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Children sit in a circle on a green carpet in a classroom, with a teacher and a screen in the background.

A Joyful Learning Program Designed for Young ChildreN

An early learning program designed with intention.

At NIS, every aspect of the Early Learning Centre is carefully planned to support how young children learn best. Through a balance of play, inquiry, and guided experiences, children develop the foundational skills they need for future academic success.

A Venn diagram showing the relation between IB and Reggio Emilia for child learning

The ELC curriculum is guided by the Reggio Emilia Approach and framed within the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (IB PYP). Together, these two globally respected approaches ensure that learning is both purposeful and developmentally appropriate, building strong foundations for the years ahead.

Explore Preschool Curriculum

Explore kindergarten Curriculum

How We Assess Student Learning in the Early Years

Making Learning Visible

We believe that preschool children are natural researchers, full of curiosity and capability. In our International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP), assessment is not about worksheets, grades, or stressful tests. Instead, it is a continuous celebration of your child's unique learning journey.

We focus on the whole child—nurturing their social skills, emotional resilience, and creativity alongside early literacy and numeracy.

How We Measure Progress

Young children show us what they know through their actions, conversations, and play. Our expert educators use gentle, ongoing methods to understand and guide your child’s development:

Active Observation: Teachers observe your child during play to map their problem-solving skills, social interactions, and physical development.
Rich Documentation: We capture everyday learning milestones through photographs, videos, and dictations of the child's own words.
Learning Stories: Instead of a generic report card, we write narrative descriptions of significant moments where your child conquered a challenge or made a discovery.

How We Share a Child's Progress with Their Parents

We keep you deeply connected to their classroom experience through:

Real-Time Digital Portfolios: Through our secure digital platform, you will receive regular photo and video updates of your child’s breakthroughs, complete with teacher reflections.
Student-Led Conferences: Even our youngest learners love to take their parents by the hand, walk them through the classroom, and proudly showcase their favorite projects and discoveries.

What is the Reggio Emilia Approach to Learning?

The Reggio Emilia approach is a globally respected philosophy of early childhood education, used in schools around the world.

At its core, it views children as capable, curious, and eager to learn. Rather than following a one-size-fits-all program, learning is built around children’s natural curiosity, with teachers guiding and extending their thinking through carefully designed experiences.

The Reggio Emilia Approach believes that:

Children are capable of directing their own learning
Children learn through experiences and exploring the environment
Teachers observe children and co-create experiences that reflect their interests and ideas.

In practice, this means children learn through hands-on exploration, collaboration, and meaningful projects. Teachers work closely with students to support the development of language, early literacy, numeracy, and social skills in ways that are engaging and relevant.

A key part of this approach is the belief that learning happens through relationships with teachers, other children, and the environment. Classrooms are intentionally designed to invite exploration, creativity, and communication, giving children many ways to express their ideas and understanding.

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How the IB PYP Guides the ELC Curriculum at NIS

The International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (PYP) provides the framework for learning in the Early Learning Centre and Elementary School. It supports the development of strong foundations in language, mathematics, science, and social studies while helping children build the skills, knowledge, and dispositions needed to become confident, independent learners.

The ELC is a child's entry point into learning, and our aim is to create learning opportunities that lay the foundation for further development of the ten learner profile attributes.

How Students Learn Essential Subjects

In the Primary Years Programme (PYP), children learn essential subjects including language, mathematics, science, social studies, the arts, and physical, social, and emotional development through six Units of Inquiry. Rather than studying these subjects separately, children explore them through meaningful concepts and real-world ideas that help them connect their learning to the world around them. This approach to teaching and learning is also referred to as transdisciplinary learning.

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