Investment in Early Years Education: The Power of Compound Growth

It is widely accepted that our formative years have a profound impact upon our adult lives. Future happiness, success, income and employability, along with the quality and breadth of relationships we share, have all been shown to have a direct link to our earliest experiences.

It is therefore quite astonishing how little time, attention and engagement early education garners from among those keen to strategize about work-life prospects for secondary and tertiary graduates. A sign of impatience, lack of foresight, or fear for a world that lies beyond standardised measure?

Review

A year-long review of the research binding early education led us to the recent publication of a succinct and sequentially assigned set of developmental priorities for the youngest learners at Shrewsbury International School Hong Kong. Delineation is designed to act as a celebration of our current strengths, while providing a framework for reflection and renewal - and the gathering of forward momentum.

An undertaking that drew upon the views and experiences of students, parents and staff alike, both past and present, outcomes are exceptionally well informed and shamelessly ambitious. They will have a profound impact upon the way in which we engage for many years to come.

Three to Five

Students first enter our school at the age of three. Guided by the overarching principles of the Early Years and Foundation Stage framework, their journey is one of discovery and exploration. Ultimately centring upon the development of relationships (with self, with others and with the world around them), we guide and support the widening of an initially egocentric lens.

Students transition into our primary school at the age of five. Demarcated by the formalisation of learning experiences through association with the English National Curriculum, the difference between learning at three and learning at five is deep rooted at both an experiential and systemic level. Whilst we choose to preserve many of the folds and wrinkles that mark this fault line (for reasons connected to our belief in supporting not shielding children), the journey between one programme of study and another should not be underestimated. It is however a difference of fabrication – and one defied by the continuum of childhood. It was therefore important to acknowledge that our identified priorities would need to:

1. Lead, rather than arise from, engagement with a given programme of study.
2. Build directly and ambitiously upon one another.

A Continuum

As students enter Shrewsbury at the age of three, we place specific emphasis upon the development of personal identity, unique voice and a love of learning. These three strands provide the platform from which our primary aged learners then drive the development of an expansive network of connection, a nuanced view of the world and a passion for independent exploration and deeper understanding. Mapped, articulated and supported through the assignment of resource and experience, we are seriously committed in the knowledge that our early investment will reap dividends in the future.

Those keen to learn more about this project and our work more broadly can do so here.