School choice

Reggio Emilia

The curriculum comes from what the children became interested in.

There is no curriculum set in advance. Teachers watch what a group of children is drawn to, document it obsessively, and build long projects out of it — which may run for months. The environment is treated as a third teacher, expression takes a hundred forms, and the documentation on the walls is the record of the thinking rather than display work.

L1
Who directs the day
L2
When formal academics start
L3
Measuring it
L4
Where the curriculum comes from
L5
What a teacher is
E1
Mixed ages
E2
Outdoors and the body
E3
Technology at school
V1
A view of the world
V2
Who else is there
V3
What it is for
C1
What the family can put in
C2
Money and distance
What it asks of you

Not what it promises

Every approach here works for the families it suits; the useful question is what it costs to run.

  • Tolerating genuine uncertainty about what your child will study this term
  • A school with the staffing to do it, since the method is expensive in adult attention
  • Reading the documentation, which is where the learning is visible and is easy to walk past
  • Accepting it is an early-years approach; few Reggio schools run past six
Axis by axis

Where it stands

Every position with the source it was read from, and the pale band is how much internal variation the approach genuinely tolerates. A wide band is not vagueness — it means the texts in this family really do disagree with each other about that axis.

L1Who directs the day
the child chooses what to dotimetabled, and directed by adults

Source: The Hundred Languages of Children

L2When formal academics start
when the child is ready, and late is fineearly, and ambitiously

Source: The Hundred Languages of Children

L3Measuring it
no grades, no testsgraded and tested regularly

Source: The Hundred Languages of Children

L4Where the curriculum comes from
it emerges from the childrena fixed body of knowledge, set in advance

The lowest position in the instrument on where the curriculum comes from, and the defining feature of the approach.

Source: The Hundred Languages of Children

L5What a teacher is
a guide who steps backan authority who instructs

Source: The Hundred Languages of Children

E1Mixed ages
classes of the same agemixed-age groups

Source: The Hundred Languages of Children

E2Outdoors and the body
learning happens at a tableoutdoors and hands-on is the point

Source: The Hundred Languages of Children

E3Technology at school
kept out until latebuilt in from the start

Source: The Hundred Languages of Children

V1A view of the world
school should stay neutralschool should teach a view of the world

Source: The Hundred Languages of Children

V2Who else is there
a broad, mixed intake matters mosta community that shares our values matters most

Source: The Hundred Languages of Children

V3What it is for
childhood is the pointit should set up university and a career

Source: The Hundred Languages of Children

C1What the family can put inwhat your life allows
school has to run without the parentsbeing in it, daily

Source: The Hundred Languages of Children

C2Money and distancewhat your life allows
free and local, or it is not an optionwe can pay, and we can travel

Source: The Hundred Languages of Children

Further

What to read

  • The Hundred Languages of Children — Edwards, Gandini and Forman

    The standard account. Long, and the chapters on documentation are the ones that matter.

  • In Dialogue with Reggio Emilia — Carlina Rinaldi

    From inside the municipal schools, and clearer about what the approach refuses to systematise.

Compared with

Sources for this row

  1. The Hundred Languages of Children

    Carolyn Edwards, Lella Gandini and George Forman, Ablex, 2nd ed. 1998. The standard account of the Reggio Emilia approach, including emergent curriculum and documentation.

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