INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Play Time
Dr. Roger Fry Interview
Castle Trip to Villena and Biar
The British School of Alicante Monthly Update
Newsletter PRIMARY Play Time The first few years in a child's life establish the foundations for the creative, social and language skills that we depend on as adults. Through a mixture of play, group activity and free exploration, young children learn about the world around them. As children grow physically and mentally they start to make important connections between different objects, people and various kinds of social interaction. At King's College Alicante we take play very seriously. We work hard to structure play in a way that encourages and nurtures the development of perception, reason and logical thinking at the same time as being great fun. Learning from first hand experience ensures all our pupils make progress towards the next levels of social, linguistic and creative development. Play is programmed into all the plans that we make; from the school's top-level ethos and strategic objectives; right down to individual lesson plans designed for small groups of children and even specify the individuals within these groups. Structured play forms a central part of the school day but it is also important to allow enough flexibility and freedom so as to encourage the development of selfconfidence and individual interests through personal exploration and discovery. If you look closely at what your child is doing you will see that some activities are closely controlled by the teachers, others are more free-form. This mixture of different types of play happens inside and outside the classroom. The new early years play house has proved a great asset for this type of creative role play and exploration.
INFO BOX Role play areas encourage children to use and practice their languages when they speak and listen to each other. Teachers monitor how the children respond to role play and help the children focus on particular language structures or vocabulary.
NUMBER 10 OCTOBER 2009
Message from the Head of Primary Welcome to the October issued of the Primary Newsletter. This month we are focusing on the Early Years Department as well as some of the results of our "Learning Journeys" which give a conceptual framework which help widen the children's horizons and stimulate learning. The work on Castles and "Super Heroes" are examples of this approach. We also include an interview with Dr. Roger Fry, the Chairman of King's Group who founded King's College in Madrid 40 years ago. I was very happy to see that he mentions his visit to Early Years as one of the highlights of his visit to the school.
Fiona Thomas Head of Primary