Different Approaches to Nursery Education in Croydon

There are different approaches to educating pre-schoolers that the nurseries in Croydon follow. Each approach has its own speciality. There are three major approaches that are prevalent in nurseries in Croydon: the Reggio Emilia Approach, the Waldorf approach, and the Montessori approach. We will now look at the unique aspects of each of these teaching styles.

Reggio Emilia Approach

This approach was first developed by Loris Malaguzzi, in and around Reggio Emilia in Italy, after World War II. Parents in Reggio Emilia felt that the destruction caused by the war would leave negative impact on their children. Hence, a new approach was quickly needed to educate their children during the early years of development of a child. In order to build up the individuality of their children they developed a new program of education on the principles of respect, responsibility, and community. The city of Reggio Emilia is recognized as the home to this innovative approach to education. This was later adopted by rest of the European cities, Croydon being one of them.

The Reggio Emilia philosophy is based upon the following set of principles:

-Every child must have control over the direction of his/ her learning -The program allows the child to learn through personal experiences of touching, moving, listening, seeing, and hearing -The program also allows children to understand and develop their relationships with other children and with material items in the world -It also gives children opportunities to explore different endless ways to express themselves

Waldorf education

This educational philosophy was originally developed by an Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, who is also the founder of anthroposophy. This approach emphasizes on the role of the imagination of a child and allows it to develop which enhances the creativity of the individual and is based on the practical, artistic, and conceptual elements of learning. This philosophy encourages the child to become free, moral and integrated individual. It also supports every child in fulfilling his or her unique aspirations. In 1919, the first Waldorf School was founded in Waldorf-Astoria, to educate the children of the employees of the cigarette factory in Stuttgart. This form of education has been adopted by nurseries in Croydon also. There are several Waldorf-based public and Charter schools and homeschooling environments. Even pre-schools and nurseries have also taken up this educational philosophy to educate toddlers.

Montessori nurseries

These are exceptionally popular for pre-school education and can be easily located in Croydon. The nurseries are named after their founder, Dr Maria Montessori. Dr Montessori was an Italian woman who developed this method of child education. Her work and study of children developed a unique form of teaching method which is based on various principles. The main principle is that every child is an individual who is affected by the social environment and should be encouraged to learn from his or her surroundings.