International Preschool and Primary Lead Teacher

QUALIFICATIONS

- Current first aid and CPR

- Degree in Early Childhood Education/Primary Education or equivalent or higher

- Current working with children check or equivalent

- Native English Teacher or use English fluently as second language

- Experience in a Reggio Emilia Approach

- Experience with IB PYP

Key responsibilities

To be responsible for the room management, including the children, program, staff, safety and environment. To ensure a high-quality service is consistently maintainedin all areas and aspects of the service. To ensure an inclusiveenvironment is developed for all children, regardless of race, abilities, beliefs and values. The environment will foster children’s safety, security, positive relationships, be challenging, warm and caring. To build positive relationships with parents. To act as a positive role model, to be an active team member, conveying respect and guidance to other colleagues. To be responsible for applying the Reggio Emilia Approach on setting up the context for inviting children on exploring, setting up the classroom aesthetically and changing the setting by children’s big project with the approval from The Director and Principal.

Especially the Lead teacher has to:

• Plan the yearly project with the Principal/Pedagogista of the school in order to create daily, stimulating, learning possibilities involving ALL the children in the project in line with the Reggio Approach;
• Meet the new families at the beginning of the enrollment in your class in order to collect some info about the child: habits, like/dislikes, passion, nutritional info, concerns/expectations of the parents;
• Plan and implement a developmentally appropriate project suitable to the age needs and interests of the children in their care;
• Set up a safe, clear (classified), tidy and stimulating environment in your classroom;
• Divide the responsibilities with the teachers based on their experience, their professionalism and personality’s characteristics;
• Arrange an assembly every morning you don’t have another activity (like swimming) or any time you have a topic to discuss with your children (various topics, but also responsibilities, reflections)
• Try to work more in small groups: support a constructive interaction between the children, help them to express their individual potentials;
• Organize a visible space where the children can collect their artworks during the year;
• Display and update the children’s artworks in line with the project;
• Make a weekly summing up of the activities and send it to the families (weekly freshness or weekly roundup);
• Take care of the daily documentation: take pictures, write down the words of the children, fill up the daily observation form;
• Find a right moment in the morning (usually the breakfast or earlier when the children are engaged in free play) to talk with the colleagues about the children and the plan of the day and divide all the responsibilities of the day;
• Organize different activities that are keeping the children stimulated for all the day long (morning for the project, afternoon for side-projects involving arts) and be sure that the teachers are engaged in different rooms and spaces with the children too;
• Train the teachers concerning the children’s care;
• Talk every day with the parents about the day of their children, try to be empathic, supportive and transparent;
• Set up 3/4 parent meetings per year, updating them about classroom’s journey as group, routines, news and evolution of the project. Prepare for every family an artwork or a small brochure to deliver at the end of the meeting;
• Arrange 2/3 individual sessions per year with the parents, update their learning journal;
• Use age-appropriate guidelines about children’s developmental stages as theoretical framework of your daily practice (if you don’t have any please ask to the principal);
• Participate to the individual professional development meetings with the Pedagogista in order to grow as professional

In relation to the curriculum:

- Be responsible for developing a plan with specific individual planning responsive to the special needs of the parents and children in the group, and make specific use of observation and family background information in the planning process

- To create a friendly, secure, stimulating and interactive learning environment for the children at all times

- To be responsible for displaying preschool’s philosophy, aims and objectives. goals and program outline in each room for viewing of parents and other visitors

- To be responsible for observe children daily through all their activities, note on the Daily Log and many documentation faces.

- To have access to a computer to complete daily program requirements

- To be able to utilize the Aurora digital programming system

- To be responsible for applying the Reggio Emilia approach on all children’s activities at class daily and represent this throughout the curriculum