As required by the state of Rhode Island, St. Paul’s Nursery School has implemented a standards based program in planning for our children’s education. Standards are defined as, “What children should know and be able to do,” based upon child development theory and current education research and practice. In a standards based program there are four main areas of focus: Curriculum; Assessment; Differentiated Teaching and Learning; Family Engagement. Since we are coming upon Child Outreach Screenings the end of January and Parent/ Teacher Conferences in February and March, I will talk about assessments this month. The state of RI requires that all children are screened prior to entering kindergarten. St. Paul’s Nursery School takes this a step further and requires that all children are screened prior to entering our programs at St. Paul’s.

What is CHILD OUTREACH?

Child Outreach is a free service sponsored by the RI Department of Education and offered through the North Kingstown School Department. The program provides families with information about their child’s development and offers information about other resources that are available to families through the community. The information about your child’s development is gathered through participating in a series of game-like activities, which looks at learning skills, hearing, vision and speech. Most children enjoy this experience and want to participate again. This all happens at our school.

Assessments for the Parent/Teacher Conferences

Parent/Teacher Conferences take place in February for our four year olds and in March for our three’s. St. Paul’s has developed assessment tools for both our three and four year old programs that align with our curriculum and also follows the eight domains in the RI Early Learning Standards that I spoke of in previous newsletters. While conferences typically take place once or twice a year, (or at a teacher or parent request), assessments are ongoing throughout the day, week, month and year.

Continuous, authentic assessments help teachers to realize what children know, where children have grown, and to document the progress they have made over time. Assessment information also helps teachers evaluate their own teaching practices. It helps teachers to identify areas that they need to adjust and modify in their curriculum to be more effective in reaching all the children in their program.

Registrations for the academic year 2012-2013 are underway. If you know of any 3 or 4 year olds who would enjoy our programs here at St. Paul’s, please direct them to us. They can give us a call (295-7320) to schedule a visit.

We have received two donations with the express intention of establishing a separate account for tuition assistance for nursery school students in need. For anyone who would like to contribute to this worthy cause, please contact the school or Cheryl Suglia, our Vestry liaison.

Blessings,
Linda