Early Years Programme:
Pre-K to kg2

Early Years Programme

We nurture curiosity, creativity, and confidence through play, exploration, and inquiry.

With a balanced foundation in academics, languages, arts, and physical education, students grow holistically—developing independence, self-expression, and ownership of their learning.

Early Years in the PYP is designed to:

Teach students a broad base of knowledge and skills in subjects, including Mathematics, Science, Literacy, Expressive Art and Design, Physical Education, and Language (Arabic, French, Mandarin and Spanish) through play.
Foster every student’s development with a powerful emphasis on important ideas and concepts through the units of inquiry.
Holistically teach students how to self-regulate and express themselves effectively through Personal, Social and Emotional development and Communication and Language.
Empower students to develop independence and to take responsibility and ownership for their own learning.

The Learner Profile:

From PreK, our youngest learners are exposed to the IB Learner Profile Attributes with the help of our school mascot, Gus!

We introduce each Learner Profile Attribute to the children slowly, exploring the word meaning and developing a foundational understanding of what that word looks like in practice. We embrace the Learner Profile language to develop children’s self awareness, thinking and perspectives.

Figure 1
Learning through play supports belonging, well-being and self-efficacy

Play and Inquiry in Early Years

Our philosophy in Early Years ensures that children learn through play as the driver for inquiry.

We believe in following children’s interests, valuing their voices and choices and giving them ownership of their learning. Combined with the units of inquiry and curriculum expectations, children in Early Years at Dwight go

on a journey through play to explore, learn and find out about the world around them.

Play is the foundational language children use to understand the world around them. Children experiment, solve problems, collaborate, and build resilience through play. They develop foundational literacy, numeracy, and science skills and cultivate the critical thinking, creativity, and social-emotional intelligence that are the cornerstones of lifelong learning.

The Learning Environment

Inquiring through play in the early years supports the notion that learning is an active process.

Healthy learning environments and supportive relationships, created and demonstrated by the learning community, further support this learning process. When these elements are in place, children respond with curiosity, imagination, creativity and agency. Through this active inquiry process, they naturally develop language ability, practise symbolic exploration and expression, and become self-regulated learners. As their skills evolve, early learners develop a positive sense of identity to interact, reflect and contribute to their own and others’ learning and development in the early years and beyond.

A healthy learning environment promotes collaboration and a shared sense of purpose and belonging. It respects the agency of “rich and powerful learners” (Edwards, Gandini and Forman 2012), inspires creativity and innovation, and recognises trial and error as an integral part of the learning process.

Ways in which intentionally planned early learning spaces support early learners

OUR EARLY YEARS BOOKLET

Find out more about our Early Years Programme. For additional information call 800 DWIGHT (394448) or email admissions@dwight.ae

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Early Years Programme:
Pre-K to kg2