There’s no disputing the impact and importance of early childhood education. Statistics show that the highest predictor of lifelong success is early intervention and education. While we all know that early childhood education is crucial to positive lifelong development, where should it occur?

There is a wide range of environments where early childhood education is delivered; school districts often provide services to students within their district before kindergarten. Sometimes those preschool rooms are part of a neighborhood elementary school, and sometimes students are served in a center dedicated to early learning curriculum.

These are both school district run programs, so there should be no differences, right? Nope! In fact, there are several differences between programs within a neighborhood school versus early learning centers, serving students 5 and under.

In center-based programs, all educators and specialists focus on the 3- to 4-year-old age group. Conversely, when early childhood education programs are housed within a neighborhood school, these specialists—like an occupational or speech therapist—serve students from age 3 through fifth or sixth grade. As a result, specialists that work with a much broader age group might not pick up on the nuanced differences between ages that focused professionals in a center-based program can more easily identify.

Typically, at a center, the early learning program director and family support specialist are on site, where in a neighborhood model they may reside in a central office or be shared among schools. Having the administrators and support staff can be beneficial to allow for a more direct connection to the students and families.

In a center-based model, all the pre-K educators are based within one building, allowing for more frequent, spontaneous collaboration on curriculum and student behavior.

In a neighborhood model, where the teachers are spread out among various buildings, collaborative activities occur via phone or email or with specific professional development meetings occurring in an off-site location, frequently away from the students and pre-K classroom spaces. With the pre-K educators in one location, all pre-K resources also reside in a single location allowing for greater access to manipulatives and other material to support the curriculum.

Peer modeling

When pre-K rooms are located within an elementary school, there is great opportunity for peer modeling. These younger children are able to observe and model the behavior of other students all the way up to fifth or sixth grade.

This also opens up opportunities for older students to assist in the pre-K classrooms, further reinforcing the importance of mentoring and peer modeling. In early learning centers, the lack of older students means modeling/mentoring can only come from fellow classmates or outside visitors.

Students under the age of 5 are always supervised. From the second they leave their caregivers to the moment they return, there is always an adult supervising them at both a center and neighborhood school model. The difference is that in the neighborhood model, there are other students who walk independently between their parent’s car or the bus and their classroom, and throughout the school during the day.

The impact to the preschool students goes back to peer modeling; in an elementary school they get to see what good behavior looks like and how to act independently without the direct supervision of adults.

There are typically more classrooms of pre-K students in a center compared to a neighborhood school where there are a few preschool classrooms incorporated within several elementary schools throughout the district. With the larger number of classrooms, there is more opportunity to create the right mix of students and teachers, based on each child’s skill set and developmental levels. With fewer classrooms in the neighborhood schools, the opportunities to mix students to find the best options are more limited.

NAC Architecture
All classrooms at the Central Valley Early Learning Center, in Spokane Valley, have layouts that allow students to move from room to room with comfort and familiarity.

Pre-K classroom design

Classrooms designed specifically for pre-K students frequently look different than elementary school classrooms. The sinks, toilets, cubbies, anything the students access regularly are lowered to promote student independence. When the environment is appropriately sized, students can accept more responsibility and increase their confidence, a fundamental tenant to early childhood education. Classrooms in elementary schools may not be specifically designed to the pre-K students’ scale.

Regardless of location, it is beneficial for early learning classrooms to maintain similar layouts. This facilitates more seamless integration of students between classrooms. They don’t have to wonder where hand washing sinks are, where their cubby is, or where to go to the bathroom. Consistency between classrooms creates familiarity and makes students feel more comfortable. Instead of spending energy trying to understand the new room and layout, the student is able to focus on academic learning.

Students at the preschool age need different active learning opportunities than older elementary school students. Informal, exploration, and gross motor focused activities are kids’ work, particularly for preschool students.

While all children learn through play and exploration, this is especially important for the younger the student. While larger playground areas for “team” type sports, such as soccer, baseball, kickball are appropriate for elementary-age students, the younger, preschool students need different opportunities. Trike paths, access to materials, textures, and water are critical to support students.

Playgrounds and gyms are most often altered by this difference in age groups. An elementary school gym may have a full basketball and volleyball court, while at the preschool level, there may be multiple smaller rooms, perhaps 2,000 to 3,000 square feet with more flexibility, that would serve as the indoor play or active learning space for preschool students.

Much of the focus at the preschool level is supporting the entire family. This includes spaces for families to linger before and after the kids are in school to begin building a community network. For many families, this is their first exposure to formal education, so creating “front porch” or “living room” type spaces foster relationship building and transition. These spaces often can feel larger at an elementary school because the student population is generally larger and the students are bigger. As a result, these spaces may feel less like a warm and welcoming “living room.”

Where students eat is also an important consideration in the spaces, with most preschool students eating in their classrooms. This is fundamental to the curriculum at that age group, as children are learning how to eat “family style.” Being able to serve themselves and eat as a group is important to their social and emotional development, but a traditional cafeteria found in an elementary school is less conducive to support this.

Since a dedicated cafeteria typically isn’t needed in an early learning center, the square footage allocated to a cafeteria in a center model could be an indoor active play area or a family living room.

Strong foundation

While there are some obvious differentiators between a dedicated early learning center and neighborhood scale model, we recognize that there is also broad variation in both. The hope is that this article begins to identify some items for consideration when determining what type of early learning program to develop within your community.

There are pros and cons to both models, but regardless of whether a child attends a center or a neighborhood school, it is critical that they receive early childhood education. High quality early learning is fundamental to building the foundation for a student’s academic, emotional, and social success in life.

Simply put: Make sure the students get the opportunity to create the strongest foundation possible for themselves, setting them up for lifelong success.

Architect Melissa McFadgen is an education thought leader and principal at NAC Architecture.

Barbara Sattler is the director of the Central Valley School District Early Learning Center.