Swallows and Amazons Early Learning Centre

Swallows and Amazons Early Learning Centre is dedicated to providing a range of diverse and creative learning opportunities within a happy, safe and welcoming environment. We believe that Parents are a child’s first teachers, and that children are most successful at school when there is a strong partnership between home and school. We look forward to developing and continuing this strong home-school bond with you over the next few years.

Play and children’s predisposition to wonder lead logically into an inquiry-based approach to learning, where academic understanding develop hand in hand with a full range of social, emotional, creative and physical skills. Through purposeful play, we aim to provide sound educational foundations for learning and emotional health. We believe that by developing appropriate skills, attitudes, values and behaviours, we will prepare children to become well-rounded citizens and lifelong learners.

Our Goals are:

• To build on a child’s innate sense of wonder and awe.
• Keeping learning fun.
• To create confident, independent learners who derive satisfaction from their learning experiences and a feeling of success.
• To make the SAA ELC experience happy, caring and safe.

In developing the pedagogy at Swallows and Amazons, we looked at it from the parents’ perspective as well as from an educator’s viewpoint. We are an inclusive school. We nurture the Habits of the Mind approach to creating our early learning environments. Through the structure of the classroom and the day, our early childhood educators promote strategic reasoning, insightfulness, perseverance, creativity and craftsmanship through the 16 habits of the mind. These life skills are that of persistence; listening with understanding and empathy; managing impulsivity; thinking flexibly; thinking about thinking; striving for accuracy; questioning and posing problems; applying past knowledge to new situations; thinking and communicating with clarity and precision; gathering data through all senses; creating, imagining, and innovating; responding with wonderment and awe; taking responsible risks; finding humour; thinking independently; and remaining open to continuous learning.

Offering an early childhood education that focuses on the children’s EQ and their multiple intelligences (in other words, different children learn in different ways). EQ describes an ability, capacity, or skill to perceive, assess, and manage the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups. In other words, it is the ability to be able to understand the intentions, motivations and desires of other people as well as oneself.

Old fashioned values of respect of your elders and each other, as well as good manners, are reinforced at Swallows and Amazons™. Children have fun exploring and practising new things, but they also have fun tidying up afterwards and clearing their lunch plates away too.

Learning habits acquired in a child’s early years persist into later life. Successful adults tend to be lifelong learners, but this habit of inquiry and love of learning depends on an education that rewards exploration and questioning. In creating a developmental childhood educational programme, we are laying the foundation for all learning that is to come thereafter.