"As an old man I realized that I already know most of what it takes to live a full life, which is not so
complicated. I know, and I've known for a long, long, long time. Here is my creed:
EVERYTHING YOU HAVE TO KNOW about how to live, what to do, and how to be I learned in Kindergarten.
Wisdom was not at the top of the mountain of the University, but there, in the sandbox. These are the things I learned:
Share it all.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Always clean what you mess up.
Don't take what isn't yours.
Ask for forgiveness when you hurt someone.
Wash your hands before eating.
Blush.
Hot cookies and cold milk are good.
Live a balanced life.
Learn something and think of something.
Draw, paint, sing, dance, play and work a little every day.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out into the world be careful with the traffic, hold hands and don't go away.
Be aware of the wonderful...
Remember the little seed in the glass, the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
The goldfish, the white mice and even the little seed in the glass, they all die and so do we...
... I remember one of the first words I was taught, a very big one: - LOOK.
All you need to know is there, somewhere. The golden rule, love and basic hygiene. Ecology and politics, equality and healthy living ...
... Think how much better the world would be if everyone - everyone - had cookies and milk every afternoon at three o'clock and then cuddled up in our blankets to take a nap. Or if all governments had as their basic policy to always put things back where they found them and clean up what they messed up..."
("All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten," Robert Fulghum, 1990)
In full agreement with what was stated by the aforementioned author, the Initial Level of St. Patrick’s School offers its students significant learning experiences that promote an integral education, caring for diversity, in a family and supportive environment, highlighting Christian values.
We aspire to create a space of gathering that favors, in the children, the gradual construction of an autonomous morality that will translate into the achievement of their independence and will allow them to develop in a leading role with freedom, responsibility and security, establishing affective bonds with the people that surround them, respecting the rights of the other and making respect theirs, integrating in this way the thought, the feeling and the action, guided by the values and principles of a Christian cosmovision, prioritizing the culture of "being" over that of "having".
In the daily contact with the objects and materials within their reach, we will guide them towards the understanding and appropriation of them. We will make sure they take care of and share their belongings as well as those of others, emphasizing something very difficult but important in the present: to take advantage of the resources offered by the environment, without wasting them, with the purpose of getting them to understand the difference between "need" and "desire".
We appeal to the development of aesthetic sensitivity and creativity, within their possibilities, through the expression of different types of languages (oral, written, plastic, musical, corporal, technological) so that they learn to accept productions and limitations, both their own and those of others, having the game as a transversal methodological axis.
In this stage of growth and maturity, we will carry out complementary work with the families, favouring the development of habits of order, hygiene and socialisation, which are characteristic of this educational level.
The growing demands of the labour market for language skills in foreign languages makes us reflect on the relevance of teaching another language, as it will allow students, in the medium future, an insertion into the globalised world and will open up a range of opportunities in the social, professional and economic fields, which is why we decided to work with the learning potential that children bring, from an early age, practicing Spanish and English simultaneously.