St. Gregory’s introduces integrated kindergarten Cynthia Bigrigg reporter@hintonvoice.ca Changes are coming to the way junior and senior kindergarten students fare taught at St Gregory Catholic Schoo! this fall Beginning in September, St Gregory's will launch the Happy Creek Learning Centre, a team teaching pilot project. Walls will be knocked down between the two kindergarien classes, and junior and senior kindergarten will be taught in the same room by three teachers and two educational assistants We've been talking about this for 2 couple of years,” said principal ‘Tim Fafard. “Research says it’s a good program. With the junior kindergarten program, it will be a multi aged. disciplinary approach where they willbe incorporated with the Kindergarten program.” ‘The program allows lots of room for stuclents to be creative, and is based on the philosophy that children are full of creativity and curiosity. The program fs somewhat studentdriven, with the curriculum emerging from the interests and ideas of the students “The benefits definitely outweigh the reasons not to go in this direction,” said Fafard, adding St. Gregory’s has put a ‘good deal of research into a different type of early childhood education model. “We spent months looking at schools in and outside of our district that run integrated programs. One of the schools — a flagship school in the Edmonton Catholic division - runs a program of close to 120 kindergarten students ages four to five in their program.” Fafard said they spent a significant amount of time watching the program and seeing how it progressed. “Research really showed the growth of kids in this type of program is phenomenal.” According to that research, an integrated approach to kindergarten takes the stress out of entering school = having the same teachers and many ‘of the same classmates over two years creates a feeling of extended family and community. Additionally, older students benefit from taking on a leadership role to the younger students, and will have the opportunity to tutor their younger classmates, helping them gain confidence in their knowledge and abilities. Fafard said that the switch to the new system may be most challenging for the parents. “"We often look at it through the lens of our own experiences. This is very different, although this model is used fairly exclusively in a lot of European countries,” he said “iducationally and philosophically, this is the best way to teach out children.”