When we were building Columba Cottage Early Learning Centre there were questions about why a school would spend so much time, effort and money on something that was often considered not a school’s “core business”.
Well, take a bow, those visionaries who supported this idea and brought it to fruition. Educationally and socially your vision has created an environment that has been proven to be a key factor in ensuring that St Columba graduates are successful – at school and in later life!
We know that most pre-kindergarten programs do a good job of improving specific skills like phonics and counting, as well as broader social and emotional behaviours by the time students enter kindergarten. Research shows that providing a high quality education for children before they turn five yields significant long-term benefits.
Children enrolled in early learning centres:
Forty-six years ago, a working-class town in Michigan began a program that changed lives. “Mind-blowing,” one scholar called it at Harvard last week. The Perry Preschool was a program for 3- and 4-year-olds that used a problem-solving approach to learning, a focus on social development, and the engagement of parents in their child’s education. More than four decades later, the effects of the hands-on curriculum administered by well-trained teachers are hard to ignore. When measured in a comprehensive, longitudinal study against their adult counterparts who didn’t attend the preschool, the Perry students are much better off. Now in their 40s, the former pre-schoolers have more family stability, earn more money, are less likely to receive welfare, and are less involved in crime. The Harvard Gazette
There is universal agreement that early years learning sets a strong foundation for future success, but not all early learning is equal. It is the quality that really counts. Experts cite the key elements in “high-quality” pre-schooling as:
Researchers have warned that the positive outcomes of early learning are short-lived when those elements are not present. For the children most likely to experience developmental vulnerability, two years of high-quality preschool can be transformative. But it has positive impacts for all children.
Early childhood education is about honing and molding the holistic child, which will eventually form the basis of their lifelong journey.
Essential benefits of early childhood education:
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