Kindergarten
The Kindergarten was inaugurated in 1988 with the recognition of experts in education from Argentina and Britain regarding the theories and concepts that support the excellence of teaching and the broadness and quality of the didactic resources. The Kindergarten offers a comprehensive education that allows a natural flow with the following academic levels at St George’s College.
Goals
All the aspects related to a child’s early development are stimulated through games and a large variety of different types of proposals. A special emphasis is laid on the encouragement of children’s emotional, psychomotor and intellectual development, fostering their curiosity and independent thinking as well as the awakening of their moral and aesthetic awareness.
Not only do children become more confident in the use of their mother tongue but they also start to communicate in English.
Children develop their individual talents and interests through games and in a happy environment.
All Children, All Succeeding.
Facilities
The Kindergarten is located in a beautiful site of 2 hectares of green fields surrounded by old trees. It has a vegetable garden and a small farm, which provide an environment for the children to experience a direct contact with nature, stimulating their interest and responsibility in the taking care of animals and plants. Facilities are designed to emphasize safety and to encourage learning through play. Gross motor skills are developed through outdoor activities with swings, slides, climbing bars, play barrels, logs and tunnels. Breaks, pre-sport activities and physical education classes, organized games and many other curricular activities take place in this ample open space.
The school curriculum is carried out by two specialized bilingual teachers (English and Spanish) working together in the classroom. The children get naturally acquainted with the English language through games, dramatizations, stories, songs and rhymes. The teachers provide a model of language use by exposing them to simple and concrete input. The classroom environment is pleasant and quiet, encouraging the children to feel stimulated and confident to listen and answer in English.
There are gap students from Great Britain, Australia and South Africa who spend some weekly hours with the children, joining them in corners’ time and other activities. This provides a rich oral input which allows the children not only to get used to different English accents but also to know different cultures.
The Kindergarten offers a personalized education, where tasks are graduated according to the children’s skills and each child’s maturity process is highly valued.
The curriculum spans Personal and Social Education (PSE), Natural and Social Sciences, Mathematics, Oral and Written Language, Literature, Art and Physical Education (PE). Our school project aims to integrate knowledge, so that children are able to apply what they have acquired in different situations. They learn important concepts through units of enquiry carefully developed throughout the year. These units are designed to build knowledge on the basis of what the children already know.
This way, children learn in a safe and stimulating environment that invites them to enquire by means of experimenting, observing, asking questions and reaching conclusions, as well as manipulating different materials.
In the Kindergarten the activities start at 8:15am and end at 3:00pm.
Children take part in activities led by specialized teachers, such as physical education, swimming, visits to our farm, outdoor play, climbing wall, gardening, music and art. They also have snack and resting times.
In our everyday routine we stimulate the usage of technology as a learning tool by using our devices in many different lessons. We have a smart table, smart boards and ipad sets.
Once a week, they can choose among a variety of workshops: carpentry, sewing, stories, cooking, games, design, masks, farm, art and modeling, puppets, thread and beads and ecology.
Two times a week we offer optional after school activities for 5 year olds. These take place from 3:00 to 4:00pm and consist of music, outdoor games and an introduction to formal sports.