The Aims of Early Childhood Education

The main aims of our school are to help young children:

1. develop positive values through meaningful experiences
2. develop their individual capabilities to the fullest - intellectually, socially, morally and emotionally
3. feel at ease with themselves and with their unique approach to living in today’s world.

At nursery school level, more than at any other age, we can follow the principle of “learning by doing”. In their play, young children simulate or relive life situations through dramatic play, manipulations of materials and rhythm. Play is the work of children. Play is essential to growth, for through play children develop security, courage, emotional stability, resourcefulness, imagination, initiative, social awareness, cultural heritage, and physical well-being.

Young children learn most fully through direct sensory experiences. The child who has had these opportunities to explore and to have his questions answered, is ready for more formal learning at a later stage.

The curriculum of our nursery school consists of enriched play experiences in a favourable environment and guided by competent teachers.

Dunvegan Nursery School incorporates all the elements necessary for a balanced programme - active and quiet periods, social and individual activities, opportunities for both creativity and conformity, consistency in the programme pattern, yet flexibility in daily activities, organisation to prevent confusion, consideration of age groups and the needs of the individual child, and above all, provision of a variety of creative experiences.

"If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil . . . It is more important to pave the way for the child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts he is not ready to assimilate."
Dr R Carson, leading psychologist