BRATTLEBORO — The Garland School is moving, and expanding, from West Brattleboro to the 100-acre Austine Campus off Maple Street.
The expansion is in both indoor and outdoor space, which includes two more classrooms, an office, a kitchen, and access to the fields and woodlands of the Austine Campus.
Garland officials said Austine's deep commitment to outdoor education most appealed to them.
“Garland School is very much an outdoor program, so the access to forest trails, maple trees to sugar, a pond with frogs, fruit trees, woodland streams, vegetable garden space, and sledding hills is crucial to the school's program and philosophy,” notes a press release.
Come September, The Garland School will occupy the north wing of the Croker Building, and will expand the age range that it serves to include a classroom for 1-year-olds.
The independent Garland School serves children aged 1 to 6. Children spend much of their day outdoors, generally regardless of weather.
During that time, the children can be found helping prepare elements of the daily meal outdoors at the large farm table. In the colder seasons they can be found around a crackling fire.
Activities include drawing, painting, singing, dancing, digging, tending the flower and vegetable gardens, pushing wheelbarrows, raking leaves, shoveling snow, building forts, creating games, hearing stories, or spendind time deep in daily exploration of the wildlife and plants that are found along the many paths threading through moss, ferns, and towering trees.
The Garland School says it strongly supports the elements of free play, claims research shows that such play in early childhood is essential, and says the Vermont Early Learning Standards include play as a guiding principle for achieving all early learning goals.
Garland writes that its unique outdoor approach to play-based learning “allows the rhythm of the natural world to partner with teachers in creating the curriculum.”
The Garland curriculum also is informed by the principles of Waldorf education, the work of Hungarian pediatrician Emmi Pikler, and the international Forest Kindergarten movement.
The school is a state-licensed early-childhood program, currently welcoming children from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, with part-time options available.
School officers add Garland is unique in that it has its own cook, and all snacks and meals are included with tuition. Meals and snacks “are lovingly created out of local, organic ingredients that follow a whole-foods model, and are tailored and prepared to meet the nutritional needs of young children,” Garland says.
In addition to having a program for 1-year-olds, Garland is set to launch a parent-child group at its current location at All Soul's Church in West Brattleboro.
Once the school moves to the Austine campus, the parent-child groups will continue with a new session there. The leader of the group will be Courtney Monahan, who comes to The Garland School with more than a decade of early-childhood teaching experience.
Monahan's experience is enhanced by her Lifeways training in early education, her certificate program in Waldorf early-childhood education (from the Sunbridge Institute), her studies at Sophia's Hearth Family Center, her training in infant massage, and her experience as a doula.