The nursery school “Curriculum” is at the centre of Saint Denis School’s Three Year Syllabus.
This Syllabus is based on the European key areas of knowledge for education in accordance with the Italian Ministry of Education’s 2012 Guidelines, law n. 107/2015. This refers to students’ personal, social, specific and general needs, and is based on pedagogic, psychologic and neuroscientific theories including of Piaget, Bruner, Montessori, Visalberghi, De Bartolomeis, Gardner and Goleman.
Saint Denis School’s Three Year Syllabus is available for viewing on the Ministry of Public Education’s website, under the heading “Scuola in Chiaro”.
The daily activities for pupils follow the guidelines indicated in the “areas of experience” indicated for nursery schools, and include:
awareness of the self and of others
the body in movement
expressive arts (images, sounds, colours)
communication and language
understanding and getting to know of the world
living things, objects and phenomena
numeracy and use of space
Teachers will individually make choices regarding learning contents, methods, organization and assessment. In particular, teachers will:
· focus on children, particularly in their first weeks of school, and how they relate to others and themselves, their speed and a learning rhythms, their interests, their ability to work autonomously and their receptivity to new knowledge
· meet periodically to discuss and evaluate the development of learning objectives and common teaching strategies
· collect each child’s work in a folder, showing their work output and the new skills and knowledge acquired throughout the year.
Lesson activities include:
- practical play activities in English (beginning from the first year of Nursery School)
- activities encouraging observation, description, listening and reproduction
- activities focussing on creativity, expression and the manual handling of materials
- musical activities
- free play and guided play-time
- body language*
- activities linked to national, international and religious holidays
- school trips and excursions to museums, shows etc.
- preschool activities (early literacy skills, early writing skills, numeracy and basic maths)
*Body language is one of various activities introduced to the children attending our nursery school. Children will learn about their bodies and the space around them, and gain new confidence in their motor skills. Using hoops, balls, cubes, ribbons and tubes while they walk, run, jump, crawl, roll and slide, children are able to experiment with their own bodies, developing control, coordination and spatial awareness. They will learn about body parts and how to control their movements in order to become more self-confident during physical contact with others, and making them more secure in their school environment.