A Multiage Program

What is a Multiage Program?

A multiage program is an educational approach that focuses on the academic, physical, social and emotional needs of the child. It recognizes that all children learn but at different rates and in different ways. The program's nurturing environment gives students an opportunity to explore their interests, encourages risk-taking and ensures that learning is relevant and meaningful. It is grounded in the belief that children's innate desire to learn is best nurtured when teachers and parents work together to create an engaging and challenging classroom in order to foster a lifelong joy of learning.

By purposefully structuring a class to include a span of ages and to take advantage of the resulting diversity, students naturally become more accepting of one another's differences. There is an atmosphere of collaboration rather than one of competition in which children pressure one another to fit into an arbitrary norm. The focus is on individual students, so the younger or less advanced children can fit in and the more advanced learners are challenged because "grade level performance" is no longer enough to get by.

The program offers an integrated, student-centered, project-based approach that facilitates greater learning independence. Our timeline-based curriculum encourages critical problem-solving skills, logic, imagination, creativity, self-direction and motivation.

To what is a Multiage Program committed?

• Encouraging children of all ages in taking responsibility, goal setting, personal initiative and self-discipline.
• Teaching children to learn all the time, not just when they have the teacher's attention.
• Helping each progress at their own rate and level.
• Enhancing, employing and honoring each child's strengths while addressing their weaknesses.
• Building sibling relationships and an appreciation for others of all ages.
• Maintaining a flexible classroom structure.
• Providing diverse opportunities for skill development.
• Utilizing learning centers, small group and peer instruction, and individual learning/pacing contracts.
• Nurturing a sense of community.
• Engaging teachers as facilitators rather than lecturers.

How will this program benefit my child?

Because children work at their own rate in a multiage classroom, they are continually making progress and being recognized for social and/or artistic achievements as well as academic achievement. Staying with the same teacher, same students and experiencing similar routines over a longer period of time provides continuity. Academically, students experience a wide spectrum of learning opportunities as they work with students of different ages and abilities. Socially, students develop a sense of caring and nurturing as they help each other learn. Competition and comparison is lessened, as students are observed and evaluated according to their own potential.

How will I know if my child is learning?

A crucial means of assessment is observation. Yet most age-segregated classrooms leave teachers little opportunity to develop or apply insights into the learning styles, needs and interests of individual students.

Individual student progress must be regularly assessed, in detail, to determine readiness for lessons or activities. This assessment can be done effectively through observation of the student's everyday work, ideas, and thinking about an area of study, or from information displayed through a project or paper. Students should be taught to learn a concept to mastery; if mistakes are made on one assignment, the logical next assignment is to correct the mistakes, continuing until a skill is mastered.