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Support for parents is one of the cornerstones of the HeadsUp! Approach. This support enhances the educational experience of students at the same time that it provides necessary services for families.
At a fundamental level, HeadsUp! centers and schools give parents the peace of mind that comes from knowing their children are being cared for by trained and caring professionals. The time-tested Montessori programs combined with lower than required ratios of children to teachers represent the highest level of quality possible.
Both the HeadsUp! Approach and the Montessori curriculum are delivered in individualized programs that are tailored to the care and learning needs of each student. Multi-age classrooms ensure that students are grouped with their chronological peers for their social activities at the same time that they are encouraged to progress at their own pace through the development of basic learning skills such as reading, writing, and mathematics.
Because parental involvement is an essential ingredient in student motivation, frequent parent communications is encouraged in all programs. Children in infant through preschool programs go home every day with personalized notes informing parents of some of the activities and events that have taken place that day. This encourages the early development of language skills in infants and toddlers while it promotes meaningful communications between older children and their parents. In addition, younger children take home a daily record of the caretaking they receive, including a log of meals, diaper changes, toilet usage, and napping. Twice-a-year parent-teacher conferences are supplemented with frequent formal and informal conferences. To ensure that there is time for these communications to occur, Head teachers are paid for two hours per day outside the classroom to be used for parent contact, staff development, and curriculum planning.
Working parents are comforted by having their students in one place all day without the need for transportation from school to an after-school program. HeadsUp! is only closed during the standard 10 holidays per year so that parents do not need to find alternative care or miss work during the expanded list of school holidays and teacher training days. Because the learning programs are individualized, parents may take their children out of school for vacations whenever their schedules permit without fear that their children are missing irreplaceable lessons. |
