The Importance of EQ and Enquiry Based Learning

Our Early Childhood Philosophy

Our early childhood teaching philosophy is based on a strong belief to also focus on the emotional development of children (EQ) as this is equally if not more important that just making children study for the sake of study. Young children have an innate sense of wonder and awe. They want to make sense of their environment and at Swallows and Amazons we create the relevant learning environments for the children every day. It is not lecture based learning, whereby the teachers simply instruct the children on what they will be learning. Instead, it is enquiry based learning.

Enquiry based learning is more than asking a student what he or she wants to know. It’s about triggering curiosity. And activating a student’s curiosity is, I would argue, a far more important and complex goal than the objective of mere information delivery. The students become the active learners who are fully engaged and 'sitting on the edge of their seats' focused and waiting for what happens next.

Triggering Enquiry is about learning something new, and triggering curiosity. It takes modeling enthusiasm; and learning something new generates our own enthusiasm, even if it’s something new about the content. Please click her for the Harvard Review> https://hbr.org/2014/08/curiosity-is-as-important-as-intelligence

It puts it much better than me.

As Albert Einstein famously said: ““I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”

This is what we aim to achieve at our preschool.