ABS Curriculum inspired by he Education National curriculum in France.

We have created a teaching plan and developed an outline for our yearly curriculum. Planning ahead ensures that we are meeting the educational standards and common core curriculum initiatives.  In order to recognize and address the needs and development of their children, Parents are invited to read this document to promote greater partnerships with the school as well as the teachers. ABS also invites you to participate in all the school year’s different events organized with your support. These events strengthen our community.

Introduction to a French Curriculum

Preschool: fundamental to the success of all preschoolers!  

he Preschool Curriculum (le Programme de L’Education Nationale) creates a single cycle and stresses its fundamental role as a first step to ensure the success of all students within a school just for all and equal for everyone. Preschool, although not mandatory, establishes educational and pedagogical foundations on which support  and develop the future learnings of our students for the entire time of schooling. 

A preschool's  main mission is to inspire children to go to school to learn, affirm and develop their personality. It is based on the fundamental principle that all children are able to learn and progress.  Building Self-confidence in their ability to learn and succeed in school,  and beyond... is presented to each student.

The Preschool Curriculum is defined in 3 characteristics:

• A school adapted for young children;

• A school that organizes specific learning modalities

• A school where the children will learn and live together.

A SCHOOL THAT FITS  YOUNG CHILDREN

Family, community, and travel has already helped "the not yet"  Preschooler develop skills and lessons that will be broadened in Preschool. Family, community, and travel  have introduced expertise, knowledge and representations of the world.

A school that welcomes children and their parents

From the child’s home to school, regular and constructive dialogue established between teachers and parents; it requires mutual trust and information. For this, the teaching team defines the terms of relationships with parents, the concern for the well-being and the first successful schooling for children  and paying attention to the diversity of families. These relationships allow parents to understand the operation and specificities of Preschool (the place of language, the role of play, the importance of physical and artistic activities…).

The experience of separation between the child and his family requires the attention of all teaching staff, especially during the first year of schooling. The morning reception in the classroom is a good tool to secure the child. The teacher recognizes each each child as a person and become a full partner, whatever his age.

A school that accompany transitions experienced by children

Preschool daily builds bridges between family and school, school time and extracurricular time. It also plays a pivotal role through the relationships it establishes with the institutions of early childhood and elementary school.

Teacher, assistants, and staff proactively communicate so that everyone in  a child's day (from drop off to pick up time) is aware of care and needs of each child.  

Preschool takes into account the child’s development

Over time, the progress of socialization, language, motor skills and cognitive abilities related to maturation as well as the stimulation of teaching situations are considerable and are realizable in very different rhythms according to the student himself.

Our teaching team landscapes school (classrooms, specialized rooms, outdoor spaces…) to provide children a world that stimulates their curiosity and meets their needs including gaming, movements, rest and discoveries and multiplies opportunities for sensory experiences, motor skills, relational, cognitive in the safer way.

Welcome time, free time, rest and nap time, cleaning time (clean up the class or bathroom, potty training and hand washing) are all part of our educational curriculum. 

A school that practices a positive evaluation.

ABS teachers and staff are attentive to student needs, as they are current in:

• Training

• Bi Annual Teacher In service Workshops

• Educator self-assessment/Administrators assessment

• Review of annual goals and performance plan

• ECE qualified 

Adapted to the specificities of the Preschool, the evaluation is implemented on terms defined within the school. Teachers make explicit the steps for parents, expected and evaluation procedures specific to the Preschool.

A SCHOOL THAT ORGANIZES SPECIFIC LEARNING MODALITIES

Within each Preschool in France, teachers work as a team to define a progressivity of teachings through 2 to 6 years old. They build common tools and resources in order to make their students to live this progressivity. They build a common directory practices, objects and materials (teaching materials, toys, books, games) to offer over the preschool a choice of situations and cultural worlds both varied and consistent.

The teacher presents a variety of learning situations: playing, problem solving, training, memory game, etc. and she chooses them according to the needs of the class group,  as well the needs of each child.  Teacher observation is a very important for younger students. Teachers encourage interaction between children  and creates the conditions for shared attention, taking into account the perspective of the other for insertion into a learning community. Teachers develop the ability to interact through  age appropriate projects. Digital media, like other media, have a place at the preschool provided the goals and modalities of used as a tool.  Students learn to express themselves and to reinforce their self-confidence through art, sports, dance, music, cooking, gardening. As stated above and in the paragraph 1.3, all of these activities are opportunities to learn, to establish self-esteem, independence and challenges students on a daily bases.

 Important in our ABS Curriculum: Learning through play

Play promotes the richness of the experiences of children in all classes of preschool and feeds all areas of learning. It allows children to exercise their autonomy to act on reality; fictions build and develop their imagination, to exercise motor behavior, to experiment with various rules and social roles. It promotes communication with others and building strong friendships. It takes various forms: symbolics games, exploration games, building games, etc. The teacher gives all children sufficient time to deploy their game. She observes them in their free play to know them better. She also provides structured play explicitly targeting specific learning.

A school where the children will learn and live together.

“Apprendre ensemble et vivre ensemble”=”Learning together and live together”. The class and the group are a learning community that lays the foundation for building a citizenship,  respectful of rules and open to the plurality of cultures in the world. It is in this context that the child gradually  will become student. Children learn to identify different adult roles, the function of the different spaces in the classroom, in school, and the rules associated with it. They are consulted on certain decisions concerning them and thus discover the foundations of collective debate. Preschool ensures a first acquisition of the principles of life in society. The reception and schooling of disabled children participate in this challenge for these children themselves and contribute to developing a positive outlook for all the differences. All adults ensure that all children in all circumstances treated fairly. Kindergarten builds awareness of equality, especially between girls and boys.

Important in our ABS Curriculum: A child as an individual

To build yourself as a singular person is to discover the role of the group in its own paths; participate in joint projects, learn to cooperate. It is gradually share tasks and take initiatives and responsibilities within the group. By participating, the child acquires a taste for group activities, takes pleasure to exchange and confront their point of view to that of others. The child learns the rules of communication and exchange. The teacher has the desire to guide the collective reflection for everyone to expand his own way of seeing or thinking. Thus, the child has a place in the group, is recognized as a whole person and the role of other experiences in the construction of learning.

First, collective rules are given and justified by the teacher which means the child’s rights (expression, play, learn, make mistakes, be helped and protected…) and obligations in the school community (taking turns, sharing objects, store, respect the material..). Their ownership is through the repetition of ritual activities and a first reflection on their application. Gradually, the children are taken to participate in a collective elaboration of rules of life adapted to the local environment.

Through the concrete situations of the class of life, a first sensibility to moral experiences (empathy, expression of the just and unjust, questioning stereotypes …) is built. Read the stories, tales and sketches contribute; the staging of diverse fictional characters arouses identification possibilities and at the same time ensures sufficient distancing. Over the preschool, the teacher develops children’s ability to identify, verbally express their emotions and feelings. He is attentive to all to develop their self-esteem, help and share with others.

The new preschool program organizes lessons into five learning areas.

The lessons are organized in the 5 domains of learning:

• Mobilizing the language in all its dimensions;

• Acting, speak, understand through physical activity;

• Acting, speak, understand through the arts,

• Building the first tools to structure their thoughts;

• Exploring the world.

Each of these five areas is essential to the development of the child and must find its place in the organization of daily schedule.

Stimulation and structure of oral language on the one hand, the gradual entry into the written culture on the other, are priorities of the Preschool and cover all areas.

The areas “Acting, speak, understand through physical activity”; “Acting, speak, understand through the arts” used to develop interaction between the action, feelings, imagination, sensibility and thought.

The area “Building the first tools to structure his thoughts” and “Explore the World” will focus on developing an initial understanding of the environment of children and spark their questioning. Based on initial knowledge related to their stories, Preschool sets up a course that allows them to order the world around them, access to the usual representations and knowledge that elementary school will enrich.

The program establishes for each learning area, a general definition, sets out the objectives and provides guidance in instructional likely to provide benchmarks to organize escalation learning.

1. Mobilize language in all its dimensions

The primordial place of language in preschool is reaffirmed as an essential condition for the success of all. The stimulation and structuring of oral language on the one hand, and the gradual entry into the written culture on the other hand, are priorities at ABS French Preschool and concern all areas of learning.

2. Act, express yourself, understand through physical activity

The practice of physical and artistic activities contributes to the motor, sensory, emotional, intellectual and relational development of children. These activities mobilize and enrich the imagination and are an opportunity to experience emotions, new sensations. They allow children:

- to explore their physical possibilities

- to develop their motor skills and their balance

- to be better in space and time

-to apprehend the image of their own body.

They also aim to develop cooperation and constructive relations with each other, while respecting differences, and thus contribute to socialization.

The participation of all children in all the physical activities proposed, the organization and the steps taken aim at fighting stereotypes and contributing to the construction of equality between girls and boys.

Physical activities are part of a health education by leading all children, whatever their "performance", to experience the pleasure of movement and effort, to know their body better to respect it.

3. Act, express yourself, understand through artistic activities

This field of learning refers to the visual arts (painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, film, comics, graphic arts, digital arts), the arts of sound (songs, instrumental and vocal music) and the performing arts. (dance, theater, circus arts, puppets, etc.). ABS French Preschool plays a decisive role for the access of all children to these artistic worlds; it is the first step in the artistic and cultural education that everyone accomplishes during their elementary and secondary schooling and which aims at the acquisition of a personal artistic culture, based on common points of reference.

Build the first tools to structure your thinking - Discover the numbers and their uses

Since their birth, children have an intuition of magnitudes that allows them to compare and evaluate approximate lengths, volumes, but also the collections of various objects ("there are many", "not much" ...).

On their arrival at ABS French Preschool, they distinguish small quantities (one, two and three) including known forms (dominoes, dice). If they can enunciate the beginnings of the digital sequel, this recitation does not translate a true understanding of quantities and numbers.

The nursery school must progressively lead the child to understand that the numbers allow both to express quantities and a rank or a positioning in a list. This learning takes time and confrontation with many situations involving pre-digital and digital activities.

Explore shapes, sizes, organized sequences

Very early, young children intuitively discern shapes (square, triangle ...) and magnitudes (length, capacity, mass, area ...).

In Preschool, they acquire knowledge and benchmarks on some shapes and sizes. The approach of plane shapes, objects of space, magnitudes, is done by the manipulation and coordination of actions on objects.

This approach is supported by language: it makes it possible to describe these objects and these actions and favors the identification of first descriptive characteristics. This limited knowledge is a first approach to geometry and measurement that will be taught in progression in group class of our preschool.

5. Explore the world - Identify yourself in time and space

From birth, through exploration, children intuitively perceive certain spatial and temporal dimensions of their immediate environment.

These perceptions allow them to acquire, within their living environments, a first set of benchmarks, to develop expectations and memories. This knowledge, however, remains implicit and limited.

One of the aims of the nursery school is to gradually bring them to consider time and space as relatively independent dimensions of current activities, and to start treating them as such. It also seeks to get them to gradually overcome their own point of view and to adopt that of others.

When they enter kindergarten, children already have representations that allow them to take their bearings in their daily lives.

To help them discover, organize and understand the world around them, the teacher offers activities that lead children to observe, formulate more rational questions, build relationships between observed phenomena, predict consequences, identify characteristics that are likely to occur. to be categorized. Children begin to understand what distinguishes the living from the non-living; they manipulate, fabricate to become familiar with objects and matter.

Sport activities at ABS French Preschool - Act and express yourself with your body

ABS French Preschool  gives to our students the opportunity to build the essential motor actions: move, balance and manipulate objects, project them or receive them. The games of the little ones are the first manifestations. The teacher leads the child from the simple pleasure of acting to desired and organized actions, gradually more elaborate and articulated between them.

1. ABS French Preschool promotes sports practice

Sport activities help to promote respect for the ethics and educational and humanistic values f sport. It plays a key role in young people's access to sport and gives meaning to "living together" and learning associative life. He participates fully in the health and preservation of the physical integrity of the students.

2. ABS French Preschool sport activities

It is at this period of childhood that the basic motor repertoire is elaborated composed of fundamental actions:

- trips (walking, running, jumping)

- balances (stand on one foot)

- manipulations (grab, pull, push)

- throwing, receiving objects.

ABS offers the child the opportunity to broaden the scope of his experiences in environments and spaces that help him to know himself better and to develop his physical abilities, which encourage him to adjust and diversify his actions, which offer him a palette of sensations and varied emotions, give him the pleasure to evolve and play within a group.

The child also learns to share with his comrades moments of collective games, games and singing. All these skills are built through the practice of physical activities that help to orient children's efforts and give them meaning: "jumping as far as possible" (athletic activities) is different from "jumping from a machine to fall back on his feet "(gymnastics activities).

These experiences lead our students to express and communicate the impressions and emotions felt.