Early Years

At Hamelin-Laie International School we recognise that students from 1-6 years of age are in a pivotal stage of their education that affects the rest of their academic development. When a child is well stimulated during infancy, they are better equipped for the duration of their school years.

Early Years Education is divided into two stages:

• 1st Stage of Early Years Education (children from 1 to 3 years):
  Children have various respective facilities suited to their needs. The essential development that a child requires is sought through globalized and active methods, beginning with stimulating games and experiments.
• 2nd Stage of Early Years Education (children from 3 to 6 years):
  Students will use their trilingualism (English, Spanish and Catalan) as a building block for their learning progress, therefore strengthening their linguistic skills throughout their school years. We continue with globalised methods and individual guidance in order for each student to maintain equal levels of knowledge.

• 1st Stage of Early Years Education:
  Trilingual teaching begins in this stage. The English language, as well as Spanish and Catalan, are exercised through games, songs and activities on a daily basis. As the human brain is most able to recognise the nuances of language during the first years of life, we regard linguistic immersion to be a top priority.
• 2nd Stage of Early Years Education:
  Keeping up with our methodology in the 1st stage, students are exposed to the three languages daily. Students grow in fluency in a natural environment. The development of social-emotional skills is promoted through a context of language immersion and trilingualism.

Our methodology is dynamic; our main objective is to awaken the student’s curiosity for the world around them.

A child’s disposition towards learning and discovery is infinite. We therefore dedicate our efforts to creating maximum stimulation and opportunity through projects that exercise the student’s physical, reading, mathematical and encyclopaedic skills. Our methodology takes inspiration from Glen Doman´s teaching philosophy.

Furthermore, we attempt to heighten all areas of intelligence by supporting main activities with music, stories, games and psychomotor exercises.

We promote empathy and assertiveness in our students by placing a special focus on each child’s emotions. By helping them to recognise their own emotions, they can easily identify the same feelings in others.
In order to encourage good character, healthy self-esteem, and confidence in our students, we begin to study ethics at a very early age, and therefore provide the children with an optimal opportunity for life-long happiness.
It is also very important to form good habits and autonomy through positive motivation and by making the students accustomed to routines.
Our literacy approach consists of two parts; firstly, we work on global reading through the identification of images, as each word signifies an independent cognitive illustration for each respective child. Secondly, we promote phonic and syllabic reading.