Early Years

Early Childhood at the International School of Florence encompasses the first three years of schooling for our students. This includes two years of mixed-age Early Years (ages 3-5) and a third year of Foundation (ages 5-6). The program is led by a highly knowledgeable team of educators with extensive experience in teaching our youngest learners within a warm and supportive environment. Our educator-to-child ratio is 1:8, with a lead teacher and bilingual assistant in each class, ensuring a high level of support and interaction.

We follow the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (PYP), which continues through to Grade 5. The PYP in the Early Years adopts a child-centered, developmental approach, encouraging children to follow their curiosity and imagination through open-ended experiences. This approach nurtures caring and culturally aware children, empowering them to become active participants in their own learning. Additionally, we draw inspiration from the Reggio Emilia approach, an Italian educational philosophy renowned in Early Childhood education worldwide.

The school day offers a range of opportunities for exploration within the context of our units of inquiry, as well as in Physical Education, Music, Art, Italian, Technology, and Library time.

ISF Early Years Programme overviewAt the heart of the International Baccalaureate Programme (IB) is the “learner profile”, a long- term, holistic vision of education that puts the student at the center of everything we do. The ten aspirational qualities of the learner profile inspire and motivate the work of teachers, students and schools, providing a statement of the aims and values of the IB and a definition of what we mean by “international-mindedness”. 3 Inquirers Knowledgeable Principled Open-minded Caring Thinkers Communicators Courageous Balanced Reflective.

Play

Play-based learning provides benefits for cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development, offering authentic opportunities for students to begin exploring and developing the IB learner profile.Through play, children actively construct meaning from their interactions with the physical and social worlds. Play can be free, guided, directed, or games-based, bringing valid skills, preferences, and understandings of learning. 

Children construct, test, confirm, and revise ideas by themselves or with their peers, constantly adapting their personal models of how the world works.

Teachers support play by:

• Scheduling uninterrupted time for play in both indoor and outdoor spaces.
• Noticing students’ emerging thinking processes, interests, and theories, and responding in ways that extend learning.
• Monitoring and documenting students’ learning and development during play, and offering appropriately scaffolded learning experiences for individual students and small groups.

“Play is more than just fun.When children play, they are researchers.They are developing theories, they are investigating those theories and making sense of their world”

                                                                                                                                                                                      Tania Lattanzio                                                                                                                                                                                Director · Innovative Global Education

RELATIONSHIPSRelationships in the early years are a fundamental part of establishing important skills and dispositions that center on trust, agency and belonging. When the importance of relationships is reinforced, the foundations for an effective learning community are established. Teachers support the development of relationships through: -Encouraging and nurturing positive relationships between home, family and school -Viewing each child as unique and respecting their individuality -Acknowledging students' efforts and achievements in a multilingual environment -Conversing, listening and observing interactions -Recognizing opportunities for students to learn how to self-regulate during play and offer support and feedback when needed -Planning purposeful play opportunities in engaging learning spaces -Supporting the development of social skills such as taking turns, sharing, and listening as part of a group.

THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTContemporary theories and research informed by the Reggio Emilia approach recognise and value the environment as a ‘third teacher’. Behind educators and families, physical spaces hold the potential to influence what and how children learn. Materials are thoughtfully added to the environment to promote creativity, thinking and problem solving skills, questions, open-ended play and experimentation.