THE INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS FOUNDATION PRE-SCHOOL

The ISF Vision The ISF is a community of learners, independent in thought and action, deeply rooted in Chinese culture, global in understanding and experience, and excellent in all endeavors. The ISF Mission An ISF education is to develop: • Independent Minds: Nurturing creativity, critical thinking, and a lifelong love of learning for academic, personal, and social development; • Chinese Virtues: Educating learners in a uniquely Chinese-English bilingual and East-West bicultural environment rooted in timeless Chinese values embodied in the Eight Virtues + One ; and • Global Outlook: Building life skills through experiential learning, inspiring learners to act as empowered and resilient global stewards.

The ISF Pre-School curriculum is developed on the basis of the International Early Years Curriculum (IEYC) and The ISF Academy Foundation Years curriculum, drawing together the essence of Chinese and Western thinking. The program is delivered through two languages of instruction, with 70% in Putonghua and 30% in English. It provides a rich bank of experiences from which young children can learn to make sense of their own world and the world around them. The ISF Pre-School curriculum’s fully integrated, balanced, inquiry approach to teaching and learning capitalizes on young children’s interest and their desire to explore, ask questions and find the answers. Each unit is designed to focus on issues relevant to young children and lasts several weeks to allow in-depth and authentic learning. The curriculum fully integrates the six key learning areas: • Language • Early Childhood Mathematics • Nature and Living • Arts and Creativity • Physical Fitness and Health • Self and Society

The program is designed to be sufficiently flexible to accommodate for individual children’s patterns of learning and development. The program provides opportunities for new learning to be fostered and enables children to reflect on different ways of doing things, makes connections across time and place, establishes different kinds of relationships and encounter different points of view.