The new preschool curriculum. Is it a bit crazy?

emo72

Heard a bit about it, and caught a tiny bit of it on the Pat Kenny show. I'm not sure what's involved so if anyone knows please fill me in. Basically it's child led, the child chooses what they want to do and the teacher has to do it? Like if they want to do nothing that's fine. This can't be true is it? Would that be workable? Also thinking of introducing it in junior and senior infants in school. I must be picking it up wrong.

byhookorbycrook

Do you mean Aistear?

emo72

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Do you mean Aistear?

Yeah, i think that's what they said. Do you know what is about?

byhookorbycrook

Yes, we use it in our infant classes. It's discovery through play and whilst you may feel it is very unstructured, infant teachers will be observing and interacting with the child on the various themes and it's downright brilliant! Aistear isn't fone all day, there is still room for the more traditional maths/English/Irish/SPHE/Science etc.
Have a look at http://www.ncca.ie/en/Curriculum_and_Assessment/Parents/Early_Childhood/AFL.pdf

echo beach

emo72 wrote: »

Like if they want to do nothing that's fine.

It should be fine if a 3 years old wants to do nothing. They have a lifetime of having to do stuff in front of them.
That said, at that age the biggest problem is trying to get them to sit still for a minute or two.

byhookorbycrook

It would be very rare for a child not to take part in Aistear, it's play based so they don't see it as hardship. A good teacher will motivate the child at any rate.

Romantic Rose

Aistear is fantastic if it is implemented in the right way and structured well by the teacher. For example, I saw a teacher do the topic of homes and she had an 'estate agents' set up in the classroom. She had posters of the different homes for sale on the wall and had the 'estate agent' describing the homes in length to the prospective buyers.

The chat from the children was fantastic and they were basically speaking like adults and acted out their roles so well.

I've seen other Aistear play sessions completely unstructured with too much free play and the children weren't getting much from it in my opinion. I think free play is good to a certain extent.

It also has to be said that Aistear isn't funded and schools have to cough up for the resources themselves.

byhookorbycrook

Our infant teachers have pop up gazebo tents that adapt to most places -vets/a and e /etc.

emo72

so its only a small part of the day? in primary? okay well that makes a bit more sense, i was led to believe its all day long. i picked that up wrong so.

but preschool is all day (3 hours) aistear? maybe someone can confirm that? thats got to be hard work for the teachers. is the traditional montessori teaching method finished then?

byhookorbycrook

emo72 wrote: »

but preschool is all day (3 hours) aistear? maybe someone can confirm that? thats got to be hard work for the teachers. is the traditional montessori teaching method finished then?

The proper traditional Montessori method was to allow the child to select materials themselves for hands-on learning and collaborative play. Which is more or less what Aistear is.
Some pre-schools started functioning like a pre-Junior Infant class, teaching letters/sounds etc- which is not what their role should be.