Early Childhood at MFS - A Letter to Prospective Parents

Excellence in the Early Years A message for the parents of children entering Preschool and Prekindergarten.

I’m delighted to learn that you have expressed an interest in Beginnings at MFS, our early childhood program at Moorestown Friends School. As Director of the MFS Lower School, I’m writing to share a few of my thoughts with you and to raise a few questions—questions that may prove helpful as you decide the kind of school that’s right for your family.

As you may well know, the years of Preschool and Prekindergarten are among the most important in a child’s development. There is no time when young minds will grow and change more rapidly. There is no period more critical in shaping the ways

that children learn and think, interact with others, and feel about school and themselves.

For this reason, we consider the education of young children to be work of enormous importance. This is evident in the care we take in shaping the classroom experience. It’s also clear in our staffing choices: This is a school where you will find an experienced, certified teacher with a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania leading a class of three year-olds.

Furthermore, in our Beginnings classes, we maintain a ratio of one adult to just 7 or 8 students.

This level and quality of personal attention gets to the heart of what sets the Beginnings at MFS program apart—as do our outstanding facilities and robust array of special classes, all taught by qualified specialists. These include art, music, Spanish, physical education, science, and library.

In addition, there are important aspects of our approach to teaching and learning that distinguish our Beginnings program. To explore these, let me turn to the questions I promised at the outset.

First, what does “educational excellence” mean for a 3-, 4-, or 5-year-old?

At many schools, the answer lies in acceleration—in short, presenting material from first, second, or third grade early. At MFS, we disagree with this approach. We believe the most excellent experience for young children is the most developmentally appropriate one.

Yes, preschoolers can be taught to sit in circle time for extended lessons, to complete work sheets, and to solve rote math problems. No, this is not optimal use of their remarkable talents.

Young children are wired to explore. They learn through play. They learn in motion.

And they should learn not only facts and skills, but also how to problem-solve, cooperate, and communicate, to be part of a school community, to be resilient and resourceful.

110 E. Main Street

Moorestown, NJ 08057-2949 Phone: (856) 235-2900

www.mfriends.org

Excellence in the Early Years

Moorestown Friends School

Skilled teachers create opportunities for students to learn these lessons. They channel children’s natural curiosity. They help each student face challenges and experience successes. In our Beginnings classrooms you will find students engaged in hands-on activities like constructing block bridges, using Google Maps to design a 3-D model of their community, and hatching chicken eggs in an incubator.

What should a classroom look like?

Of course, there is no single correct design for an early childhood classroom. However, the way a room looks tells you something about the kind of teaching and learning that happens there.

If students’ days are spent exploring, the room should reflect this, with stations and destinations of many kinds—not just a carpet area for group lessons.

If students’ creativity is given full chance to take flight, the room should teem with art—not perfect cookie-cutter coloring, but individual creations that reflect trial and error and each child’s own vision.

If students are entering a world really worth discovering, the room should be filled with great children’s books, blocks to build with, and natural light—not cartoon characters and bright plastic toys.

If children are to learn to value the resources entrusted to them, the room should be well ordered and well cared for.

And finally, if children’s days are scheduled as they should be, the room should often be empty and silent. You see, to thrive, young children need lots of time outside. Barring hurricane conditions, MFS kids play and learn outside more than once each day, whether it’s animal studies, monkey bars, or nature walks in the rain.

What happens when kids have a conflict?

This may not be the first question parents consider, but it relates to some of the most important life skills children will ever learn.

Of course, the easiest approach is for the teacher to simply impose order: “Stop it.” “Take turns.” “Quiet down.” However, this shortcut misses an important learning opportunity.

Instead, we feel the teacher’s role is to help children build an effective set of skills for conflict resolution.

This often means asking questions rather than handing down judgments. It’s facilitating and modeling rather than law enforcement. And, frankly it’s a lot of work. But time invested in this way yields results of inestimable value, results you see clearly as children grow into their Middle and Upper School years.

I hope, through these questions and answers, that I’ve given you some sense of our philosophy and approach at Moorestown Friends, and of the spirit of our school, which I believe makes it such a wonderful place to learn and grow.

I also hope you will take the opportunity to learn more by coming to visit us. We would love to meet with you, to answer your questions, and to let you see Moorestown Friends for yourself.

Sincerely,

Kelly Goula Lower School Director