Our philosophy is aligned with the following vision statement for REIEA: “We believe in a just and civil society that values our shared humanity, fosters healthy democratic communities, recognizes the uniqueness of each individual, and appreciates diversity. We recognize children as social beings from birth, full of curiosity and imagination, and having the potential and desire to find connections and meaning in all they experience. We acknowledge their ability to reflect upon and contribute to their learning through their many expression and communication languages. We recognize that all children have a right to be heard, be respected, and feel a sense of belonging to their family, school, and community. We see this as a foundation for becoming responsible citizens of the world.
We offer a thinking curriculum where children are encouraged to be active, creative, social, resourceful, and thoughtful. We provide a problem-based learning curriculum with a creative solution focus. We know that teaching is different from learning. We focus on learning and are inspired by brain research and life experiences. Both the children’s current level of understanding and skills and the W.A. Curriculum Framework are used to inform our daily practice.
Our focus is on co-operation and co-responsibility, with a sense of interdependence and individuals contributing to their learning. We believe children construct their knowledge in and through group situations. In these groups, children generate ideas, pose questions, explore, discover, make mistakes, challenge, and confirm.
Schools are one of the few places in our society that separate us by age, and this seems to be for organizational purposes rather than educational reasons. Therefore, we intentionally have multi-age grouping to cater to the differences in each brain’s unique timetable for development. Multi-age grouping allows children to develop long-term working relationships with their educators and peers, who stay with over several years.
