Our Curriculum

Emergent curriculum is a way of teaching and planning curriculum in response to children's deep interests and enquiries, educators' research questions, carefully considered physical environments and the dynamics of social relationships. It is an approach to curriculum-building that can be developed at any stage of education, and prioritises active learning, independence, collaboration, long-term enquiries and creative expression.

Jones, E. and Nimmo, J. (1994) Emergent Curriculum, Washington: National Association for the Education of Young Children

The curriculum at Kaleide is not a set of external, specified, separate targets to be uniformly imposed upon the children, but a continuum of enquiry, experience, and interactions. We want to encourage a spirit of enthusiasm for learning, by helping the children to develop their academic competence within the whole context of their social, emotional and motor development.

Learning for us is a continuous, natural and lifelong process, taking place in a friendly, almost family, atmosphere in which adults and children of varying ages work, talk, make, tinker, think, cook, eat, dance, garden and play together.

At the centre of our approach are children's ideas and interests. Inspired by the “emergent· curriculum” developed within the Reggio Emilia approach, we begin working with any group of children by listening carefully to their motivations, and helping them to set learning goals for themselves. It is the construction of the child's identity, her values, her communication and learning competences that constitute the core of this pedagogy.

An emergent curriculum is not linear; it is organic, constantly growing and evolving, and following the wave-like pattern of learning. The curriculum, conceived in this way as a path or journey, is a voyage of discovery, a process of learning to learn through experimentation with many different contents and forms; learning to communicate with others through the use of many “languages”; and again “learning through reflection with others and self-reflection”, in a continuous and co-created process that resembles the evolving images created by a kaleidoscope.

Our curriculum emerges from a repeated cycle of offering spaces, materials and ideas for children to explore; listening to the many ways in which they engage with these; taking time as a group of educators to compare our observations, recognising subjectivity and comparing perspectives; reflecting on the ideas and connections that might be driving children's explorations; deciding how/when/where/with which materials we can deepen the children's enquiries; and making further observations.

This “emergent” curriculum can also be defined therefore as “contextual”, that is, determined by the dialogue among children, facilitators and the environment surrounding them. Its content can arise from a proposal by one or more children, from a proposal by the facilitators, from a natural event or from something found in the news. Topics for study are captured from the documented talk of children, through community or family events, as well as the known interests of children (puddles, animals, shadow and light, dinosaurs, etc.). Team documentation and project work are essential components of the curriculum.

Facilitators work together to formulate hypotheses about the possible directions of a project, the materials needed, and possible parent and/or community support and involvement.

As they pursue their choices and plans, children draw on their innate curiosity, ask and answer questions, solve problems, and interact with classmates and adults. In this kind of environment, children naturally engage in “key experiences” –activities that foster developmentally important skills and abilities. A central element of the day is the “design-make-review-share sequence”, in which children state an intention and make a plan (design), carry it out in the course of one or several days (make), and then reflect on what they have discovered and discuss it with facilitators and other children (review). Children can make their plans visible to everyone (share) on a collective or individual Kanban Board showing the progress of each learning plan, which serves to track intentions, ideas, work in progress and accomplishments.

Our child-centred emergent curriculum:

• is planned and implemented with a focus on children learning through play, social interactions and experiential activities;

• while framed by a facilitator, is child-initiated, allowing for collaborations, and giving everyone a voice;

• is based on children's needs, interests, strengths, understandings and capacity;

• incorporates the adult as a facilitator who encourages students to discover, dig deeper and construct further knowledge;

• is flexible in curriculum planning, constantly developing (versus planned well in advance), dynamic, and permits changes initiated by children and facilitators working together;

• reflects a range and variety of experiences to cater for children's needs, interests, and abilities;

• takes account of the need for children to pursue their own interests and play experiences;

• recognises the children's voice, captures the children's ideas and intentions, and recognises their learning strategies or learning goals;

• enables the children's and the teachers' thinking to be made visible through various forms of documentation (as a part of the process);

• is communicated appropriately to children, families and facilitators through written and verbal information;

• reflects the motivations and diversity of the children, and the expertise and passions of the facilitators;

• reflects the connections between children, families and communities and the importance of reciprocal relationships and partnerships for learning;

• values the cultural and social contexts of children and their families;

• provides environments, experiences and challenges which are matched to children's developing skills and interests;

• provides ample opportunities for choice and decision-making;

• enables children to initiate and direct their own play;

• consists of experiences that are mainly open-ended, enabling children to develop creativity and problem-solving skills;

• provides an environment which is structured to encourage positive social interactions amongst children, and amongst children and adults;

• uses many opportunities to develop autonomy and responsibility;

• is inclusive and responsive to diversity;

• builds on the constructivist theories of Dewey, Vygotsky, and Piaget, among others, and on the most recent findings in the field of neuroscience.