At Dover Court International School, our Reggio-inspired approach to Early Years supports children’s development holistically through child-initiated learning. Our amazing teachers create an environment that inspires meaningful encounters, creative explorations, and independent risk-taking allowing students to connect with, discover and build deeper understandings of our dynamic world.
“These spinning lines on your finger make you, you. And also me, me!” - Beau, RAE
At Dover Court International School, our Reggio-inspired approach to Early Years supports children’s development holistically through child-initiated learning. Our amazing teachers create an environment that inspires meaningful encounters, creative explorations, and independent risk-taking allowing students to connect with, discover and build deeper understandings of our dynamic world.
A child-initiated curriculum blossoms from an initial knowledge harvest phase. It is here where the children and teacher work together to share ideas and thoughts about the upcoming topic. This term our Reception classes focused on Identity. Identity might seem like a very abstract concept for four-year-olds, but by allowing the children to take the lead some exciting ideas unfolded.
One group of clever students explored the idea that identity is what we stand on: our feet and legs. This prompted the children to start measuring and drawing legs. They were all very excited to see how long their legs were compared to their teacher's. The idea that your identity can be seen was discussed when one student suggested that your shadow is part of the identity. Is your shadow you? Can you say that your shadow is what makes you unique? Following the shadow discussion, the children went on to create shadow figures. Some of these figures looked a bit scary!
The scary figures sparked yet another discussion - are feelings part of our identity? How do things around us make us feel? One child suggested that feelings might be linked to different colours. The class agreed that some colours make us happy and other colours make us sad, or even scared. When one child started singing “Brown is scared”, the rest of the class joined in and soon our music teacher Mr Chambers was invited and a fantastic song about feelings was created.
To celebrate their learning, the class invited the other Reception classes, along with school staff to watch their Feeling Show and to listen to their very own Feeling Song, which you can watch here!
By allowing the children to explore and take the lead, the students learned not only an abstract concept, but it also allowed them to develop skills within maths, English, art, science, and music – all whilst having fun!
