Building development at St Ives
Director of Preschool – Year 2 at St Ives Mrs Michele BonDurant-Scott reports on a brand-new environment that reflects our value of creativity and confidence.
Two years ago, we set ourselves the task of invigorating St Ives’ Year 1 and 2 learning spaces. Historical buildings that had fostered hundreds of clever thinkers over many years, needed a good shake-up. We began with an architectural outline of how we would use the spaces, including what was important to our boys as learners and how we wanted to teach.
The learning experience in our Preschool embraces the child-centred early educational Reggio Emilia approach designed by Loris Malaguzzi. It hinges on the belief that children are powerful and capable individuals, with the ability and desire to construct their own knowledge. We apply the essence of those guiding principles to our older learners and the building needed to reflect this inherent philosophy.
We believe that respect for our learners and the importance of relating well with others is key for harmony.
We knew there must be ample nooks for books. The love of reading sits at the heart of everything we do and a love of books and discovering the ideas and imaginings of others, enables our young learners to explore, investigate and expand their understandings and create new ideas. Reading enables our boys to learn to make sense of things, not only of the world around them, but also of other people and themselves. Through experiential stories and ideas shared by writers, they build social-emotional skills, a point of view and imagination.
We hoped to create enticing areas to nurture boys when thinking about art, science, music, and creative innovation; to inspire and guide them to learn, question, reflect, make connections and explore complexity beyond standards and academic outcomes.
Recognising that at the very core of creativity is our desire to express ourselves, we envisaged environments that would help us to inspire and support creative thinking and invention.
Like any new places one visits, we must now make these spaces our own. We have begun to inhabit them with little personalities and important events, colouring them with enthusiastic daily experiences and consequently, forming our first memories.
We look forward to filling the beautiful, light-filled spaces with the imaginings and dreams of the next generation.
Sydney Grammar School
College Street, Darlinghurst
NSW 2010 Australia
Phone: (02) 9332 5800
Edgecliff Preparatory School
Alma Street, Paddington
NSW 2021 Australia
Phone: (02) 9366 0100
St Ives Preparatory School
Ayres Rd, St Ives
NSW 2075 Australia
Phone: (02) 8302 5200
