Consultancy
The Learning Square offers tailored long-term consultancy for early childhood teams in international schools.
We work alongside educators in their context, facilitating transformational change through an in-depth exploration of pedagogy, values and beliefs.
An emphasis is placed on building a culture of thinking and curiosity that promotes conceptual understanding and theory building. Developing high degrees of intentionality and responsiveness by planning for learning that is open-ended and uncertain invites children to wonder, explore, experiment and play with ideas and theories.
We support schools through an audit and ongoing professional development (face to face and online).
Our tailored consultancy includes…
Early Years Audit
We carry out an audit of the early years programme based on the quality standards from the organisations which the school works with.
This audit supports the leadership team with a clear indication of strengths and areas for growth.
Professional Learning
In-class Support
By working closely with educators and their students, we help teachers identify which areas of their practice they would like to improve.
Workshops
Workshops are tailored to the school’s strategic goals and the individual needs of teachers. They support the establishment of shared values, understandings and practices.
Developing units of study
We review units of study across year levels for depth, breadth and coherence and collaborates with teams to develop conceptual units of study that open up ‘many possibilities’.
Next Steps
Feedback
We provides teachers and leadership teams with written feedback after each visit. This includes general impressions, achievements and next steps.
“Anne has worked intentionally and strategically with our entire early years’ team. She challenged all early years teachers to carefully consider the elements of time and space and their alignment to our purpose in the early years. She pushed all our teachers to approach students as competent learners and reflect carefully on how their practices reflect this foundational belief. Anne was also able to enhance transdisciplinary practice for our single-subject teachers, who approach learning from a specific disciplinary lens.
Through Anne's consultation, she had an incredible impact on our additional language teachers and their understanding of playful language instruction, student voice and choice and inquiry. She also helped us redefine our approach to single subjects empowering students to choose with whom, where and what they would like to learn during an open doors hour on any given day. Her thoughtful nudging and deliberate questioning encouraged us to reflect on the purpose of our single subjects and our single subject teachers in the learning of our early years’ students. The results of this process have been revolutionary and incredible for students.”
— Miranda Rose, PYP Coordinator, American School of Warsaw