Early Years
Play is not preparation for learning. It is learning, in its most complete form.
Our youngest children are met with rhythm, simplicity and growing independence. Mornings are unhurried at the door and purposeful past it. Goodbyes are warm and brief, because a short goodbye teaches a child that separation is safe, and a long one can teach the opposite.
Children are helped to do for themselves what they can: dressing, eating, putting their own things away. Even when it takes longer than an adult doing it for them. “What takes an adult ten seconds may take a child two minutes. Those two minutes are education.”
Days are kept simple. No unnecessary toys, gadgets or sweets from home, and birthdays that mark growing up rather than getting things. A child’s silence is respected as much as her speech. A child who wants to watch before joining in is never made to perform.