Welcome To Lower Elementary

Lower Elementary School at the Western International School of Shanghai is home to Pre-Nursery, Nursery, Pre-Kindergarten, and Kindergarten students. Our bright, spacious, and inspiring spaces provide the perfect environment for your young child’s introduction to education. Those fascinating first steps in a classroom are integral to starting a healthy, exciting, and fun educational journey.

Here at the Western International School of Shanghai, we place the student at the center of learning. By developing a curriculum that supports the natural curiosities of this stage of development and meeting the child where they are in their holistic development, we build an effective learning community that honors and supports the well-being of all its members.

We see children as unique and agentic individuals with the capacity to be a partner in their learning as they respond to their teachers, peers, physical environment, and resources that surround them. By engaging in authentic experiences that value their prior knowledge and construct and build upon it, children develop naturally, organic, and excitingly.

Lower Elementary CURRICULUM Overview

The IB Primary Years Programme (PYP) is a curriculum framework for young learners aged 3–12. Like all International Baccalaureate (IB) Programmes, the IB Learner Profile permeates all facets of school life in the Early Years and Primary.

The PYP is based on recognizing a child’s natural curiosity, creativity, and ability to reflect. It generates a stimulating, challenging learning environment to nurture the whole child and foster a lifelong love of learning. The PYP is transdisciplinary, meaning students learn across subject areas while inquiring into big ideas.

Young learners are intelligent, resourceful, and creative. They need a curriculum and environment that supports critical learning during these crucial early years. Through our inquiry-based approach, we engage and stimulate curious minds to explore, question, and wonder from a place of security. Classroom communities foster a growing sense of safety, well-being, and warmth.

Our daily interactions as a community focus on building secure and confident communicators who have a growing realization of their agency as they interact with the world around them. Using purposeful play as a vehicle for learning, we enable students to make personal connections to inquiries organically and authentically, building on existing knowledge and understandings as they develop transferrable skills in a facilitative environment.

Children engage in a balanced Early Years curriculum that meets the IB Primary Years Programme‘s standards and practices. Through carefully planned units of inquiry, children engage with big ideas in science and social studies, enabling them to develop transferable conceptual understandings. This foundation of knowledge and understanding is the platform on which they continue to grow as they build upon their learning from year to year and beyond the Early Years.

The immense benefit to parents and students is that WISS is the only school in mainland China where young learners can progress from kindergarten through to high school, completing every IB Programme. By offering all four Programmes, the skills endorsed in students during kindergarten flourish and bloom as they progress through the IB, with each level building upon their abilities.

Welcome

The Lower Elementary building at the Western International School of Shanghai is home to Pre-Nursery, Nursery, Pre-Kindergarten, and Kindergarten students. Our bright, spacious, and inspiring Lower Elemenatary building provides the perfect environment for your young child’s introduction to education. Those fascinating first steps in a classroom are integral to starting a healthy, exciting, and fun educational journey.

Early Years Principal at Western International School of Shanghai

Welcome to Lower Elementary

Ms. Fabienne Brown

Elementary Principal

Play

based

learning

The Lower Elementary Learning Framework defines play-based learning as ‘a context for learning through which children organize and make sense of their social worlds, as they engage actively with people, objects and representations’.

Play-based learning appeals to children’s natural curiosity and desire to engage in experiences based on their unique interests as they make sense of the world around them. In our play-based learning programs, our experienced educators tailor their teaching opportunities to align with the type of play children engage in.

Lower Elementary Curriculum

Young learners are intelligent, resourceful, and creative. They need a curriculum and environment that supports critical learning during these crucial Lower Elementary. Through our inquiry-based approach, we engage and stimulate curious minds to explore, question, and wonder from a place of security. Classroom communities foster a growing sense of safety, well-being, and warmth.

Children engage in a balanced Lower Elementary curriculum that meets the IB Primary Years Programme‘s standards and practices. Through carefully planned units of inquiry, children engage with big ideas in science and social studies, enabling them to develop transferable conceptual understandings. This foundation of knowledge and understanding is the platform on which they continue to grow as they build upon their learning from year to year and beyond the Lower Elementary.

Elements of play-based learning

Self Direction

Unstructured Exploration

Fun

Process

Oriented

Process

Oriented

Students choose what they play and how they play. Educators will supervise, accompany and suggest ideas, but the student decides the rest.

Students are allowed to explore for themselves and select objects or activities based on their own interests.

Play must be enjoyable for students. Educators do not force certain activities as it’s important that the child is enjoying what they are doing.

It is the process of the play that is important, there is no end goal or correct response.

Elements of Play-Based Learning

Fun

It is the process of the play that is important; there is no specific end goal or correct response, allowing children to freely express their creativity and imagination.

Self Direction

Unstructured Exploration

Process Oriented

Students choose what they play and how they play. Educators will supervise, accompany and suggest ideas, but the student decides the rest.

Students are encouraged to explore for themselves and select objects or activities based on their own unique interests and preferences.

Play must be enjoyable for students. Educators do not force certain activities as it’s important that the child is enjoying what they are doing.

PLAY BASED LEARNING

BENEFITS of play-based learning

Students immersed in a Play-Based Learning Environment develop a range of skills and reach key developmental milestones in the process.

Language & Literature Development

Social & Emotional Skills

Creativity & Imagination

Confidence

Positive Attitude Towards Learning

Motor Skills

Students learn key STEM and life skills through inquiry-based learning.

Inquiry-based learning begins with a question, problem or idea. Students are involved in the planning and execution of investigations, proposing explanations and solutions, and communicating their understanding of concepts in a variety of ways.

Throughout the inquiry process, students observe, raise questions, and critique their practices. It is an approach that encourages collaboration and supports trans-disciplinary learning across subject areas.

INQUIRY based

Approach

THE inquiry based learning APPROACH cultivates

Social Interaction

Reasoning

Skills

Positive Attitudes

Exploration

Social Interaction assists with improving student attention span and develops reasoning skills. Social interaction encourages students to generate their own ideas while developing agency, ownership and engagement with student learning.

An Inquiry Based approach creates a safe and supportive environment for students to engage in meaningful discussion. It promotes student engagement in scientific discussion and improves learning of scientific concepts. It encourages students to generate questions, formulate positions and make decisions.

The iterative and evaluative nature of many STEM problems means failure is an important part of the problem-solving process. A healthy attitude to failure encourages reflection, resilience and continual improvement.

Exploration allow students to investigate, design, imagine, and explore. As a result, students develop curiosity, resilience and optimism.

The IB standards offer rigorous guidelines that allow for school and classroom practices to align with the IB educational philosophy and values. The PYP is a framework for schools and their approach to learning and teaching. Students explore significant concepts through units of inquiry. The six transdisciplinary themes that guide units of inquiry in each school year* are:

Units of enquiry

Who

We Are

Where

Are We in Place and Time

How

We Express

Ourselves

How

The World

Works

How

We Organize

Ourselves

Sharing

The Planet

Inquiry Based Learning Cultivates

Social Interaction

Exploration

Reasoning

Skills

Positive Attitudes

Exploration allows students to investigate, design, imagine, and explore. As a result, students develop curiosity, resilience, and optimism, which are essential qualities for lifelong learning and personal growth.

An inquiry-based approach creates a safe space for students to engage in meaningful discussions, boosting their participation in scientific discourse, enhancing their understanding, and encouraging them to ask questions, develop informed viewpoints, and make reasoned decisions.

Subject areas

Units of inquiry authentically interweave ideas and skills from the relevant subject areas:



Language

Social Studies

Mathematics

Music & The Arts

Science

Personal,

Social & Physical Education

This approach encourages students to make their own connections between what they know and how it relates to the world around them.

The school outlines its specific knowledge content and academic curriculum within the framework of the PYP including:

Knowledge content organized by the transdisciplinary themes. Each school decides specific concepts and topics studied through each theme based on their local context.

Approaches to learning skills aimed to help students become independent and self-motivated learners.

Action initiated by learners that is authentic, meaningful, mindful, responsible and responsive of their learning and the world they live in.

Units of Enquiry

Who

We Are

Where

Are We in Place and Time

How

We Express

Ourselves

How

The World

Works

How

We Organize

Ourselves

Sharing

The Planet

7.45-8.30am
Children arrive, settle in and participate in various learning activities

8.30-9.45am
Integrated Inquiry (Math, English, Chinese, Units of Inquiry)

9.45-10.30am
Library Time

10.30-11.15am
Physical Education | Swimming

11.15-12.00am
Art | Music

12.00am-1pm
Lunch time

1-1.45pm
Integrated Inquiry (Math, English, Chinese, Units of Inquiry)

1.45-2.30pm
Integrated Inquiry (Math, English, Chinese, Units of Inquiry)

2.30-3.00pm
Integrated Inquiry (Math, English, Chinese, Units of Inquiry)

Students in Lower Elementary have the opportunity to work with Art, Music, Physical Education, and Library specialist teachers as part of their weekly schedule. All areas of schooling are planned in a transdisciplinary way to ensure strong connections between all learning experiences and disciplines. As language learners, our Early Years students are immersed in an English language environment, and at WISS, we value translanguaging – the use of different languages together.

Chinese language acquisition is embedded in every aspect of the EY students’ academic experiences. By expanding the use of Chinese into a range of educational contexts, students are given a well-rounded perspective and understanding of the language and its applications in real-life situations. This application of translanguaging results in confident and motivated communicators.

Lower Elementary students also use our spacious outdoor environment, engaging in outdoor learning experiences designed to create opportunities that promote inquiry-based and investigative attainment of knowledge.

We have open blocks of time that enable in-depth inquiry and allow children to engage in sustained play. These experiences are essential to learning and development for our youngest learners. The Pre-Nursery and Nursery children’s timetable includes a daily nap as part of a balanced sleep schedule.

HOME-SCHOOL PARTNERSHIP

A smooth transition from home to school is paramount. We pride ourselves as an open, caring community that believes in the importance of strong home-school communications to ensure the success of every one of our students, placing home-school relationships as a priority to meet the best interests of the student for their overall happiness and comfort.

We are focused on providing clear and easy communication channels for our parents to stay up to date on school news and information. Our communications with the family are centered on building our understandings of your child as we continue the learning journey together with you.

TEACHING APPROACH

Our homeroom teams consist of an international teacher, a Chinese teacher, and a teaching assistant. This provides a high adult-child ratio, enabling learning and teaching to be student-centered and responsive to children’s interests. Using an inquiry-based approach, teachers facilitate various hands-on activities that provoke curiosity, questioning, and wonder, co-constructing learning alongside children as they explore.

Our LE children learn through purposeful play, which is planned and designed to develop age-appropriate skills and conceptual understandings around science, math, language, and personal and social development. We value teachers as learners, too, and continually seek to improve and enhance our teaching through engagement with global early childhood research, pedagogy, and child development.

ROUTINES

ACTIVITIES

THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE

A Typical Day in Lower Elementary

EXPORE Lower Elementary

This approach encourages students to make their own connections between what they know and how it relates to the world around them.

The school outlines its specific knowledge content and academic curriculum within the framework of the PYP including:

Knowledge content organized by the transdisciplinary themes. Each school decides specific concepts and topics studied through each theme based on their local context.

Approaches to learning skills aimed to help students become independent and self-motivated learners.

Action initiated by learners that is authentic, meaningful, mindful, responsible and responsive of their learning and the world they live in.

A Typical Day in Lower Elementary

           7.45-8.30am
                            Children arrive, settle in and participate in various learning activities
         8.30-9.45am
                           Integrated Inquiry (Math, English, Chinese, Units of Inquiry)

9.45-10.30am
Library Time

               10.30-11.15am
                           Physical Education | Swimming
            1.15-12.00am
                           Art | Music

            12.00am-1pm
                           Lunch time
           1-1.45pm
                            Integrated Inquiry (Math, English, Chinese, Units of Inquiry)
           1.45-2.30pm
                            Integrated Inquiry (Math, English, Chinese, Units of Inquiry)
           2.30-3.00pm
                            Integrated Inquiry (Math, English, Chinese, Units of Inquiry)

Resources

Upcoming events

WESTERN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF SHANGHAI

555 Lian Min Road, Xujing Town, Qing Pu District,

Shanghai, PRC, 201702

enquiry@wiss.cn

+86 (21) 6976 6013

+86 (21) 6976 6015

13816451034

13816450346

Admissions

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Dear Early Years Families,

In Early Years at the Western International School of Shanghai (WISS), teachers and students shape the learning environment together to transform each learning experience. Our Early Years Team nurtures each child’s holistic development by building a strong foundation for continuous learning and respectful relationships. We offer a safe environment where children are encouraged to feel valued as members of a diverse community. Children learn English and Chinese in a natural way that is supported by our units of inquiry.

We foster each child’s natural curiosity by encompassing the students’ individual interests along with opportunities for playful inquiry supported by the IB PYP framework. Every step of a child’s learning journey is important; students are able to build upon their previous experiences through explorations, inquiry, questions, and discoveries. We inspire our students to challenge and learn more about themselves and their community. This learning doesn’t stop in school, and we develop strong home-school partnerships that help students to connect their learning to experiences at home and beyond!

Every step of a child’s learning journey is important, and we cultivate each child’s future pathway by building their foundations as lifelong learners.

We look forward to welcoming you to the WISS community very soon!

Fiona Morris

Early Years Principal