Malis­sa Lara

A well-round­ed child. That's the wish of al­most every par­ent. And Ar­bor, an ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tute in St Clair–es­tab­lished in Sep­tem­ber, 2008–is of­fer­ing just that op­por­tu­ni­ty. Ar­bor be­lieves that aca­d­e­m­ic ed­u­ca­tion should aim at ex­cel­lence across the whole range of in­tel­lec­tu­al dis­ci­plines.

Ac­cord­ing to the school's draft char­ter of ed­u­ca­tion­al prin­ci­ple, "The best way to meet this stan­dard is through a com­bi­na­tion of dif­fer­ent ap­proach­es; for­mal class teach­ing, in­for­mal class ex­cur­sions, small­er group ac­tiv­i­ties, and in­di­vid­ual at­ten­tion." The aim is to stim­u­late stu­dents to ex­plore and dis­cov­er not just in­di­vid­ual truths, but al­so the greater truths which ex­ist in all things, and to pro­vide each stu­dent with a per­son­alised and bal­anced ed­u­ca­tion in in­tel­lec­tu­al, cul­tur­al and spir­i­tu­al mat­ters that pro­mote a sense of in­di­vid­ual and so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Your bun­dle of joy will ben­e­fit from neu­ro-de­vel­op­ment, Span­ish and mu­sic, every day, from as ear­ly as two-and-a-half years old. The school was es­tab­lished by a group of par­ents and ed­u­ca­tors to of­fer learn­ing with a dif­fer­ence. Prin­ci­pal Nico­la Ram­saran, in an in­ter­view, said the found­ing mem­bers be­lieved that too much em­pha­sis was placed on aca­d­e­mics and not enough on the de­vel­op­ment of the whole per­son.

"We felt that per­son­alised ed­u­ca­tion was lack­ing. We want­ed to make learn­ing fun and de­mand­ing," Ram­saran said. The pupils who at present range from just over two to age eight, are taught dif­fer­ent virtues in Ar­bor's char­ac­ter de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme. "Once a term we high­light a virtue," Ram­saran said. This term the pupils are learn­ing the virtue "sin­cer­i­ty/hon­esty"

which they are al­so taught by their par­ents. "Par­ents are the pri­ma­ry ed­u­ca­tors." Par­ents are not left out of their child's school life. Once per term, an ad­vis­er meets with the par­ent. The Catholic school al­so has re­li­gious in­struc­tion, and its phi­los­o­phy in­cludes the un­ques­tioned ac­knowl­edge­ment of the ex­is­tence of God.

De­vel­op­ing skills

Dai­ly, pupils de­vel­op their mo­tor skills dur­ing the neu­ro-de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme. This is when they per­form dif­fer­ent ac­tiv­i­ties, such as bal­anc­ing, rolling, jump­ing and even climb­ing in what is called the cir­cuit. There­fore, if a child's mo­tor skills need to be de­vel­oped, or he or she has any dis­abil­i­ty, this could be iden­ti­fied at an ear­ly age. The pupils are al­so re­quired to lis­ten to a piece of mu­sic for two weeks. Every day the mu­sic is dis­cussed. It's qui­et time where they can tru­ly un­der­stand the mu­sic they are lis­ten­ing to. Though at present the pupils are no old­er than eight, every year Ar­bor adds an­oth­er year to the in­sti­tute. This means that in ad­di­tion to the pupils al­ready at the school, ap­pli­ca­tions are en­ter­tained.

Habla Es­panol?

Learn­ing Span­ish at Ar­bor is more than rou­tine. When the Sun­day Guardian vis­it­ed a kinder­garten class, some stu­dents were speak­ing to the Span­ish as­sis­tant in flu­ent Span­ish. Apart from be­ing mo­men­tar­i­ly dis­tract­ed by the pho­tog­ra­ph­er, the chil­dren were dis­ci­plined and quick­ly fo­cussed on their teacher.

Aca­d­e­m­ic di­rec­tor, Mar­i­lyn O'Brien, says they saw the need for an al­ter­na­tive. "This is the first bilin­gual school. I don't know if it's the on­ly one, but it's the first," she said. The pupils are taught Span­ish by four as­sis­tants whose na­tive tongue is Span­ish. "The Span­ish as­sis­tants speak on­ly Span­ish to the chil­dren," Ram­saran said. In turn, the chil­dren re­spond in Span­ish. Even dur­ing break time, the Span­ish as­sis­tants speak their na­tive lan­guage.

When asked about school vi­o­lence, O'Brien said: "There has been no in­ci­dence of school vi­o­lence. They have learnt to look out for each oth­er."

The chil­dren are al­so taught how to car­ry out dai­ly chores and are taught how to be man­ner­ly, which forms part of the school's learn­ing sit­u­a­tions pro­gramme.

A few of the dai­ly learn­ing sit­u­a­tions:

* In­ci­den­tal ac­tion

* Tasks

* Neu­ro-de­vel­op­ment

* Mu­sic au­di­tions

* Knowl­edge bits

With these sit­u­a­tions, such as in­ci­den­tal ac­tion, they are taught to raise their hands be­fore speak­ing.

O'Brien said Ar­bor sought to de­vel­op cit­i­zens of T&T and the world who would con­tribute more mean­ing­ful­ly to the so­ci­ety. Par­ents al­so get their fill as the school hosts a par­ent en­rich­ment pro­gramme once a term, when dif­fer­ent top­ics are dis­cussed. They even of­fer ba­by-sit­ting for those who need it while at­tend­ing the pro­gramme. "It's nor­mal­ly filled." Ram­saran said Ar­bor had a vi­brant Par­ent/Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion as well. "Each class has a par­ent rep­re­sen­ta­tive. We can­not have the school with­out the in­put of par­ents."

Some of Ar­bor's as­sur­ances

* There will be no dis­crim­i­na­tion on so­cial, cul­tur­al or fi­nan­cial grounds. On the con­trary, any dif­fer­ences should be seen as a means of mu­tu­al en­rich­ment.

* Our schools will share their re­sources with the wider com­mu­ni­ty. Our schools will be so­cial and ed­u­ca­tion­al cen­tres for the com­mu­ni­ty which they serve through fam­i­ly en­rich­ment pro­grammes, teacher train­ing pro­grammes and oth­er so­cial and civic ini­tia­tives.

–re­port­ing by MALIS­SA LARA