When you walk into our preschool classrooms, you might not realize all the preparation and planning that has gone into each classroom space. Every center, every activity on the table, all the science and building materials and all the books have been carefully selected to support your child’s growth. While it may look like play to the untrained eye, what is happening in our spaces is intentional to help the children master their developmental milestones.
During the first month of school, we ask our parents to complete the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ). This helps our teaching team learn where each child is developmentally at home and allows them to compare that with what they are seeing in the classroom. With this parent collaboration, teachers are able to quickly assess and plan activities to meet each child's need. They are able to send suggestions home with families if there is an area a child is still working on and they are ready to assist if a parent has a concern.
Parish Day School strives to focus on developing our teaching team as effective leaders in their classrooms, who foster collaboration with their grade level and colleagues. Our teachers provide high quality, engaging and ambitious instruction to prompt critical thinking, cognitive development, and social-emotional intelligence. We are hopeful that this comes through in all our communication platforms: Bloomz posts, messages on the white boards, calendars and teacher emails.
We also have an additional layer of support for our teaching team with our Curriculum Specialist, Chris Crocker. She is available daily to meet with teachers, grade level teams and administration to provide assistance with implementing the Creative Curriculum as well as Virginia’s Developmental Milestones. Chris offers our teachers inspiration, guidance and the tools to connect their lesson plans to the domains that each activity is supporting. Her monthly newsletters give our team helpful education websites, lesson planning ideas, and creative facts. She assists the teachers in staying up to date on research and best practices in early childhood development.
Being accredited by the National Association for the Education of the Young Child (NAEYC) gives our teachers clarity on what is important when teaching young children. Our teachers structure their day purposely with the following tenets in mind: building relationships, integrating curriculum, using a variety of strategies for teaching, helping children progress and engaging with the families. All of these are integral in developing the whole child throughout the school year.
As a community of early childhood educators, our teaching team and administration is committed to creating learning environments that support children’s development and build relationships with our families and the Virginia Beach community. We feel blessed to be part of your child’s earliest educational journey!
Please join Parish Day School at these family events for the month of October:
Eastern Shore Chapel's Holy Smokin BBQ on Saturday October 19, 2019 from 4-8pm (Tickets include food, drink and live music.)