Mauritius drama school leads the way in early childhood education
The Helen O'Grady Drama Academy in Mauritius is really leading the way in Mauritius particularly in the development of early learning education with its incredible Kindergarten Programme. This carefully designed programme, used worldwide, develops children in amazing skills to better prepare them for formal schooling.
During these fast-paced classes children are taught to speak confidently, listen effectively, share with others and learn to take turns. Also important educational skills are taught such as sequencing and memory skills. Children learn how to particularly vocalise their thoughts and emotions.
The programme uses a variety of drama activities to achieve articulate children including storytelling, dramatic play, speech training, creative movement, songs and language development.
Every term, the curriculum is divided into themes. Each theme has 3 lessons, which run for 3 weeks of the term. The themes are readily identifiable to the preschooler and appropriate for the 3–5 year old age group. Within each theme, children will experience props, costumes or craft material connected to the topic.
Children in the 3 – 5 year old age group are still learning classroom rules and etiquette, social interaction skills within a group and concentration and focussing skills. With this in mind, the lessons are 45 minutes in duration and contain a number of short lesson segments. Although the content varies from week to week, the segments follow the same format each week to provide security and structure for the children.
One of the methods that are used to achieve the aims of the Academy is Storytelling. Through this activity children are inspired into purposeful talking and at the same time they improve their listening skills. Likewise, their visual skills including identification of different objects is increased. Storytelliing really does build ones imagination and enthusiasm for reading and helps with the language flow particularly when initiating writing.
