Infant education
SEK pays special attention to children in their early school years for two principle reasons: they undergo over half their intellectual development at this age and secondly, the foundations of their future personality are laid down.
According to the recent law on Quality in Education, Pre-school Education is defined as that which occurs up to three years of age and Child Education is that which occurs between the ages of 3 and 6.
The aim of Pre-school Education is to nurture of the early development of the child's intellectual, linguistic, affective, moral, social and psychomotor abilities.
The aim of Child Education is the consolidation of these abilities: understanding their own bodies, observing and exploring their social, natural and family environment, acquiring increasing autonomy, practising the basic social skills, developing communication skills, starting to read and write and starting to work with numbers.
SEK includes these considerations in its own unique educational system, which is enhanced by the following additional features:
- Overall activities in tune with the psychology of child development.
- Care for the child's development and feelings.
- The modification of equipment, spaces, furnishings and surroundings to the child's needs; creating a suitably equipped open-air environment.
- The support of the most advanced educational techniques and technologies. Progressive, playful and natural introduction to using the computer.
The following activities make up the core of our Child Education programme:
Early Education
The majority of abilities develop at these ages, together with an interest in discovering, learning and knowing.
The features of our Early Education Programme are as follows:
- taking advantage of the "sensitive periods" when the maturing brain is ready to acquire knowledge.
- appropriate stimulation to enhance processing and receiving of information.
- presentation of appropriate "bits of information" and "bits of learning".
- performing cycles of psychomotor activity that stimulate language development.
- introducing the properties of objects and the relationships between them.
- listening to music and the use of specialist learning areas.
- play activities in English.
- "discovery" walks.
- the play library.
- and above all, play as the cornerstone to all the child's activities.
Bilingual Programme
At this age, children has a natural tendency to assimilate language and at SEK they follow an active bilingual programme for half the school day. In this way they lay down the basic foundations for learning English.
Mind-Brain Coordination and Early Sports. Swimming
Mind-brain coordination assists the coordination of all the parts of the body, promoting volitional and intentional activity appropriate to the stage of the child's neurological and physical development.
Participation in some sports, especially swimming, is an important method of strengthening mind-brain coordination.
Artistic activities and the Development of Creativity
The child is a natural artist. Their magical and symbolic way of thinking makes them into marvellous story-tellers.
This is the best moment in which to teach artistic appreciation including the respect towards one's own creative works and those of others, promote creativity and the expression of perceptions and feelings.