About Us
Our Philosophy
Our teaching philosophy at Vienna Presbyterian Church Preschool is rooted first and foremost in the belief that God created each and every child, and every moment we have with them is a precious gift.
We incorporate these three attributes into all of our curriculum:
- Developmental: Our curriculum enables all children to realize their full potential. It allows our teaching staff to determine what each child knows and is able to do and to help them move to their next level in all areas of development including spiritual, physical, cognitive, social-emotional and language.
- Emergent: The emergent nature of our curriculum relies on children’s ideas, thoughts, and observations.
- Flexible: Our experienced staff have developed the curriculum over many years of working with children.
Mission and Objectives
The mission of VPCP is to provide an environment that is Christ-centered and dedicated to support families in the Christian nurturing of their children.
In keeping with its mission, the objectives of VPCP are:
- Spiritual: To create a Christ-centered environment where each child’s uniqueness and special gifts are celebrated.
- Social-emotional: To provide a sense of community and to teach each child the skills necessary for achieving a sense of self, taking responsibility for self and others and accepting and expressing emotions appropriately.
- Cognitive: To provide a learning environment that supports and encourages growth in problem solving and thinking both logically and symbolically.
- Physical: To provide a physical environment that will encourage children to achieve both fine motor (hands and wrists) and gross motor (large muscle groups) control.
- Language: To provide a language-rich environment in which children can begin to practice and learn the skills related to listening and speaking as well as those of pre-reading and writing.
We believe…
That learning should be meaningful for children.
We believe that learning, including Biblical learning, must make sense from the child’s point of view. We trust that if a child’s learning is meaningful to the child, the learning is deeper and enduring. We constantly strive to meet children where they are developmentally and in terms of their interests in order to maximize their preschool experience.
That children should be an active participant in their own learning.
At VPCP, each child is encouraged to propose topics to explore, plan those explorations and carry out those plans in a safe and encouraging environment. Children are also encouraged to evaluate their plans and retool as necessary to achieve their desired results with teacher support. We have learned that the more child-directed our curriculum is, the more motivated and engaged the children are in their learning environment.
That our classrooms are a third teacher, after other children and adults.
We aim to provide children with a rich learning environment that is warm and welcoming, free of distractions, yet full of learning opportunities including open-ended materials and well-managed props and art supplies.
That collaboration between teacher, parent and child leads to the best possible learning experience for children.
We invite parents into our classrooms and school often to share in the learning process. To foster community, we host a variety of events throughout each school year, including family events and educational opportunities for parents.
Curriculum
VPCP’s curriculum is based on the development of the whole child. Teachers focus on each child’s spiritual, social-emotional, cognitive, physical and language development and emphasize age-appropriate activities and learning through play and fellowship. VPCP’s curriculum is unique to our school and has been built over time by our professional teaching staff but builds on the foundations taught by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). Teachers and assistant teachers practice positive discipline techniques similar to Early Childhood experts Becky Bailey, Ph.D. and Katherine Kersey, Ph.D.