Attachment Kindergarten — Ursus Warszawa
SMALL GROUPS
We are a small preschool with an individual approach to each child. There are only two groups in our preschool. Each group is numbering for maximum 14 – 15 children. The younger group is intended for 3 and 4 year olds children and the older group is intended for 5 and 6 year olds children.
In each group children are take care by at least two teachers including one Native English-Speaker. Thanks to this solution all children in our preschool have contact with a foreign language (English) during the all day-stay.
Working in a such small group also allows our teachers and psychologists to listen carefully (empathetic communication) and build a really close relationships with each child. All teachers have also a non-directive approach to teaching which means in practise an approach that follows the children. The main role of teacher in our preschool is to stimulate children’s natural interests and to help them to overcome the possible developmental difficulties.
By assuming the role of an observer our teachers give children the opportunity to develop their own distinctiveness and independence – at the time appropriate for each child. In our opinion independence is a very important developmental-need of every child. Children naturally strive to perform many everyday activities on their own.
On the other hand children learn best through their own actions and experience (known also as a multisensory impressions or polysensory perception). Moreover the multisensory stimulation (which means stimulation of many senses at the same time) causes the creation of a new connections between the nerve cells. And the more such a new neuronal-connections in the brain, the more attentive and perceptive the child becomes and (what’s even more important) the better is his or her future academic achievements. These processes have their neurophysiological basis at the level of cerebral cortex and subcortical centres.
Therefore in our preschool, teachers try to use as many multisensory educational-aids as possible – educational-aids that simultaneously engage more than just one of the child’s senses as for instance: sight and hearing vs. sight and touch vs. hearing and touch.
We invite also to see some of our sample multisensory educational-aids in the tab:
ATTACHMENT PARENTING
In our preschool we do not use a behavioural (ABA) system of penalties and rewards. All children in our preschool have the obvious right to experience all their emotions – including the negative ones such as anger or sadness. We support children in their everyday emotions all the time.
We are also trying to ensure that our preschool is always a place full of empathy and the mutual-respect. Therefore we are very close to the main ideas of the empathetic communication (NVC: Non Violent Communication) according to Marshall B. Rosenberg + 8 basic principles based of Attachment Parenting according to Willam and Martha Sears, as well as selected ideas from Maria Montessori’s pedagogy like for example: orderly and minimalist space + selection of toys and the teaching-aids increasing the autonomy of each child + learning through the sensory experience + giving children the obvious right to experience all emotions without trying to assessment them by adults + positive discipline and finally the empathy / respect and mutual understanding.
We are always trying to give all children time and space for all their emotions – but always with respecting other people’s emotions at the same time. We constantly encourage all children to build a mutual relationships based on a friendship (LEAP: Learning and Playing with Peers according to the SCERTS Model). As an highly inclusive preschool we never exclude anyone because of (for example): their gender, their skin colour, disability or ethnicity. We treat everyone with empathy and mutual-respect and we try to teach our students the same every time.
We also try every single day to build a high self-esteem in our children – but always maintaining the right balance between being attentive to their own needs versus being attentive to the needs of other people / other children (NVC: empathic communication).
For this purpose we start each day with a morning-circle activities during which all children have the safe space to tell us about their feelings (emotions). These classes are a permanent element of the everyday DALTON PLAN in our preschool and are always conducted both in Polish and English. During this everyday morning circle-classes and during other everyday preschool-activities we work really hard to ensure that all children in our preschool feel important members of their peer group (LEAP) as well.
The main principles of our activities:
SOCIAL COMMUNICATION
- LANGUAGE IMMERSION
- EMPATHY & LEAP
- ATTACHMENT PARENTING
EMOTIONAL REGULATION
- SENSORY INTEGRATION
- SOCIAL SKILLS TRAININGS
- HEALTHY COUSINE
TRANSACTIONAL SUPPORT
- SMALL GROUPS
- MONTESSORI METHODS
- PRIVATE PLAYGROUND