illustrate their learning.
The ‘atelierista’ is a professional with unique expertise who supports their atelier and collaborates with other teachers to provide an environment and materials for students to continue their inquiry into certain topics. For example, a musician in the Music atelier; an industrial designer in the Design Tech atelier; an artist in the Art atelier and environmentalist in the Garden atelier. They work with homeroom and subject teachers to assist them in designing projects that will facilitate connections between the concepts they are inquiring into in the classrooms.