THE CURRICULUM
Beaumont Community Pre-School is committed to offering the children in its care a comprehensive play/based curriculum. Beaumont Pre-school offers a range of learning opportunities to children, which are appropriate to the child's stage of development.  The educational philosophy we use is a combination of the High/Scope Curriculum and Aistear The Early Childhood Curriculum Framework. Using this combination ensures your child will benefit from well-rounded learning with a view to developing connections with others, exploration of their environment, as well as emotional and physical development.
Beaumont Community Pre-school is one of the first pre-schools in the country to have Early Years Education-focused inspection conducted by the Department of Education and Skills and published on the 30/06/2016.  It was a very positive experience or us, and the report recognizes and affirms the high quality educational experiences we provide  to children through play in our early years setting. 

What the children learn
Amongst the many things your child will learn through developmentally appropriate materials, activities and interactions are colours, days of the week, months of the year, seasons, the weather, language, literacy, and mathematical learning opportunities.  We also give children a strong foundation of the Irish language through music and discussion. They will also learn to sing songs as a group, listening, taking turns, sharing with others and the skills to problem-solve.

High/Scope Curriculum

Young children do not truly learn through the process of adults simply giving them information. A process called  Active Learning allows them to build and construct their knowledge of the world by discovering through direct experience with people, ideas, objects and events.

Your child can follow their own interests while being actively supported and challenged by the staff at Beaumont Community Pre-school, who are as active and involved as the children. Thoughtfully providing materials, planning activities and talking with your child enables them to both support and challenge what your child is experiencing and thinking.

The materials supplied to the children are interesting and readily available, materials such as sand, water, play dough and paints are appealing to all the senses and allow your child to expand their experiences and stimulate their thoughts. Children enjoy handling, examining, combining and transforming materials and ideas, enabling them to make discoveries through hands-on and “minds-on” contact with these materials.

Your child will have a choice of materials and play partners, allowing them to change and build on their play ideas, as well as allowing them to take part in the activities that meet their needs or awaken their interests.

By describing what they are doing and understanding, your child can learn to communicate verbally and non-verbally as they think about their actions and modify their thinking to take new learning into account.

Through the staff at Beaumont Community Preschool, your child’s current level of thinking will be encouraged, supported and challenged in order to help them to extend or build on their work by talking with them about what they are doing, joining in with play and helping them learn to solve problems that arise.

For more information High/Scope visit www.highscope.ie 

Aistear The Early Childhood Curriculum Framework

It is important for children to learn through loving, trusting and respectful relationships through discussion, exploration and play. At Beaumont Community Pre-school, your child will learn about languages and how and when to use them; they learn to think and to interact with others and the environment. They learn to be creative and adventurous, to develop working theories about their world, and to make decisions about themselves as learners.

Aistear is based on 12 principles of early learning and development, which are presented in three groups:

1.           The first group concerns children and their lives in early childhood:

• The child’s uniqueness
• Equality and diversity
• Children as citizens

2.           The second group concerns children’s connections with others:

• Relationships
• Parents, family and community
• The adult’s role

3.           The third group concerns how children learn and develop:

• Holistic learning and development
• Active learning
• Play and hands-on experiences
• Relevant and meaningful experiences
• Communication and language
• The learning environment

For more information on Aistear visit www.ncca.biz/Aistear