School-Within-School (SWS) Reggio Emilia | Peabody

PEABODY EARLY CHILDHOOD CAMPUS: Nurturing Our Youngest Students

The Cluster boasts two highly regarded early childhood education programs, Peabody Early Childhood Center and the autonomous School-Within-School at Peabody. We share the library, playground, and gardens. More importantly, we share a commitment to providing a nurturing, developmentally-appropriate beginning to students’ first experience with the Cluster.

Students leave our early childhood campus with the strong foundations in literacy, mathematics, science, and social studies needed for success in school. In the spring of 2011, 99 percent of Peabody and SWS students scored at or above the end of the year benchmark for early literacy. All classrooms are staffed by a teacher assisted by a paraprofessional, and both programs offer a full complement of wraparound services, including dedicated special education teachers, before- and after-care, art instruction, library, physical education, and the very popular Revolution Foods serving breakfast and lunch.

School-Within-School at Peabody
SWS offers two Pre-K4 classes of 20 children and two Kindergarten classes of 22 children each. All four classes “loop,” or stay together, for their full two years at SWS. “Specials” include library, music, and movement. Students are pulled out in small groups for art in the studio, with projects led by an atellierista (art teacher), who works together with classroom teachers to integrate arts into the daily activities of each child.

Reggio Emilia Inspired Education
The SWS curriculum is inspired by the highly successful pre-primary schools in Reggio Emilia, Italy. The Reggio approach views children as powerful, unique learners who come to school ready to express their own understandings, feelings, and creativity. All members of the school collaborate in a project-based approach to learning, with documentation showing the process and product of children’s work. Special attention is paid to the environment, with students encouraged to actively explore, create, and reflect.

The Story of Food
The “Story of Food” program is a terrific example of the kind of learning made possible through the collaboration, creativity, and commitment of the entire Peabody community. Using an innovative, hands-on early childhood literacy curriculum made possible by federal, community, and PTA grant funds, students planted, nurtured, observed, and harvested edible gardens, learned to prepare and eat delicious, healthy recipes, and participated in reading, storytelling, music, art, and other activities exploring gardens, farms, markets, and healthy bodies. The “Story of Food” engaged students throughout the 2010-2011 school year, and was so successful that many elements of the program have been integrated into Peabody’s and SWS’s ongoing curriculum.

Learn More About SWS

Visit the program’s website at www.schoolwithinschool.org (Link)

Download the CHCS Brochure, Featuring SWS (PDF)

Meet the Teachers at SWS (Link)