Reggio Emilia
Our Educators are encouraged and supported to continually learn and better understand themselves and their professional practice.
An Educational Philosophy Focused Approach
They are provided with opportunities for ongoing professional development through access to external courses, our monthly meetings always include a component of training and our Lead Educators are also provided with ‘programming’ time weekly and are provided with time each day to document learning.
The team is further supported in their curriculum development by a knowledgeable and dedicated Educational Leader who provides guidance, offers research alternatives and suggests further learning opportunities. The Educational Leader at each centre is given additional time on a weekly basis, to work directly with the team in its development and conduct one-on-one and group training of the team to improve their knowledge and skill base.
How The Reggio Emilia Approach and Happy Tots Early Education Supports Our Families
We consider parents and families to be a vital component to the Reggio Emilia philosophy and, therefore, part of our community. Parents are viewed as partners, collaborators and advocates for their children. Educators respect parents as each child’s first teacher and involve parents in the development of the curriculum as much as possible.
We encourage our parents and families to volunteer and participate in our Centre programs as this can allow for this educational philosophy to continue when the child leaves the classroom (ie we can then better collaborate about the home expectations and needs and those that are supported and encouraged here at Happy Tots Early Education). We want to know our families better, their traditions, their routines, their talents, their expectations and we want you to know us too! We understand that not all parents and families can participate as actively as they might like to, so we have developed mechanisms to allow our parents to participate in the planning and evaluation process.
We do this via various mechanisms including:
- face to face conversations regarding your child and his/her needs and current levels of participation. This should occur every day your child attends and can occur more formally with previous arrangement (we can set up one on one meetings if needed/requested).
- we have parent/educator meetings scheduled at least twice a year to set aside the time and space to speak with families directly about their child/ren
- our Facebook & instagram presence allows for daily and immediate feedback regarding the program. We post daily reflections on how our day is progressing, including photos, so you can see what is occurring on a daily basis.
- our parents are asked on a monthly basis to provide feedback regarding our policies. We have a yearly policy review cycle and each month several policies are considered.
- We invite speakers to address our families on current issues and trends relating to child rearing/parenting (eg nutrition, understanding children's behaviour)
- Newsletters are produced monthly and
- when there are major changes that are industry related, we will go above and beyond to ensure that our families are aware of these changes, their (potential) impact on our Centre and how they can provide input to adopting these changes to best meet our learning community needs.
How The Reggio Emilia Approach (and Happy Tots Early Education) Sees Children
The Reggio Emilia approach views children as being worthy of being listened to and feels that adults can actually learn from children as well as the other way around. Here at Happy Tots Early Education, Educators are encouraged to allow the children to guide their own curriculum based upon their own interests and curiosities. The classroom environment is also geared to accommodate for the needs of the children. Children are encouraged to develop their own curiosities and potential in order to understand the world around them and how they fit within this.
It is understood that children express themselves in numerous ways. Loris Malaguzzi wrote a famous poem (see below) that speaks to the difference between the Reggio Emilia approach and the more mainstream approach to early learning – and declaring that children will battle to have their voices heard! Here at Happy Tots Early Education we value the voice of the child and do all we can to support its hundred languages!