Early Childhood Education
(Preschool 3, Preschool 4 and Kindergarten classes)
Throughout our academic year 2019-2020, our Early Childhood classes have found innovative ways to deliver inquiry-based lessons and focused upon placing our children at the center of their own learning. Our Early Childhood teachers strive to be creative when looking for methods to enhance children’s agency by, for instance, having an open-door policy between neighboring classes to develop relationships and reinforce their choice of learning engagement. Tariq Bin Ziad children learn through play and aspire to develop the whole child. The teachers foster the Learner Profile by celebrating their attributes on a daily basis.
Our children are encouraged to use their thinking skills and take their own initiative to take actions as well as accept responsibilities, such as KG classes washing their lunch trays, Preschool classes collecting, and using recycled material as resources, such as musical instruments or playground toys.
Our great pride was a journey of implementing Qatari Heritage into our daily learning. Teachers found original ways to use objects such as traditional musical instruments for literacy and social skills, shells and dried lemons for Maths and fine motor skills, traditionally dressed puppets to recreate stories, art supplies and manipulatives to recreate traditional art such as Sadu, or Sword dance as well as practicing traditional games such as “ طاق طاق طاقيه ” (“Taq taq
taqia”),” بر بحر ” (“Bar bahr”) or خروف مسلسل ” (“Kharoof misalsal”). We focused on introducing stories written by Qatari authors and had some of them visit, such as Ms. Asma Al-Kuwari who read several of her books to our children followed by an inquiry-based workshop.
Our children are encouraged to use their thinking skills and take their own initiative to take actions as well as accept responsibilities.
One of our grand achievements was a fast growth of Language skills, both in English and Arabic for our children. Following the Dual Language System, our children have acquired language in a natural way by interacting with an Arabic and English Home Teacher, inquiries, and real-life experiences. Students have been extremely invested and engaged in their learning as they were witnessing their quick progress and they saw that their learning has a great practical meaning. It has been amazing to see the students increase their cognitive and problem-solving skills as well as their attention and working memory.
In reflection, we found our children to be highly engaged to heritage-related learning, as they can relate to the characters and places and feel more comfortable as their learning is simply an extension of their lifestyle, and so the transition between home and class is seamless and natural. It is a joy to see them being genuinely proud of their own national identity.
To celebrate our learning about the heritage we celebrated a couple of events related to the culture, such as Thaub and Dora Day every month, and Al Nafla and Garangaou reflection, we found our children to be highly engaged to heritage-related learning, as they can relate to the characters and places and feel more comfortable as their learning is simply an extension of their lifestyle, and so the transition between home and class is seamless and natural. It is a joy to see them being genuinely proud of their own national identity. To celebrate our learning about the heritage we celebrated a couple of events related to the culture, such as Thaub and Dora Day every month, and Al Nafla and Garangaou which children joined from their homes during Home Learning. Among other successful events were Mixing Colours Day in Pre3 classes, where children discovered how to create secondary colours by painting their own T-shirt, KidzMondo visits in Pre4 classes, where students experienced a childfriendly version of real-life jobs and businesses, and whole school events such as Tree Day during which we planted trees around school property and learned how we can help the environment. On Sports Day we all participated in healthy lifestyle and fitness activities and during Book Week we held a Book Fair, welcomed parents to read stories in our classes, and dressed up for Character Day.
Preschool 3 classes held an Assembly Concert on 3rd December, while Preschool 4 and KG classes held assemblies throughout the year. We invited families to showcase the progress in children’s development as well as to focus on children’s growth in confidence and a sense of pride.
We consider our greatest achievement, though, the school community itself. Our children love coming to school to learn. They have the most positive feelings about our school, high engagement and active participation which also reflected during the Home Learning period. Our department is a great team that creates a positive atmosphere which allows children to grow in a nurturing environment.
