French education is compulsory from the age of two.

Our Kindergarten offers some of the finest education available anywhere. From the earliest age, we provide full reports to parents so they can track their children’s progress.

Since choosing a nursery school is a critical decision, we have provided a detailed description of what you can expect at Kindergarten at the French School.

The purpose of nursery school is to help each child become independent, acquire knowledge and develop skills to succeed in fundamental learning.

The essential goal of our Kindergarten is the acquisition of rich oral language. In Kindergarten, children build relationships with other children and adults. They develop their motor, sensory, emotional, relational and intellectual abilities – they gradually become a student. They explore the world of writing.

Kindergarten at the French School expands children’s horizons and allows them to engage in games, research, free or guided projects, and exercises – all of which contribute to enriching their personality and cultural awareness.

Our nursery school stimulates the desire to learn and provides numerous opportunities to diversify a multitude of experiences, enhancing understanding.

The activities offered in Kindergarten provide multiple opportunities for sensory and motor activities in a safe environment.

An important consideration is ensuring a seamless transition for our nursery school children into elementary school. We encourage parental involvement in this significant educational journey.

The nursery school curriculum does not impose excessive rigor. Children need to learn comfortably in the three years before entering elementary school. Kindergarten equips our children with the necessary skills to make this transition without stress and takes into account the different stages and paces of each child’s development.

Importantly, Kindergarten also plays a vital role in identifying potential disabilities or disorders so that the school can implement special interventions timeously.

Oral language development is at the core of Kindergarten learning. Our children learn to be attentive to, understand, and respond to messages addressed to them. Through interactions with teachers and classmates, our children acquire new words daily and learn when and how to use them, both in English and French. Language development ensures a richer ability to question, narrate, explain, and think.

Particular attention is paid to comprehension, which, at this age, is closely linked to the child’s overall abilities. Our children learn to distinguish between questions, promises, orders, refusals, explanations, and stories. Through the repetition of stories, poems, or tales, both classic and modern, they learn to understand increasingly complex or lengthy narratives and can retell them.

Nursery school teachers ensure that new words are introduced each week (increasing in number over the year and from year to year) to enrich our children’s vocabulary. Children learn vocabulary (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions) that not only enables them to understand what they hear but also to express their thoughts as accurately and succinctly as possible.

Learning how to write

Kindergarten gradually introduces children to foundational learning. Through three key activities (developing speech sounds, acquiring the alphabet, and recognising and repeating letters), our Kindergarten significantly promotes systematic reading and writing skills.

Children explore the practical applications of writing by comparing various forms of media both inside and outside the school environment (posters, books, newspapers, magazines, screens, road signs). They learn to identify them accurately and understand their purposes. They observe and interact with books, gradually becoming familiar with navigating a page.

Children progressively encounter written French through daily readings by the teacher. These texts are selected for their language quality (syntax, proper grammar, and precise, diverse vocabulary) and their ability to illustrate various literary genres (such as tales, legends, fables, poems, and stories). Thus, throughout Kindergarten, our children immerse themselves in literary classics. After reading, our children restate what they have comprehended and inquire about any remaining confusion. They are encouraged to memorise sentences or short text excerpts.

Reading and Writing

In our nursery school, children are introduced to the joy of playing with words and sounds from an early age. They engage in rhythmic syllable chants and learn to manipulate them. They also develop the ability to identify the position of a syllable within a word (beginning, middle, or end).

Children become acquainted with the relationship between spoken and written words. By observing specific expressions or very short sentences, our children grasp the concept that writing consists of a sequence of words, where each written word corresponds with an oral word.

They discover that the words they speak or hear are constructed from syllables – they practice reciting letters and their associated sounds. They gradually learn to recognise and write the letters of the alphabet in both print and cursive writing.

Cursive writing instruction begins for all children at the age of five.

Becoming a Student

The process of becoming a student is gradual, requiring both flexibility and rigor from the teacher. Our children learn about group dynamics and how to interact positively with their peers. They are instructed in civility, politeness, respect, and moral behavior, including respecting others’ belongings.

Through participation in games and group storytelling activities, our children develop a fondness for collective activities and acquire essential cooperation and collaboration skills. They also begin to take on responsibilities in the classroom and demonstrate initiative. Engaging in projects or activities using their own resources fosters independence, effort, and perseverance.

Our children also start to grasp the rules governing the school community, the school’s role in their lives, their expected conduct, what is taught at school, and the reasons behind their learning.

Physical Development

Our teachers introduce new activities each year, gradually increasing their complexity. Through both free and guided physical activities, children enhance their motor skills, including running, crawling, jumping, rolling, sliding, climbing, and swimming. They also develop balancing skills and learn to catch and throw objects. Additionally, ball games and skill-based games are incorporated to complement these activities.

Engaging in games with rules teaches them to comprehend and accept collective and individual limitations. Furthermore, we offer artistic expressions like dance and mime, nurturing their imaginative abilities.

Exploring the World

In Kindergarten, our children embark on a journey of discovery within their immediate surroundings. They cultivate the art of observation, inquisitiveness, and the ability to see the world from different perspectives. They also develop logical thinking and a fondness for reasoning.

Children learn essential skills like counting, classifying, ordering, and describing through both language and visual representation. They grasp the distinctions between living and non-living objects.

Our students explore everyday technical items such as flashlights, phones, and computers, gaining insights into their purpose, operation, and potential hazards. They engage in creative projects using various materials, selecting tools and techniques tailored to each project, including cutting, gluing, folding, assembling, nailing, mounting, and disassembling. They even delve into the mysteries of intangible elements like air.

In this journey, children discover different aspects of the human body and explore their five senses. They receive lessons in hygiene and health, including nutrition, and adopt fundamental rules of personal hygiene. Environmental awareness takes root, fostering a sense of respect for all living things.

By actively handling diverse objects, our children begin by identifying basic properties such as size, weight, and other criteria, allowing them to compare and classify items based on attributes like shape, size, mass, and capacity.

Mathematics plays a vital role in the French education system, starting at a very young age. Our kindergartners unravel the functions of numbers, grasp concepts of quantity, and learn how to position objects within an ordered sequence. Gradually, they become acquainted with numbers up to at least 30 and acquire the ability to use them for counting.

From the outset, numbers are introduced in contexts that make sense and are highly effective for learning. This takes shape through engaging games, classroom activities, teacher-posed challenges, and collaborative learning experiences. 

By the conclusion of Kindergarten, children have taken their initial steps into the realm of mathematics. At this tender age, they begin to explore mathematical symbols and techniques, setting the stage for a lifelong love of mathematics.

Learning About Time

In Kindergarten, children begin their journey into the concept of time. They explore the days of the week, months, and gain an understanding of the seasons.

Starting at age 3, children are introduced to calendars, clocks, and hourglasses to help them grasp the concept of time and learn to measure its passage. They develop the ability to recount events and distinguish between the immediate, near, and distant past.

Spatial Development

Throughout Kindergarten, children develop their spatial awareness by navigating the school and its immediate environment. They learn to position themselves in relation to objects or other individuals and understand how to arrange objects or people in relation to one another or with respect to other landmarks. By the end of Kindergarten, they are capable of discerning between left and right as well as distinguishing between horizontal and vertical orientations.

Perceiving, Feeling, Imagining, Creating 

Our Kindergarten fosters the earliest artistic awareness in young children. Through visual, tactile, auditory, and vocal activities, we enhance our students’ sensory development. This is an opportunity to introduce children to a wide range of artistic expressions, allowing them to experience emotions and establish their initial foundations in the world of creativity.

Drawing and visual arts serve as our primary forms of artistic expression. Additionally, we encourage children to create objects using materials such as paint, glue, collage, assembly, and modeling.

To nurture their oral skills, we incorporate nursery rhymes and songs into our curriculum. Children engage in singing for enjoyment, sometimes as a group. They also invent songs, experimenting with their voices, sounds, and rhythms.

Structured listening activities further refine their attentiveness, develop sensitivity, enhance sound discrimination, and boost auditory memory. Children engage in listening activities for enjoyment, to replicate sounds, for movement, and during play. They learn to identify timbre, intensity, duration, pitch, and imitation, and to describe these attributes. Over time, they gain proficiency in rhythm and tempo.