1

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OFFICIAL BULLETIN

OF

FRENCH NATIONAL EDUCATION

Special Edition No. 1, Released February 14, 2002

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OBJECTIVES

AND

PROGRAMS

CYCLES 1, 2, 3

(ENGLISH VERSION)

Table of Contents

Cycle 1 – Preschool Education Page 2

Cycle 2 – Cycle of Fundamental LearningPage 37

Cycle 3 – Cycle of In-Depth LearningPage 76

About the Original Publication, ReferencesPage 125

PRESCHOOL EDUCATION - CYCLE 1

INTRODUCTION
To pave the way for a successful and beneficial first academic experience for every child is the primary goal of Preschool. Graced with a unique identity and cultural approach that is adapted to the age and developmental level of the children for whom it cares, this school fully exercises its distinction from Elementary School through the various pedagogical philosophies implemented therein.

Teachers (1) in Preschool take care to provide each child with the environment, surroundings and organization of activities necessary for encouraging his autonomy while leaving him time to experience and absorb newly acquired knowledge. They identify with precision the needs of every student; they create conditions conducive to fortuitous discovery and foster spontaneous experimentation. Encouraging organized activity, they maintain a sufficient level of expectation such that, through his games, the child is able to construct new manners to react to realities around him. Preschool constitutes the educational and pedagogical pillar upon which all systematic Elementary School learning rests. It is through play, action, autonomous discovery and sensory experiences that the child, according to his own pace, acquires the fundamentals for all future educational pursuits.
The Law of Orientation of 1989 established the respective roles of Pre- and Elementary School in Primary Education. The Decree of September 6 of 1990 (2) explicitly outlined its organization and division into three cycles: "The Cycle of Primary Learning, which takes place in Preschool”; "The Cycle of Fundamental Learning, which begins at the end of Preschool and is continued during the first two years of Elementary School”; and “The Cycle of In-Depth Learning, which corresponds to the final three years of Elementary School and leads into Middle School”. The responsibility in Preschool is thus doubled. Its job is to first bring to fruition the very first learning experiences. Then it is also charged with engaging students without exception in the first step of Fundamental Learning, without which an entry into writing and written education will never be successful.

“Primary Learning" is not so named simply because it is the first chronological confrontation to education for the very young students. It is called Primary because it allows the child to discover that learning thereafter is a natural horizon in his life. It allows him to enter into cross-disciplinary experiences of games and activities through which he will progressively develop into a schoolchild who loves to learn, who has become aware of the roads before him leading to unlimited new knowledge and know-how. The first step in Fundamental Learning implies, in order to be fully achieved, acquisition of that which is established in the specific setting of the Preschool environment. It is this dynamic that gives Preschool its necessary unity, its identity and integrity.

In keeping with this spirit, the following curriculum guide concerns the entire Preschool program; skills detailed therein are to be acquired by the end of Kindergarten.

1 – A School Designed for Young Children
The child who enters Preschool for the first time has already established a great deal of knowledge, as well as habits which regulate his daily life, within the family environment and/or with a nanny, but more and more often, in the group setting of a day-care or babysitting facility. School, because of its dimensions, the number of adults and children within it and the type of equipment it offers, constitutes an unexpected environment, one that only reinforces or highlights his frame of reference and one to which he will have to learn to adapt.

Teachers, who have a particularly heightened sense of attention for the organization of a school environment, facilitate this passage by responding to the needs and expectations of children of successive ages and stages of early childhood. They foster participation in different areas of collective life and group activity and ensure that this occurs without trauma or moments of withdrawal and isolation. It is the duty of all adults present, under the responsibility of the teacher, to create conditions of harmonious development for every child, respecting his individual rate of growth and his personality.

The manner in which the school environment is arranged, the classrooms, and specialized spaces, must offer many possible opportunities for sensory and motor experiences. It must encourage the free expression of emotions, and the creation and evolution of relationships with classmates and adults. It must guarantee that each child grows and develops, within a cultural setting that piques his curiosity and leads to constant acquisition of new knowledge in total safety.

The organization of time respects the needs and biological rhythms of children while allowing for smooth execution of activities and facilitating their implementation. The length of different activities and sessions is adapted to their level of difficulty as much as to the age of the children concerned. Moments requiring extreme supervision and attention are alternated with those allowing for more freedom, workshops alternate with smaller groupings, individual work with activities calling for cooperation. The greeting times, recesses, naptimes, snack or mealtimes are also times for education. They too are organized and optimized by those in charge.

Yet, daily life for children is not limited to the time they spend in school. There is of course the family setting, but also times when the child is in the care of others, in other situations. Abiding by its freedom of action and in keeping with its specific programs, Preschool plays a pivotal role in the network of institutions in early childhood by enabling synergies and avoiding incompatibilities or overloads.

Teachers share the education of the children entrusted to them with parents. This situation breeds confidence and reciprocal transmission of information. It is important that the school explain, make understood and justify its choices, so that its functions and motives are apparent. It must take the time to listen to every family and faithfully report back to them as to the progress or problems encountered by their child. The quality of this relationship is the foundation for a partnership of co-education between family and school which must never cease to be built.

2 – Easing Change and Orchestrating Continuity
Schooling children at younger and younger ages has brought with it certain difficulties in Preschool as to the heterogeneity of its students. The very youngest, barely two years old, come into contact with older students of six. Organizing three or four years of school requires a precise definition of the principles of progressivism.

Welcoming the very young imposes particular restrictions. At two years old, children are still quite fragile. They must not be deprived of time for isolation necessary for their maturation, but they must also engage in collective activity which calls for acceptation of others and requires cooperation. Often the presence of older children is a great help to them. Only a demanding program can take these constraints into account. And it must involve the entire pedagogical team.

Between three and four years old numerous possibilities emerge, for action and creation. Children manifest an insatiable curiosity and a continually renewed pleasure and enthusiasm for engaging in new activities. The school must be able to respond in an orderly manner to all expectations and satisfy their needs. Most children can express and structure what they have acquired, while continuing to pursue the active discovery of the world around them. This is particularly true in the area of language acquisition, where the many writing issues which had been addressed in preceding years begin to show signs of resolution, cohesion and structure. For other children, the year beginning at age five is one in which reinforcement is necessary to combat areas where knowledge is not yet solidified. This is true for those children who face difficult circumstances in their environment, those for whom education has been compressed or incomplete, or even for those who were born late in the year and find themselves among the youngest in the class.

The attention to successive phases of development must not mandate that the organization of the school into homogenous-age classes be the best and only way to help each child find his own rhythm. The decisive role of fraternization in development is well-known. It allows younger children to multiply interactions with older students, and permits the latter to solidify know-how and knowledge recently acquired in relation to their inferiors. Both groups benefit. Depending upon the school’s means and the needs of its enrolled children, it is possible to structure classes with a mixture of ages without necessarily depriving them of time to regroup for age-specific activities.

The teacher pays particular attention to children’s reactions but does not interpret too hastily any manifestations of behavior. The trick is to understand patterns and adapt demands and propositions such that each child may encounter, throughout his schooling, a multitude of activities which are constantly evolving to become part of the process of coherent learning.

Evaluation is a crucial part of a teacher’s responsibilities, in Preschool as in other levels of Primary Education. It facilitates adaptation of activities to the needs of the class as much as to the needs of each child. Two varied tools have been produced by teachers, or designed for them. These allow for ‘taking stock’, at a time when children are just beginning to put newly acquired knowledge to work for them in the face of the demands of a new phase of learning.

Preschool maintains ties with Elementary School. This common bond, which applies not only to teachers of the last year of Preschool and the first two years of Elementary, is structured and developed through each school’s long-term project or mission. It is a link which allows for well-conceived planning and continuity in activities of the Cycle of Fundamental Learning, and an individual follow-up with each child at the delicate and fragile juncture between Pre- and Elementary School.

Teachers in Preschool often play an important role in the early detection and prevention of handicaps or learning disabilities. The goal is to identify potential problems, to enlist the aid and cooperation of specialists in early childhood development and to thus provide the child with every possible solution available.

It is quite simply a question, throughout Preschool, of ensuring that the child is guided in such a way as to respect his identity, his rhythm and his needs while giving him the best possible conditions in which to pursue a successful and rewarding school experience.

LANGUAGE AT THE HEART OF LEARNING

OBJECTIVES AND CURRICULUM

As parents are enrolling their children in school at an increasingly younger age each year, early childhood programs have responded by placing the main focus of their activities on oral language. During their first year, young children are able to produce only very short lists of words with a limited range of vocabulary. By the time they leave Kindergarten classes they are able to produce more complex sentences and combine them to tell a story, describe an object, or explain an event. They are poised for learning to read. This process owes a great deal to the rapid psychological development typical of these years, but it relies to an even greater extent on continuous help from adults or older children in the “apprentice speaker’s” environment. The following Preschool program emphasizes the role of the teacher in activities designed to develop language.

1. Allowing the Child to Participate in Verbal Exchanges in the Classroom -- Language Activities in Real Communication Situations

When participating in an early childhood program for the first time, the child realizes he does not make himself understood very easily and does not always understand what is happening or what is being said around him. Communication, with adults as well as with children, decidedly loses its connection to a family environment.

The pedagogy of language is based first on the reinforcement and maintenance of communication between the child and the adults at school, and then between the child and everyone else around him. Communication is far from being strictly verbal. It also involves gestures and attitudes, within clear situations.

This communication necessitates thorough respect on the teacher’s part for spatial and temporal organization; each activity must be planned thoroughly, with a constant focus on what is going on in the classroom, and an explanation of everyday events using simple verbalization totally centered on its context. “Living in Society” activities contribute to the progressive development of efficient communication, in the classroom and in the school. However, other activities require quality verbal exchanges as well, in order to provide opportunities to develop the necessary communication skills in early childhood. It is in continuous communication between the child and adults and between the child and his friends, that the pedagogy of language is rooted. Its purpose is to guide the child through his first learning experiences, to help him progress from the use of one language (connected to the immediate experience) to a language evoking past, future or imaginary events, to provide him with the necessary means to begin writing. Given that language is at the heart of all learning, every activity must have a clearly delineated linguistic dimension. However, the use of the language is not merely occasional, so it must therefore be broadly planned. There must be a balance between both of these aspects of language learning.

2. Early Childhood and Initial Exposure to the Learning of Language: Language Situations

Concerning very young children (2 and 3 years old), the primary goal of the program is to facilitate the child’s acquisition of the most immediate uses of language: understanding directions in a specific situation (meaning concurrently articulated with events taking place), and making himself understood in these same conditions.

2.1 Creating As Many Opportunities asPossible for Verbal Exchange

The most important aspect of this acquisition is the child’s frequent participation in meaningful linguistic exchanges concerning him directly. For the youngest children, linguistic pedagogy first emphasizes the organization of the classroom, which should ideally allow for each child to be personally addressed many times a day. Adults and older children at school play as important a role as the teacher’s, during early language acquisition. This means that with sufficient structure, they can contribute to verbal exchanges in everyday school life. It also suggests that the placement of children in heterogeneous age classes may be of considerable value to accessing language, multiplying interactions between older and younger children.

2.2 Increasing Interaction through Experience-Based Language Activities

For exchanges to be meaningful, they must be clearly based upon real-life situations in which the child plays a role. For the young child, the meaning of directions is often mistaken due to his perception and understanding of the action or the event. This means that at his age, language learning is inextricably connected to an activity or to a moment in daily life. As is the case in the family environment, the adult must verbalize the current situation, often initiating the exchange with the child and interacting with him when he tries to produce directions (repeating and restructuring them in the verbal language of the adult). Assessment of the child’s comprehension must take place frequently, and should encourage him to continue the interaction in order to develop his interpretation of the situation and of situations that accompany it. Directions from the adult are deeply rooted in the situation itself: expressive voice and gestures, the use of non-verbal tools of communication, reformulation, and numerous paraphrases. The use of a puppet can help generate dialogue for the more timid children.

3. Learning to Use Language to Evoke Past, Future or Imaginary Events

Occurring at around age three, the next phase of guided language acquisition involves leading the child to use language to evoke situations or events he is not directly experiencing. Of course, even the very young child will attempt to express what he has noticed or remembered, but he does not yet have the tools to verbalize it and thus has great difficulty making himself understood if the person to whom he is speaking has not had the same experience.

The child’s comprehension of communicated information is now connected to past, future (or imaginary) experiences and to language that is more and more precise, utilizing more abundant vocabulary, new sentence structures and syntactical structures he does not yet know. To produce this language he will need to learn to structure longer and more complex verbalizations. If during the first phase, the child seems to easily acquire the language around him, it follows that during the second phase continuous attention from the adult will be necessary. When the adult wishes to be heard, he must not hesitate to repeat his initial statement differently, in order to establish a foundation for comprehension. Similarly, when a child tries to describe a past event or anticipate a situation, adult interaction is necessary to lead him form a correct statement, which means offering the child all the required details necessary in order for him to be understood (examples might be news announcements, time and location of events, the presentation of people and objects, use of pronouns of substitution, dealing with the past…).