The culture of excellence and quality assurance. The quality and standards of care, development and learning are determined by the quality of training received by childhood teachers. That’s why the Senior management and Academic Advisory Board of L’Atelier pay the utmost attention and invest enormously in the quality assurance and continued training for the entire L’Atelier’s team.

 

Striving for perfection. Positive environment, engaging programs and highly experienced pedagogical team are integral part of the professional teaching. Every program and course of L’Atelier are uniquely designed by our subject matter experts, including pedagogues and child’s phycologist. Every toy, tool and material used in the classroom is well-thought-out. Every Program Specialist of L’Atelier undergoes a strict selection, training and certification covering a broad range of subjects, including L’Atelier’s Child Safety, Wellbeing and Mental Health Standard and L’Atelier’s Golden rules of teaching and knowledge sharing. The recruitment process in our company is highly selective, with the average acceptance rate being less than 7%.

 

Continuous growth and improvement. All staff of L’Atelier undergoes a continuous internal training program to ensure the growth and improvement in every aspect of education, so we could bring the latest and the best experiences to your children. Every month each L’Atelier’s employee has as minimum of 60 hours of training.

 

No stress environment.  We believe and make every effort to ensure that learning is fun, interactive, and stressless for a child. Kids need stimulating and engaging, not stressful environment. Only then children can both enjoy the process and acquire new abilities and skills. This is the real key to life-long love for learning.

 

Methodology.

At L’Atelier, we teach children through art, exploration, and practice, with the aim to develop new skills along with the lifelong love for learning. Using neuroscience and psychology, we encourage curiosity and create an engaging environment to support our young learners. Our main goal is to help acquire new skills and stimulate, provoke and nurture a life-long love for learning. Learning at L’Atelier is

- Interactive and practical.

- Art integrated and creative.

- Stimulating and engaging.

- Active and positive.

 

To the maximum extent possible, we integrate practical activities and hands-on experiences in our programs.

 

While we have professionally studied most of the popular early childhood philosophies and teaching methods, such as Montessori, Reggio Emilia, Waldorf, RIE, Art Integrated Learning we do not adhere to any one of them completely. Some of the methods are controversial or too strict (e.g., Waldorf postpones reading and writing until 7-8 years old and Reggio Emilia does not have a set curriculum or standardized tests). We are certainly inspired by some of the techniques and utilize them in L’Atelier’s programs, with the adjustment to our own professional experiences. Our Directors of Education and Skills and Bi-Lingual curriculum share almost 30 years of teaching and tutoring experience.

 

Initial assessment of child’s interests and abilities. Prior to the start of each program, our experienced child psychologist assesses the child’s natural talents, interests and skills based on L’Atelier’s own no-stress diagnostics method. It is done through the game, in a playful and stressless manner. This is to allow us to personalize teaching and help you better understand your child’s personality and talents. Upon completion of the assessment, we also provide our recommendations on suitable courses and individual development roadmap. The diagnostics allows our Program Specialists to track the progress and tailor teaching approach to the individual needs of a child. To help a child to become a good learner, it is necessary to encourage him to explore various areas and subjects that he or she – not his family or teachers - likes.

 

Development harmony. Every child is different, but all the children are naturally gifted. The right engaging environment and diverse activities in the early years of life help to unlock the child’s natural gifts and abilities. It is important to allow children to express themselves, try different things and develop artistic (visual or performing arts) and physical skills along with the academic ones.

 

No lectures. No lecture-style classes at L’Atelier. The attention span of a child is too short, plus multiple scientific studies prove that it is not the most efficient learning method for children. Explaining through play and questioning the concept from different perspectives and then practicing, practicing and practicing, that’s the essence of our approach to teaching new skills. Through play, games and our unique and joyful tasks and exercises. To the maximum extent possible, our programs consist of practical and interactive activities to allow children to try and master the skills.

 

Helping to learn. We all make mistakes and learn from them. Making mistakes is normal and essential for learning. At L’Atelier, we praise efforts, process and hard work - not only achievement or result - and practice a positive attitude towards mistakes. We encourage parents to adopt the same approach at home. Explaining how much we can learn from a mistake rather than reprimanding for it will inspire your child to continue learning and eliminate the fear of failure. As Einstein said, genius is making all possible mistakes in the shortest of time.

 

Personalized learning. The class size at L’Atelier’s is purposefully small (up to 8-10 children in a group) to ensure individual attention and personalized learning. We believe that learning in the small groups with the peers is more efficient that individually or in large groups. We always strive to maintain teacher to student ratio is 1:4 to ensure individual attention and personalized learning.

 

Technology. Technology drives the progress and plays a big role in our lives. We closely monitor and study the technological innovations in education. However, we do not favor the exposure to media and screen time in early development for many scientific reasons. Smart approach and balance are probably the key here. Social, sensor, emotional, mental and physical development are much more important for our children in the first years of life. L’Atelier does not recommend screen time for children younger than 18 months. For older children, L’Atelier’s position is to minimize the screen time where possible and to prioritize human interaction, hands-on activities and peer learning. As technology provides us with the plenty of advanced and irreplaceable tools, materials, and instruments (such as smart boards, for example), we use it from time to time in our classes to deliver the best learning experiences.