GO De Appeltuin

De Appeltuin is one of the 200 Freinet Schools in Flanders. The Freinet Pedagogical concept is part of the larger pedagogical project of Community Education in Flanders. De Appeltuin is a kindergarten and primary school. The aims of the school are: - To have a constant attention for natural learning, based on the experiences and world of interest of the child, keeping in mind the established development goals and school terms. - To work together, based on cooperative and democratic consultation instead of one sided authority. Children are one of the three stakeholder groups in our school. This way, we want to stimulate independency in children. - To experiment and learn-by-doing instead of applying rules and regulations, because the learning effect is much larger when a child can convert self-discovered material into new relations. - To work usefully and functionally. Working useless in a school leads to following without thinking and a lack of satisfaction. The groups of children are structured in a way that there are always 2 age groups together. This stimulates that older children learn from the younger ones and the other way around. There is a lot a thematic approach – so called projects – especially in the kindergarten. Their kids can explore together different themes that are of interest in their world. In primary school, these projects are larger and more elaborated in time and space. The learning area of ‘world orientation’ is treated in these projects. De Appeltuin has a staff team of 23 people, which includes kindergarten teachers, primary school teachers, pedagogical support team, after care, administrative staff, coordinator,… Another important factor in this school is the involvement of parents and thematic working groups within school the education of the children. This can be in the classroom (projects, practical work,..), class responsible, working groups in the school (reading support, logistics, music, communication,..).