At Garden House Nursery Schools we follow the Reggio Emilia philosophy to children’s’ learning and education. This approach is embedded within our framework and allows us to address the children’s needs in more specific ways.
First, It is important to realise that the Reggio Emilia philosophy is simply that – a philosophy. Education centres that are guided by it are not ‘Reggio Emilia accredited’ as there is no formal process for this. The philosophy simply guides the decisions of teachers and parents in how they approach education. To understand it better, it’s important to know the three core principles of the Reggio Emilia philosophy: the child, the environment, and the teacher/parent.
The Reggio Emilia philosophy values the child as central to their own learning, not simply an empty vessel waiting to be filled with knowledge. Children are able to pursue their own interests and revisit and build upon ideas at their own pace.
You may have heard of something called the ‘100 languages of children’. This concept recognises that children have multiple ways of thinking, playing, exploring, speaking and doing. The Reggio Emilia approach encourages children to use every tool they have to express themselves.
A Reggio-inspired environment, often referred to as ‘the third teacher’, is one that is open and free-flowing. It enables uninterrupted exploration, play and learning. Outdoor spaces are valued just as highly as formal classrooms, and the design of the space should allow children to move freely between the two. In addition, it is important that children have free access to stimulating resources, as they cannot be the owner of their learning journey without this.Our Teachers are instrumental in creating and enabling this environment for the children, and take pride in the setting and their classrooms as an important tool in supporting children learn.
Teachers and parents are encouraged to observe children rather than to direct them. It is important that children are allowed to experiment in their own way, make mistakes and find new solutions. The role of the teacher/parent is to gently move students towards areas of interest to them, and this can only be done through careful observation carried out over time. In order to understand how to gently guide the children through their learning from interests, we observe and access against the following areas; schemas, characteristics of effective learning, early years learning goals, every child a talker, Ferre Laevers well-being and involvement scales.
With these in-depth assessments we are able to see where as a Teacher our attention and guidance should be concentrated for each individual child. This is also closely partnered with the child’s parents/carers as they too are an integral part of their daily learning.
Children in Reggio settings are active constructors of knowledge, who are encouraged to be ‘researchers’. Most of the educational experiences within Reggio take the form of projects, where children have opportunities to actively participate, explore and question things. There is also a very strong emphasis on the social development of children as part of the community and their relationships to other children, their families and teachers.
The Reggio approach starts from the premise that children use many different ways to express their creativity, understanding and thoughts (the 100 languages). This perspective has been endorsed by many artists, who state that these different ways of thinking, exploring and learning are expressed through drawing, sculpting, music, dance and movement, painting and drama.
Children are given learning projects that provide extensive research opportunities, including real-life problem solving among peers, and opportunities for creative thinking and exploration. The children are placed in small group settings with projects that they work on are observed by teachers and the children are allowed to question the topic of interest. Then they introduce materials, questions, and opportunities that provoke children to further explain the topic
