We strive to create a positive and engaging learning environment, where children learn through play. We promote a connection to nature and make use of the outdoor spaces’ potential to engage children’s imagination, curiosity, and creativity and to foster their health and well-being. We encourage children to understand and value their role in the community, and in the world, and to develop a sense of responsibility and respect for all.
Our nurturing environment and engaging educational approach encourage children to become confident, independent, and self-reliant.
“Children’s experiences in their first years of life are closely related to the quality of care and attention they receive. Infancy is the fundamental stage of a child’s life with the first thirty six months of life being particularly important for their physical, affective and intellectual development.”
Flor, 2023 | Head of Early Years
Children from this age group have a fundamental need for a safe and healthy environment to guarantee a physical and psychological well-balanced development. Building a trusted relationship with an adult will provide them comfort and the opportunity to grow and explore the world at their own pace in a healthy and happy way.
“The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn’t been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him.“
Pablo Casals
Through stories, games, songs, outdoor activities, movements, art, and a range of multi-sensory activities, children will develop their sensitivity to rhythm and phonology, in a structured way full of freedom to explore using all their senses.
A child-led space, where practitioners observe children rather than direct them. This allows children space and time to play, reconnect with nature and their environment, learn to take risks, and have adventures.
Almada International School will offer a Mediterranean diet, adapted to each age group and child, following all the updated health guidelines. We promote good eating habits, such as a non-processed non sugary, and salt reduction diet. Our canteen will offer three options every day, assuring that every child has a valid option for lunch and snacks. Our team includes a nutritionist that will supervise all menus.
We discourage all families to provide their children with packed lunches or snacks that have nuts, sugar, or any known risk allergens.
We believe that sleep is one of the most important basic needs for any child during their development process.
Recognizing its severe impact on cognitive, physical, and psychological growth, not just during childhood but also in the future, we will work closely with every family to ensure that their children’s needs are met and supported.
Our school offers a nurturing and engaging learning environment for young children. We believe that kindergarten is a crucial time in a child’s development, where they begin to develop essential skills that will form the foundation for their future education. Our experienced and dedicated teachers use a play-based approach to learning, which encourages curiosity, exploration, and creativity. We provide a safe and welcoming space for our youngest students to learn and grow, where they can develop.
“Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think”
Albert Einstein, 1947
The classroom is seen as a flexible space, open to change by children and educators in order to meet their needs and allow them to be protagonists of their knowledge.
Our routine provides children with opportunities to establish different types of interaction. Thus, children can play alone, join others to carry out investigations and common projects in small groups and carry out activities involving all the children in the same room.
We aim to provide challenging and diversified experiences and opportunities, where children learn: how to know and use their bodies better, creating a favourable self-image; how to participate in forms of co-operation and healthy competition; how to follow rules in order to act together; how to organize themselves to reach a common goal, accepting and overcoming difficulties and failures.
These moments also contribute to the development of children’s autonomy, independence and social relations. It is also an opportunity to promote a healthy lifestyle, by promoting regular physical exercise and contact with nature.
The challenges present in the daily routine of children aged 3 to 6 are explored through areas of knowledge such as mathematics and science. These learning areas and the knowledge acquired here will positively influence later learning.
Thus, we aim to provide diverse and challenging experiences, supporting children’s reflection, asking questions that allow them to construct mathematical notions and proposing problematic situations in which children find their own solutions and discuss them with others.
We encourage children to question, develop their thinking, reasoning and to apply their knowledge in real life situations.
Communication, Language and Reading are fundamental skills for life. These skills will allow the promotion of cognitive and affective development, human relations and physical and mental well-being not only of the child, but also of the group in which they are included.
Contact with various artistic expressions influence the way children relate, learn and develop. They are one of the greatest contributions we can offer. It has in itself the role of positively influencing the learning of different skills, never neglecting such important concepts as creativity, curiosity and freedom. They are, therefore, an important part of our daily lives.
