Reggio Emilia

One of the special things about St Leos is that we use many aspects of the Reggio Emilia approach to learning to underpin our delivery of the curriculum. 

Reggio Emilia is an Italian philosophy best summed up by “the 100 languages of children”.  It values all learning environments: the academic, physical, aesthetic and spiritual and draws on our long tradition of a community to work together for the good of our children. 

Reggio Emilia ties in with our vision to educate the whole child and promotes learning through research, experimentation and excellence and cultivates the traits of resilience and integrity within the child. 

Many of our teachers have trained in Reggio Emilia teaching.  The role of the teacher within the Reggio Emilia approach is first and formost to be that of a learner alongside the children.  The teacher carefully listens to, and observes the children at work and develops programmes that are individual to each child.  The teachers at St Leos are committed to reflect about their own teaching and learning in order to be better teachers for the children.

Reggio Emilia schools like St Leo's pay great attention to the look and feel of the classroom.  Our teachers carefully organise the classroom space for small and large group projects.  The children's work is displayed both at the children's and adult eye level.  

Our staff library has a number of fantastic books on the subject.  Any interested parents are welcome to borrow them.

Our Principal, Mary Kedzlie completed a research project about Reggio Emilia during her Master of Teaching and Learning Study.

You may be interested reading more about Reggio Emilia on-line. Here is a link to one web page that has more information and quotes.  http://www.psosborne.co.uk/?p=567