TOMORROW'S CHILD

A HI-TECH school on one of Bahrain's newest housing developments is to introduce a pioneering educational approach considered by some educationalists as one of the best pre-school programmes in the world.

The new Early Childhood Nursery Programme for three-year-olds will start in September at Riffa Views International School (RVIS), under the leadership of its recently-appointed school director Des Sjoquist, who only took over the helm last August. It is based on the child-centred 'Reggio Emilia philosophy' that promotes creativity and critical thinking by encouraging children's natural inquisitiveness, initiative and independence.

RVIS will be the first school in Bahrain to adopt this approach. The classes, which will have a capacity of 15 children, will be run by a qualified Reggio Emilia teacher along with two other professionals.

Mr Sjoquist, 43, said: "There is nothing normal about our school. We have everything that is innovative and different that engages children and prepares them for the 21st Century.

"We do not follow the traditional model of 9am we learn English, 10am we learn science and at 11am we learn mathematics. The traditional 3R's - reading, writing and arithmetic - form the foundation but in this information age, where there is an information overload, we now need to teach people how to use the information and not how to memorise that information.

"We need to ensure that classrooms are engaging, students are interested and they are provided with relevant information and that they are processing and synthesising that information to solve different problems."

Although the facility has a mixed gender environment, students of Grade 6 and beyond are segregated into same gender classes. Insisting that this is a growing trend in 'developed societies', Mr Sjoquist said: "It is a growing global trend to go towards same sex classes for academic reasons, particularly in the middle school.

"There are 600 schools in the US alone that have switched to same sex classes. They are getting better results from students. It definitely supports the culture of this region but there is an academic side to it which makes sense.

"Children tend to get distracted by members of the opposite sex in their developmental stages. So, by removing that distraction they are much more focussed on learning and academics."

The kingdom's hi-tech Riffa Views International School (RVIS), under the leadership of school director Des Sjoquist, will start a new Early Childhood Nursery Programme for three-year-olds in September.

It is based on the child-centred 'Reggio Emilia philosophy' that promotes creativity and critical thinking by encouraging children's natural inquisitiveness, initiative and independence.

RVIS will be the first school in Bahrain to adopt this approach.

The Early Childhood Nursery Programme, based on a philosophy and curriculum which was developed in the Italian community of Reggio Emilia, is designed to be child-centred, using an emergent curriculum where projects and themes have been inspired by the children's own interests.

Mr Sjoquist said: "Today the 'Reggio Emilia' approach has become a global movement with schools from across the world adopting the values and learning approach that were created over half a century ago.

"Our new Early Childhood Nursery Programme follows this approach and will create a learning environment that will enhance and facilitate children's construction of their own powers of thinking through the combination of all the expressive, communicative and cognitive languages. We are extremely pleased to be able to offer this programme and look forward to welcoming new families and their children to RVIS."

The resource-rich school, which offers an American syllabus and International Baccalaureate (IB) programme, is located in a large, airy, naturally-lit building at the edge of the Riffa Views' signature estates and its Colin Montgomerie-designed golf course.

With annual fees of between BD2,500-7,000 it may be one of the most expensive on the island but it can also boast of being one of the best equipped and with a teaching staff of 33, RVIS maintains a student/teacher ratio at one of the lowest levels in the kingdom.

Its state-of-the-art technology includes a $5 million server room, 20 laptops in every classroom, a swimming pool and two university level science labs with three more on the way. Currently up to Grade 7, the facility is also planning to introduce Grade 8 in the next academic year.

Plans are also underway to lay sports pitches and the school's tennis court is on the verge of completion.

Now in its third year of operation, the school has 227 students - 38 per cent Bahraini, 10 per cent Saudi and the rest are made up of children representing 30 different expat nationalities.

Mr Sjoquist said he fell in love with the school on his first visit and believes the facility to have all the trappings of a great learning environment. He added: "There are very few schools in the world that has students from Grade 1 and above getting access to laptops. This school has the best resources I have seen in any school.

"It is not just about having technology but how we use technology in the classroom that matters. We have a great Arabic programme and its unique approach and philosophy of teaching is what makes this a great school."

Calling this generation of students 'digital natives', Mr Sjoquist explained how traditionally a Grade 2 student would have written a story, drawn a picture on the top of the page and stapled it together would nowadays present a digital project with the student typing a story, using real pictures taken on a digital camera to illustrate it, collaborating and editing it online and recording a 'voice over' as well.

Mr Sjoquist explained: "We continue to teach handwriting but the reality is that in the next 10 to 15 years it will almost become obsolete.

"Most professions now use desk recorders, laptops or computers or hand-held devices. I don't think we will ever lose the concept of handwriting but the emphasis placed on it is changing. It is still an important skill but it is not as important.

"Our students will be doing the same subjects and they will complete the IB tests, be successful and go on to Ivy League universities ... but how we get them from point A to point B is something that we are working on. Their journey will certainly be very different."

The school uses MAP (Measure of Academic Progress) to measure reading and mathematics skills of all students from Grade 1. Students will also take the SAT Reasoning Test recognised by US universities.

RVIS students eat lunches together, have lockers together, and all after-school activities are mixed except for swimming and dance.

An Arabic curriculum is offered to all students and is segregated at four levels - Level 1 for novices learning a new language; Level 2 for those who have some familiarity of the language; Level 3 is called the heritage programme for students who can speak and understand Arabic but don't know how to read and write Arabic and finally Level 4 for native Arabic speakers who speak, read and write the language.

Elaborating on this curriculum, designed specially for RVIS, Mr Sjoquist said: "We teach Arabic the way we teach the English language. It is literacy based and we read an Arabic story, discuss it in Arabic and we thus develop an interest in creativity and critical thinking.

"This also increases the love and enjoyment of the language. We want them to love learning the language and we want to expose them to different resources in literature that helps them engage their mind in learning and the results we are seeing are spectacular."

The school does not celebrate any faith-based holidays or festivals other than national days or international days, such as Earth Day.

"Our school focuses on critical thinking and creativity," said Mr Sjoquist. "We are not about preparing students for any kind of government tests - we are about teaching kids how to learn and I have great faith that if we encourage children to love learning they will do excellently well in any standardised test you throw at them.

"We have many students from powerful and affluent families but they dress in the same uniform and are treated exactly the same way, regardless of income, or name, or background. There are no special parking facilities or special privileges for anyone. Families and teachers and staff are treated with respect."

Mr Sjoquist has taught English, social studies and humanities. Prior to joining RVIS he was a high school principal and director of instructional programmes in Mexico. His wife, Tracy, is the director of admissions at RVIS and they live at Riffa Views with their sons, Caius, 10, and Jadin, seven.

Former school director Bruce McWilliams, who opened the institution, is now vice president of International Schools Services - a private, non-profit organisation serving American international schools overseas - and is presently working at an ISS school in Saudi Arabia.