Approach
Important Practices
Click a heading, below, to see more information.
We start every morning with Movement Circle. The children and
teachers come together to practice a series of slow continuous exercises
based on some of the principles of Tai Chi and Energy balancing. These
help the children to become focused, improving co-ordination and
preparing everyone for the day's activities.
After lunch every day the whole school lies down for Quiet Time. We
are all still and silent, either listening to music or doing a simple
meditation. This gives the children an important pause after playtime to
focus and reenergise for the afternoon's activities. When our Alexander
Teacher is at school she works on the children at this time with the
help of two or three of the older children.
Our concern is always with the holistic and balanced development of
our children. Evidence shows that what we drink and eat affects brain
and body function as well as the way we learn and behave. At Educare, we
want children to be able to make their own choices about what they eat
and drink with an understanding of which choices are the best for them
and why.
Each child keeps a named water bottle at school and is encouraged to
drink frequently through the day to keep their brains and bodies
hydrated. In addition, without being prescriptive, we feel we should
influence what children bring to school in their lunch boxes. We have
the following expectations for children's lunches and we hope that
parents will support us:
A balanced lunch meal with fruit and vegetables.
A minimum of processed food.
Attention to additives, hidden sugars, fats and especially artificial sweeteners.
A reasonable amount of food which children will eat with enjoyment.
That any drinks apart from water are natural juices and not sweetened drinks.
That only fruit or vegetable is provided as a mid morning or afternoon snack.
Creative arts have a special emphasis at Educare because they allow
our children to release and express themselves and to learn and practise
skills which they need in their daily lives. We dedicate equal time
during the week to art, music and drama and every year we choose one
area to celebrate and bring in a specialist to work with the children
for our OASIS Day.
Friday is 'music day'. The morning is taken up by individual piano
lessons and group-work with recorders. In the instrumental lessons the
priorities are developing the children's ability to express themselves
through their music making, both in free-style improvising and composing
and formal skills such as reading musical notation and finger-exercises
to develop technique. The afternoon consists of class practical musical
lessons. The Kindergarten lessons are taken up by singing songs, to
develop pitch, rhythm and social music-making, music and movement,
expressing musical elements physically, and rudimentary notational
skills. For this, Sally bases her teaching on the Kodaly system. The
older children carry on developing these skills in their lessons and
perform regularly in the summer music concert, Harvest circle and
Christmas concert.
It is crucial for Kindergarten children to experience the wider world. We do a number of field trips over the school year and these support learning when doing the topic work. Recently, the Kindergarten have been to: Kingston Fire Station, Sainsburys, Jamie's Italian, Bocketts Farm, Isabella Plantation, Garsons Farm, Allotment (Parkfield), Kingston Museum and Local Parks. For the Hall children the visits give access to resources and exhibitions and further learning around the topic. Actual experience is the easiest and quickest way for children to gain knowledge. Travel from Kingston station and small groups make it easy to go whenever. The Hall children have recently been to: Polka Theatre, Unicorn Theatre, Rose Theatre, Natural History Museum, Royal Albert Hall, Victoria & Albert Museum, Science Museum, Houses of Parliament, Kingston Library and Museum, Buddhist Temple, Bentalls Centre and St Luke's Church.
Forest School provides children with the opportunity to play and learn in an outdoor setting. It caters to a range of learning styles and is a flexible and adaptable approach to learning where children learn the important skills of independence, self-esteem, teamwork and problem solving. At Forest School the children are given the freedom to explore using all of their senses. It is a natural, safe environment where they can assess risk and engage in cross-curricular, educational activities.
All Educare children attend Forest School through Tree House Learning. The Butterflies & Dolphins go every Tuesday morning and then Starfish and Kindergarten on a Tuesday afternoon.
