Our goal is to establish a learning environment that is engaging and empowering for our students, preparing them for success in the 21st century. Our approach is focused on the student, promoting critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and social-emotional development.
Middle school students have specific developmental needs across academic, social, emotional, and physical aspects. They require a supportive and safe learning environment that is inclusive and encouraging. It is important for middle school students to feel respected, valued, and motivated to take on challenges in their learning.
The Reggio Emilia pedagogy is an educational approach that originated in the town of Reggio Emilia in northern Italy.
It has been an integral part of our educational philosophy because it values the unique perspectives and abilities of each child. Children are capable and competent individuals who construct their own learning through exploration, inquiry, and interaction with their environment. The Reggio Emilia approach also fosters a sense of community and belonging, and encourages lifelong learning through meaningful experiences.
Reggio Emilia elements at KOMPASS are integrated into our early childhood learning in various ways:
1. Emergent, Child-Centered Curriculum
UPCOMING EVENTS
Our School Curriculum
Our BEST ME FOR A BETTER WORLD belief is fundamental to learning at KOMPASS. The KOMPASS School curriculum is developed to make learning relevant, connected, rigorous and enjoyable for our students as they progress within and beyond our school, to discover their best selves with the aim of making the world they live in a better place.
National Benchmarks
We also benchmark our learning through national standards, ensuring compliance with selected elements of the US Common Core Standards (NYS P-12), the Bildungsplan der Grundschule (Germany, Baden-Württemberg), and the Egyptian National Curriculum.
IPC and IMYC
KOMPASS students learn through the thematic transdisciplinary approach of the IPC (International Primary Curriculum) and the IMYC (International Middle Years Curriculum) developed by the ICA (International Curriculum Association.
The IPC and IMYC build on our educational philosophy of placing the child at the center of the learning environment and process, through all stages and ages. The transdisciplinary approach empowers students to delve into relevant and broad themes that help them develop their critical thinking, problem solving, subject knowledge, and creativity. It also integrates the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals of 2030 into learning, and it is founded on evidence-based brain science of child development.
The IPC and IMYC are internationally recognized and benchmarked to all major international curricula, including the US Common Core, the English National Curriculum, German state curricula, and the IB. The curriculum is designed to be a rigorous and learner-centered Students who complete the IMYC are prepared to naturally transition to the IB Diploma Program in high school.
Singapore Math
We are excited about being able to support our students in their quest to develop their best selves also in math. We complement our curriculum with one of the world’s most effective models for learning math: the Singapore Math Program. It emphasizes the importance of concrete understanding through hands-on learning of math. Students learn math through three distinct phases of learning: concrete, pictorial, then abstract learning. This learning sequence allows students to learn math through experience, empowering them to think logically and solve problems.
School Without Walls
5 Reasons why KOMPASS is child friendly school
For 15 years KOMPASS Education Maadi has been steadily and sustainably maintaining its educational approach, with more and more confident teenagers graduating and transitioning to international schools in Egypt and abroad…. So what is KOMPASS? And what is so different about the KOMPASS approach?
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Our Approach
The KOMPASS system is child-centered, hands-on and inquiry-based. Real learning for children of all ages happens while exploring and experiencing from collecting, analyzing and synthesizing information. Children’s learning is, therefore, process-oriented rather than product-oriented.
We give children the opportunity to recognize and follow their own interests. We encourage them to think for themselves and develop their own individual voices. We have built the KOMPASS system after researching international role models who were inspired by progressive educators like Maria Montessori, Jean Piaget and Lew Vygotksy, and by the experiences of the educational philosophy of Reggio Emilia and the German infans philosophy from which we have derived precious procedures and methods.
HOW WE SEE CHILDREN
• Children are capable and competent to engage in their own learning about the world
• Children are active, social learners who want to learn
• Children are explorers, researchers, inventors, artists and philosophers. They bring valuable knowledge, ideas and experiences.
• Children are influenced by family, culture, gender and previous experiences.
• Children have various learning styles and ways of understanding and constructing knowledge.
• Children have rights
• Children need roots and wings
HOW WE SEE CHILDREN
• Children are capable and competent to engage in their own learning about the world.
• Children are active, social learners who want to learn.
• Children are explorers, researchers, inventors, artists and philosophers. They bring valuable knowledge, ideas and experiences.
• Children are influenced by family, culture, gender and previous experiences.
• Children have various learning styles and ways of understanding and constructing knowledge.
• Children have rights.
• Children need roots and wings.
Our promise
We take early childhood and primary education seriously. Innovation in pedagogy doesn’t mean faster, higher, further. Instead, it is about helping each child find their own learning path. This makes education challenging, supportive, ingenious, exciting, insightful and sometimes even slowed down.
• We believe in the capabilities of the child.
• We respect children and we always take them seriously without exception.
• We understand and support the child’s spirit for discovery.
• We never embarrass a child.
• We don’t compare children.
• Children must experience that they are truly capable and that we believe in them.
• We also learn, just as the children do.
• We believe in the accomplishments of guiding teachers.
ABOUT LEARNING
Children are natural learners. Their brain structures are ideal for learning and their natural curiosity is the basis for growing creativity and a life-long passion for learning. Teachers must know the children and what they are currently interested in to utilize this curiosity and to build on it. Once the child’s mind is open for a particular topic, they can successfully connect the information themselves, and learning becomes sustainable.
LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
Our daily routines, rituals, an emotionally supportive system, modern and friendly facilities and – last but not least – our warm, open culture all aim to make children at KOMPASS feel welcome, inspired and challenged. We care to make learning an experience that helps children connect their knowledge as a foundation for life-time learning.
LANGUAGE IMMERSION
Rather than learning a language in language classes, language acquisition at KOMPASS occurs through the consequent use of three languages in everyday situations. Just like parents enable language learning by speaking and interacting with the child,
our children learn in everyday interactions from our trilingual teachers the meaning of words and expressions and develop a feeling for the three languages. The native speakers in our team help to convey the culture as well.
LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
Our daily routines, rituals, an emotionally supportive system, modern and friendly facilities and – last but not least – our warm, open culture all aim to make children at KOMPASS feel welcome, inspired and challenged. We care to make learning an experience that helps children connect their knowledge as a foundation for life-time learning.
TRILINGUALISM
At KOMPASS children are exposed to German, English and Arabic. Young children’s minds are like sponges that absorb language. In fact, it is one of their most important cognitive tasks to listen to and imitate their mother tongue. Early exposure to other languages enables more neural connections to form in the brain, which actually also improve the language skills in the first language.
If a second, third – and for some of our children – even a fourth language is added early, this language is painless for a child to learn and will not only become more natural to that child than if it was learned later, but will also cause the child to learn future languages more easily. Early multiple language learners also practice cognitive skills that are beneficial for learning in general.
OBSERVATION,DOCUMENTATION AND ASSESSMENT
Observation and documentation is key for the successful work of our teachers. The children’s development as observed by the teachers is documented together with the work of the child and relevant photos in the child’s development portfolio,
a “journey book” that depicts the milestones of the years spent at KOMPASS, from nursery, throughout kindergarten and school. The purpose of the development portfolio is to display how the child progresses. The strength of the portfolio is that each child’s progress is measured against his/her own development. We focus on individual assessments from observations where we recognize the child’s individual progress compared to before, but we also measure progress against age / grade level standards and other developmental benchmarks, that parents have a realistic idea of their child’s progress.
INCLUSION - SPECIAL RIGHTS
The goal for all children is to emphasize the value of differences rather than the stigma associated with being different. It is proven that the inclusion of children with special needs is not only beneficial for the included children. The other children also experience that communities are diverse, with people who possess different skills and who have different needs.
Therefore, we welcome a limited number of children with learning difficulties or special needs if our educational offering fulfills the necessary requirements for the child to developmentally benefit and be safe. This might require that the child comes with an approved support teacher.
CHALLENGING BEHAVIOR
We accept each child for his/her unique learning style, so the continuum for acceptable behavior is quite broad. We look further into the reasons for a child’s behavior, rather than just focus on the external signs.
Adaptations are then made in the environment through thoughtful observation of the child. This attitude also supports the process of assisting the children in developing self-knowledge and insight about their own learning style, interests, and strengths.
MEALS
We take pride in our in-house culinary team who provide three fresh, nutritious meals every day. Fresh fruits and/or vegetables are offered during breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack.
Like in a family, our teachers take their meals with the children. We consider our meals an extension of our curriculum. Teachers encourage the children to talk about the food that they are eating. These conversations provoke more awareness about food and table manners and encourage healthy choices as well as the culture of eating together.
MEALS
We take pride in our in-house culinary team who provide three fresh, nutritious meals every day. Fresh fruits and/or vegetables are offered during breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack.
Like in a family, our teachers take their meals with the children. We consider these our meals an extension of our curriculum. Teachers encourage the children to talk about the food that they are eating. These conversations provoke more awareness about food and table manners and encourage healthy choices, the joy of eating.
