So much of what I put here has come from conversations where a parent says; “you should put that in the bulletin because I don’t think families understand that.”
 
This week the conversation came up about why we chose to do all multi-age across the building. As we thought about it from a program perspective, we thought about progression and what that should look and feel like as a student.
 
Kindergarten is the first experience of public school for students.  We want this to be a strong start for families as well as their children.  Kindergarten is also hard to combine with first as there are so many foundations that need to be built over the year.
 
Combining first and second grades together made sense for a variety of reasons.  Firstly, we are being pro-active in that we know every year because of enrollment, one or two classes would have to be combined. It makes more sense to combine classes in a pro-active way instead of reactive way.  Secondly, our literacy curriculum, science and other subjects except math lends itself to this type of configuration as it is differentiated and teaches to the level of the child.  Lastly, this provides the stepping stone for the students who will eventually move into a multi-age of three grades.  Students need to experience on a smaller level what it feels like to work with students at different levels.  If we sent all the first and second graders up without any experience in a multi-age classroom, the transition to our 3-4-5 experience could be extremely challenging.
 
I love these types of questions and hope to continue this dialogue in the New Year.  Don’t forget to fill out our survey.