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What Matters to Us
Philosophy | Diversity | Curriculum | Daily Schedule | Accreditation & Licensing | Tuition & Financial Aid | Parents as Partners
Philosophy
Brown/Fox Point Early Childhood Education Center is a community preschool designed to meet the needs of working families in the greater Providence community. Our program offers full time quality care and education that stimulates learning in all areas of a child’s development. Teachers blend meaningful learning experiences, developmentally appropriate practices and a nurturing atmosphere to create a safe and creative learning environment.
Children are respected at Brown Fox Point. Teachers listen to children, observe them in action, and plan curricula based upon children’s interests. Throughout the course of the year, children and teachers together build a community of learners where each individual member is valued for the strengths that he/she brings to the group. In their interactions with children, teachers model empathy, respect, and acceptance. In classrooms that feel safe, comfortable and calm, children can have successful learning experiences. By balancing independence with limit setting, teachers are helping children learn how to be part of a community. Teachers actively model and facilitate problem solving and conflict resolution skills with the ultimate goal of empowering children to solve problems appropriately.
At Brown/Fox Point, children develop and learn in natural ways – by playing and interacting with their peers. Through their play, children engage, explore, and create; they make sense of their world, learn about themselves and others, develop language, gain self-confidence and self-control, problem-solve, and understand and express feelings. The process of each activity or experience is the focal point of its implementation, not the product. Process-oriented curricula guide children to think, reason, question, and learn.
Diversity
Our classrooms are places where differences are valued and children and their families are appreciated and respected. Our community is diverse in many ways, including economically, culturally, and linguistically. We include children of differing abilities and work with the Providence School Department to provide special services when appropriate. Using an anti-bias approach, teachers help children to learn about the diversity of our community and to address biases in our society.
Brown/Fox Point strives to be an inclusive community for every child and every family. As a result, Brown/Fox Point is committed to promoting diversity in all its forms, including those related to racial and ethnic identity, gender, socioeconomic status, sexuality, age, family structure, religion, national origin and ability. We actively seek to teach children tolerance of all forms of difference, and just as actively seek to dissuade children from bias about norms and stereotypes. Accordingly, staff are expected not only to embrace such tolerance but also to model it in their own teaching and interactions with children, staff, and families.
An important component to our program is an appreciation of diversity and the value we place on multiculturalism. As with other facets of our program, the multicultural element is drawn from our diverse population of children and their families. Throughout the center and in everything we do, we view and present diversity as a celebration of people, of differences and of ways of living. We hope that children will recognize diversity as an essential and valuable part of society.
Curriculum
Teachers work in teams and as a center-wide faculty each week to design curriculum that responds to the needs and interests of their children. We use the developmental domains identified in the RI Early Learning Standards as the basis for our on-going assessments, and we design activities involving dramatic play, sensory activities, writing, scientific experiments, dance, music, mathematical concepts, cooking, walking field trips, and many more that engage students with content that engages them. In addition, our teachers meet weekly in curriculum meetings, social/emotional development meetings, and planning meetings to determine appropriate responses to the individual, emergent needs of each child.
Children participate independently, with the entire group and cooperatively in small groups. Each day is balanced with free-choice time and planned, structured activities in specific time blocks. Activities throughout the day are either child-initiated or teacher-directed. This variety promotes independence, provides opportunities for children to practice and acquire social skills and fosters the development of a positive self-image. Acquisition of prosocial behaviors permeates our program. Our staff is devoted to using natural and planned opportunities to help children develop problem-solving skills, to learn the importance and experience the benefits of cooperation and to create a true sense of community.
Daily Schedule
Brown/Fox Point is open Monday through Friday, 7:30am - 5:30pm, for fifty weeks per year. (Although we are open ten hours daily, we recommend that a child spend no more than 9 hours per day at the Center.) We are closed on most state and federal holidays, for the last week of August, and between Christmas and New Years.
The daily schedule that is outlined below is a general guideline of school-wide practices. The schedule in individual classrooms may vary. Each class has a daily schedule posted.
7:30 - 9:30: Children arrive at the Center with a parent or guardian and go to the appropriate classroom. Learning centers are open for free play and breakfast is available until 9:00.
9:30 - 10:00: Children and teachers sit at circle time as a group to discuss the past day’s events, to plan for the current day, and to discuss issues that have emerged in the classroom and can benefit from group discussion, writing, or drawing.
10:00 - 12:00: Outdoor play and center time.
Brown/Fox Point has a wonderful outdoor play area in which the children develop their gross and fine motor skills, collaborate, work out conflicts, and explore the world around them. Brown/Fox Point children are also great travelers, taking the RIPTA trolleys throughout the city and walking to different area parks, work places, and sights.
Center time features developmentally appropriate small group activities, both teacher-directed and child-initiated, that are planned in accordance with the Center's overall philosophy. Center time provides an opportunity for cooperative and independent learning within a developmentally supportive structure. Centers may include art, blocks, science and nature, books, writing, math, sensory tables, dramatic play and music.
12:00 - 1:30: Lunch. The Center provides a nutritious lunch every day; menus are made available each month. After lunch, children do things to wind down in preparation for rest, including relaxation exercises, outdoor play, and stories.
1:30 - 3:00: Rest time. All children are encouraged to bring a soft rest toy and some bedding from home to go on their center-provided cots or mats. Children rest quietly with dimmed lights and soft music.
3:00 - 3:30: Snack. Following rest, children awaken to a nutritious snack and drink.
3:30 - 5:30: Free choice. The final two hours – during which most children are picked up by their parents or guardians – are usually a flexible time that includes learning centers, games, stories, dancing, and outdoor play.
Accreditation and Licensing
Since 1996, Brown/Fox Point was accredited by the National Academy of Early Childhood Programs, a division of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), the nation's largest organization of early childhood professionals. NAEYC accreditation is a rigorous, voluntary process by which early childhood programs demonstrate that they consistently meet national standards of excellence. In addition, Brown/Fox Point has earned the maximum, five-star BrightStars rating from the Rhode Island Association for the Education of Young Children, the state's quality rating and improvement system.
We are licensed by the Department for Children, Youth and Families and approved by the Department of Education.
Tuition and Financial Aid
External support enables us to offer quality childcare at a reduced rate to those who qualify, including Brown University's generous provision of our school building and our utilities and generous grants from the United Way of Rhode Island, the Dexter Family Fund of Providence, and individual donors.
The current maximum tuition at Brown/Fox Point is $260/week. Financial assistance is available for those families that qualify. Financial aid forms are due in mid-March each year, and the Center notifies families no later than May 1st of their financial aid eligibility. Approximately 40% of the families with children enrolled at Brown/Fox Point benefit from financial assistance.
For more information please contact the Center.
Parents as Partners
Brown/Fox Point has an “open door” policy. Parents are welcome in the school at any time, and we encourage you to be active participants in the classroom. Feel free to drop by during the day -- you can come and have lunch with your child, or come during any break in your schedule.
Each classroom has a parent bulletin board where you will find information about the daily schedule of activities and other items that will help you be more informed of your child's experience here. Newsletters and other correspondence from the administrative staff will be placed in your child's cubby or e-mailed to you on a regular basis. Parents are encouraged to participate in the class and to give feedback to the staff. If at any time a problem arises that you cannot solve with the teaching staff, please schedule an appointment with the director.
Parents are encouraged to become involved in the program in a variety of ways. Our classrooms are open environments where parents are invited to participate. The Brown/Fox Point Family Association provides opportunities for families to get together for social events and other activities that help to support the Center. We host evening workshops for parents and caretakers on a variety of children rearing topics, and our library of books and videos is a resource that is available to all of our families.
Copyright ©2002-2010, Brown Fox Point Early Childhood Education Center, Inc.
150 Hope Street, Providence, RI 02906
Phone: (401) 521-5460 Fax: (401) 633-6265
Web: www.brownfoxpoint.org - Email: camirault@brownfoxpoint.org