Curriculum
The curriculum is structured into the three National Curriculum Key Stages known as The Early Years Foundation Stage (Toddler, Pre-Nursery, Nursery, and Reception), Key Stage One (Years 1 and 2) and Key Stage Two (Years 3 to 6).
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A St. Andrew’s child is one that leaves our school with the confidence and skills that will equip them for life as a global citizen. We believe in the ‘whole child’ concept where catering to the needs of the individual will foster, within them, a love of learning, an understanding of the world around them and the drive to achieve at the limits of their potential.
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At St. Andrew’s the provision of excellent staff, excellent resources and a strong ethos ensures that our children leave this school as lifelong learners, ready to face the challenges that will face them in a rapidly changing and developing global and international society
Online Classes for All
During school closures in the COVID era, we are able to transition to a varied age-appropriate home learning package. This includes physical home learning packs, different online activities set weekly, daily live sessions, and weekly calls from your child’s class teacher. We also provide logins to Oxford Reading Buddy for those children who are beginning to read.
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In Early Years we use Tapestry Online Learning Journal to observe and track the development of your child and this can be shared with parents. We assess children in the Early Years by focusing on each individual’s ongoing achievements and next steps.
Lower School
At St. Andrew’s we follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum, which focuses on the seven key areas of learning. Alongside this, we live and teach our school values. We have a strong focus on language development, celebrate multilingual families, and are mindful of the fact that English is an additional language for many of our children. We deliver our curriculum primarily through play.
Research shows that quality play is essential to a child’s brain development because it contributes to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children. Our child-centered approach allows the children to choose how they are going to play and what to play with, and then for them to be challenged through supportive adult interactions. There is room for much imagination and creativity in this type of play, and these skills are paramount in higher-level thinking as the children progress through school.
In a changing world, our flexible and adaptable teaching style at St. Andrew’s Early Years means that the children in our care continue to be put first in all decisions that we make.
Middle School Year 3-4
Our ambitious and proactive curriculum is internationally recognised and accredited, offers strong learning experiences and ensures that our children have a smooth transition to St. Andrew’s International High School, or to other good schools around the world. It is for these reasons that it is one of the two most popular curriculums used in international schools, along with the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum.
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As a primary international school in Malawi we believe it is essential that our children benefit from the rich experiences that life in the ‘Warm Heart of Africa’ provides. We have adapted some curriculum subjects, such as History and Geography, to make them relevant to our African context. For example, we use local sites to develop and explore geographical skills and historical sources. Malawi has a rich variety of opportunities for children of both local and international backgrounds. At St. Andrew’s we do our utmost to exploit these opportunities for the benefit of our children’s. We are also ideally placed in Blantyre for many of these opportunities.
Upper School
Year 5-6
Our carefully crafted curriculum is broad and well-balanced. We use the English National Curriculum (2014) as our foundation. This is one of the two most popular curriculums in international education, along with the International Baccalaureate (IB).
At St. Andrew’s your child will receive the best foundation in the core subjects of Maths, English, Science and ICT, that is available in Malawi. But we also know that this is not all that education is about and through the creative development and blending of our foundations subjects such as History, Geography, Art, Music and Drama, into an exciting array of topics , we ensure a well rounded experience for your children from the moment that they join us. They leave our school in the knowledge that they have been provided with a curriculum that is dynamic and creative, and that really prepares them for an exciting future.
