A new teaching method, similar to the Montessori method, has been introduced at Victor Scott and already the teachers are seeing the results.

High/Scope - Active Learning Environment, was adopted by the school at the start of the school year last September and complements traditional teaching. The school's teachers did the High/Scope training last August and principal Dr. Gina Tucker and the teachers are excited about the programme which is more hands on.

"I have a pre-school background so it's not new for us," said Gladmora Ming who joined the Victor Scott staff last year after 12 years in the pre-school. Ms Ming and Laurel Burns are the teachers of the P1 classes where the students are responding to the new learning method.

"For a long time we've known that children learn by doing and there is a saying that `hands on equals minds on'.

"It's quite similar to Montessori, the only difference is that the Montessori philosophy adheres to the teachings of Maria Montessori. We try to build on their (students) interest and if you take a simple concept like how many is ten, the children can actually go out and see and touch ten things and bring it back.

"They have the concrete knowledge first and then they move on to the abstract."

According to Dr. Tucker, active learning is being done throughout the school and the P6 students are engaged in the same kind of learning.

"All of the teachers were trained last summer, we had someone come in who trained us specifically on how to set up the environment and how to develop activities that would engage students actively," explained Dr. Tucker.

"This (P1) will be our first group that will actually be starting with it from the very beginning, so we expect to see some exciting things from this group in particular. It's a part of our programme, that we will implement the programme in a very active way and students will actually learn about concepts with hands on.

"We've seen the evidence at P6 level where the children are creating structures by using the active learning approach."

Ms Ming admits a casual observer to theP1 class might come to the conclusion that the children are playing, but there is also structure.

"They are playing, but children learn through play," she stressed.

"But what makes it different in this setting is (before they start) they had to submit a plan, mostly verbal, `I'm planning to work in the art area today and I think I will make a birthday card for my daddy'. They will go and do it and then review it."

The concept encourages the five year olds to be independent thinkers and to make decisions. They learn through High/Scope for about an hour each day.

"For this time of day it is important that they decide where they are going to work," said Ms Ming. "I don't tell them anything, help them to decide or try to influence them in any way.

"Sometimes they have things they are working on over a day or two and they will put it away, get it out and finish it. Sometimes they will go to an area, and that was the question that came up in our training, `what do you do if everybody decides to work in a particular area and you only have so much space'?

"Do you legislate how many can work in that area, but the answer is no."

Ms. Ming explained how, if there are too many students in one area, the students themselves take the initiative and change to another area voluntarily.

"That's what's probably been wrong with education a lot, we give them the answers instead of letting them discover the answers on their own," said the teacher.

"They can't just go willy-nilly to another area, they have to plan it."

Said Dr. Tucker: "By Christmas, Ms Ming's students and Ms. Burns' students had clearly taken control of their classrooms. They were empowered and recognised `this is our space' and when you went in there there was not a problem. The children were working together nicely."

Throughout their plan the teachers are accessing the children's performances in various areas. Children of different learning abilities are not being left behind with High/Scope.

"One thing that has been noticed about our P1s is they are thinking children, they think analytically, and are not afraid to tell what they are thinking," said the principal.

Even the school custodian, MacAllan James, is `right in on it', helping to collect seeds from different plants.

"We have been taking about how plants grow, and they saw one experiment with the seed germination, and now we have planted flowers and Mr. James came in and helped them to plant them and guided them as they made the finger hole and put two or three seeds in," explained Ms Ming.

"Each day he would come in and lift them up to the window box and said `see how your plants are coming in, they are coming in nice, it only takes a couple of weeks'. He's telling them what to expect and we're keeping tabs on that and they will see how it happens over a period of time."

A qualified chef, Mr. James also helps the students with cooking activities and in other areas.

"There is a very intense reading programme going, a very intense mathematics programme and what you are seeing is a part of the curriculum that has them actually engaged in the math, language, science and social students," said Dr. Tucker.

`What they do at that point is engage in a self-directed, self-selected, independent, critical thinking, active manner. It is a very high level of thinking and then they have to use their language skills to communicate it. It helps them to make connections."

The teachers have found that this type of teaching increases discipline amongst the students and Dr. Tucker says she has noticed an improvement in behaviour. She is also appreciative to corporate sponsors, Bank of Bermuda, for funding the teachers' training of High/Scope.

"This, for me, has been missing in our educational experience, where students do not have a time where they determine something they will do which will help to enhance their learning and develop their understanding of concepts further," said Dr. Tucker.

"So what we create and nurture are very passive children, subtlety, who are spending the majority of their day waiting for someone to tell them what to do next. Here, we see children who will take initiatives and determine what they are going to do.

"Ms Ming and Ms Burns are very clear, that this is work time and they are going to create and work on something. They (students) talk and they get very passionate, because that would be their nature.

"That's what comes with this. They say `if you send your child to Montessori, be ready to be a Montessori parent', because the child will present to you real life stuff."

Ms Burns is also excited about what the active learning method is doing for her students.

"At times, when we do want to give a specific point, they are so bubbly and talkative that you say `just listen for a second'," she said.

"However, overall it is something that we do encourage and we don't do a tremendous amount of teacher-directed activities. We try to keep it to ten or 15 minutes of whole group instruction and then let them loose.

"We find it highly beneficial that when we are teaching to take them in smaller groups and give them instruction. They are still young so sitting still for 30 minutes is their limit. They are very eager and very excited."

Ms Burns recalls how, during the Christmas holiday, she returned to school after a trip to California left her with jetlag.

"The children asked why I was yawning and we turned it into a geography and math lesson," she explained.

"I brought the globe out, showed them where Bermuda was, where the west coast was, where I had to fly and how long it took. "They figured out `oh, you didn't go to sleep one night'.

"Something like this becomes an opportunity for teaching and we seize those opportunities!"