The Infants Department is a happy, secure, and inclusive environment where every child is valued and loved. We nurture each child’s creativity and individuality while also maintaining discipline and high expectations for all. Our shared goal is for each child to experience the joy of learning and gain the confidence to reach their full potential.
We aim to encourage a love of reading in all children. We endeavour to develop confident readers who enjoy talking about books and ask questions about what they have read. We believe success in reading has a direct effect on progress in all other areas of the curriculum. Whilst reading, children are encouraged to respond to what they’ve read, saying what they like or do not like and discuss feelings and emotions, drawing parallels with those expressed in books. We ensure children have the opportunity to read a wide range of books from a variety of different genres and a wide range of authors.
Reading is linked with both speaking, listening and writing skills, and we teach all of these skills in a way that makes them dependent upon each other. We immerse children in a rich reading environment, which inspires children to want to read.
Our Reading curriculum includes;
- Reading to the teacher daily, Grades 1 & 2
- Guided Reading
- Hearing books read aloud on a regular basis
- Home/school reading with children selecting their own choice of texts ( Fun Readers)
- Visiting our school Library once a week to borrow books ( Grade 3s)
In Phonics, we follow a program called Letterland. It aims to build children's speaking and listening skills in their own right as well as to prepare children for learning to read by developing their phonics knowledge and skills. It sets out a detailed and systematic programme for teaching phonics skills for children starting at the age of five, with the aim of them becoming fluent readers by age seven. The Letters and Sounds programme focuses on securing word recognition skills, as these are essential for children to decode (read) and encode (spell) words accurately with ease, and so concentrate on comprehending and composing text.
Pupils are taught to ask questions that can be answered in different ways, observe closely, perform simple tests, identify and classify, use their observations and ideas to suggest answers to questions and gather and record data to help in answering questions.
Throughout the department, there is a focus on learning Maths using practical objects, then pictorial recording, before teaching children symbolic recording. We encourage children to explain how they arrived at a specific answer, and compare different ways of calculating to decide which is the most effective. This ‘mathematical reasoning’ is a significant part of the Maths curriculum and enables us to find out whether children really understand what they are doing and why.
Our teachers use a variety of strategies to assess each student's work. This includes observing their work in class and looking closely at the work they produce throughout the year.
Twice a year, teachers also assess each primary school student's achievements based on the school’s student desired outcomes
A written report using the grade scale for grade 3 is sent home at the end of Term 2 and Term 3, to give you a clear picture of your child's achievements.
AFFILIATIONS
VISIT US
Physical Address: Cnr Wretham Road and The Chase,
Emerald Hill, Harare, Zimbabwe
Map: our GWP Coordinates are: 17°46’4”S 31°1’41”E
CONTACT US
Tel: +263 772 148 691
+263 772 148 692
For general queries: [email protected]
For enrolments: [email protected]
