At Eden School, as in most others, the school year has come to an end. We would therefore like to reflect upon a few key ideas that describe its qualities and share with you those aspects that make it unique and certainly different from most other schools.
Let us begin with a very important aspect: relationships.
Here, the staff enjoys creating and maintaining a relationship with the students and their families. A child that comes to school with pleasure wishes to learn, is alert and is ready to grasp knowledge.
Kindness is upheld and therefore must be accompanied by a fair share of firmness and the right amount of discipline.
Rules give the necessary framework, they provide reassurance along the road, a space to share, where each one has a place.
Collaboration has an important role as well. It is not always easy to implement. To elaborate and to carry out projects in the midst of a class or with a group of students must build a feeling of belonging to a community where everyone contributes.
Managing emotions and misunderstandings is another task of the group. Inappropriate behaviours must lead to a common search for solutions, followed by atonement.
Building self-awareness. To find those personal areas of opportunity, each child must elaborate, together with his/her head teacher, a personal project that is not related to his/her academic development.
At the end of each trimester, the progress made in this area of development is evaluated. The personal project can be modified, changed or redirected depending on the needs of the student.
The school has opted for small groups. We tend to favour a learning journey that takes into account the possibility that every child can learn at his/her own rhythm.
Students can work within a group-class that is in accordance with his real academic level and not only with his age group.
Our school offers a bilingual program, starting with the infant school and all the way through the Primary. The definition of bilingualism may differ from one school to another. For us, it means that teaching of all subjects is divided equally between English and French. English is the mother tongue of these teachers.
In conclusion, we think that digital media can be incorporated in all levels of the school.
Each classroom has an interactive whiteboard, laptop computers and ipads. Information technology is taught as a subject so that, for example, the children may learn how to code.
Digital media serves as support for other subjects too.
