Families

Parents Are Part of the Journey

Early childhood works best when home and school understand and support each other. At Thinkle, we communicate with families thoughtfully and help parents see the learning inside everyday experiences.

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Two parents and their toddler sitting with an educator at a low table, looking through a folder of drawings.

What parents can expect

Four Things We Hold Ourselves To

  1. Communication that is clear

    Plain language about your child, not a newsletter about the class.

  2. Communication that is respectful

    We tell you what happened, including the difficult parts, and we do not dress it up.

  3. Communication that is focused on development

    Not only what your child did, but what they were exploring and what they were learning while they did it.

  4. Someone who knows your child

    Small groups mean the person telling you about the week was in the room for it.

How we communicate

What We Tell You, and Why

We communicate not only what children did, but where possible, what they were exploring, what they were learning and how families can extend meaningful experiences at home.

Parents can expect communication that is clear, respectful and focused on the child’s development.

An educator showing a mother a photo book at the door while her daughter tugs her hand towards the room.
An educator pinning paintings and photos to a documentation wall as two children point at their work.

How learning is documented

Observation, Not Testing

Children are understood through ongoing observation and documentation of their development, rather than by relying only on tests.

What a child returns to, how long they stay with it and what they do when it goes wrong tells us more than any single assessment would.

The children’s own work goes on the walls, at their height, so the record of the term belongs to them as much as to us.

Extending learning at home

You Do Not Need to Buy Anything

The experiences that matter most at this age are the ones already happening in your kitchen, your garden and on the walk to the shops.

A small child on a step stool pouring water into a glass at the kitchen counter, a parent standing by.

Let them do the slow bit

Pouring, carrying, buttoning and washing up take longer when a child does them. That extra time is the lesson.

A child crouching on a residential pavement pointing at a snail, a parent crouched beside her.

Follow what they notice

If they stop at a snail, stop at the snail. Curiosity is worth more than finishing the walk on time.

A child at the kitchen table in the evening telling a parent about her day.

Talk about it afterwards

Naming what happened is how an experience turns into language, and language into thinking.

Meet the People Who Will Know Your Child

Come for a morning, watch how the adults speak to the children, and decide from that.

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An educator crouched to the height of a boy of about three, the two of them looking at each other.