Category: Nexes school

What is Nexes?

Nexes - Qui som, portada

If we had to define the concept of Nexes in a single sentence it would be this: “Nexes, an integral experience of education in nature”.

This concept gives the project its name and derivates from the Latin word for knot or interlacing. So, we understand Nexes as the approach, the connection, and the union of the child to nature and the processes that occur in it. Living in a natural environment implicitly offers a rich and valuable learning experience: respect, awareness, care, and appreciation of this nature that we live day by day and that, step by step, we understand.

With Nexes we want to give birth to a system in which the explosion of movement, the connection with the natural environment and animals, learning through free play, emotional awareness, and accompaniment from the respect for the needs of the stage and the individual rhythms of each child, are the main axes of the project.

This is a proposal aimed at the second cycle of infant education (for children between 3 and 6 years of age) that has been designed from a perspective of care and respect, considering the stage of development that children of these ages go through and their needs. The pedagogical project is developed by three professionals in the field of education, early childhood education teachers, trained in respectful pedagogy and continuously maturing their knowledge through the study of non-directive educational styles, family accompaniment, systemic pedagogy, animal-assisted interventions, among others.

The activity takes place at S’Hort Vell, the estate of the same name located at the gates of the village of Biniali (in the municipality of Sencelles), Mallorca.

Methodology

Metodologia Nexes

Both the team and the project draw on a variety of pedagogical sources, schools and authors that are based on respect and care for children, as well as full confidence in their abilities. We promote a lively and active pedagogy:

  • Based on a thorough understanding of the developmental stage of children from 3 to 6 years of age.
  • Respecting different learning rhythms and accepting their internal growth processes without making demands on them for which they are not biologically prepared.
  • Linking learning to experience touching, exploring, feeling the content.
  • Educating in a free-flowing environment where it is the child himself who goes in search of learning according to his needs and interests.
  • Inhabiting spaces and environments that have been designed and cared for to meet the needs of children and invite them to participate.
  • • Living the school as a living organism to where they can investigate, experiment, create, make mistakes, revise, learn, solve, enjoy…

Emmi Pikler, Montessori, Waldorf, Pestalozzi, Reggio Emilia (Malaguzzi) y las Escuelas Bosque, among others, are some of our references and pillars that make us work in an eclectic way.

We currently have many educational experiences of active pedagogies that have been in place for years, decades and even centuries; they work successfully due to the benefits they bring to the integral development of the child and are a worldwide reference. These methodologies are explained and analysed from science and have the recognition and support of many professionals and disciplines: science, neuroscience, psychology, education, paediatrics, philosophy, arts…

All of them have in common respect for children, confidence in their abilities, knowledge of the stages of development and consideration of individual rhythms through experiential learning in which children learn by doing and from experience.

Spaces

Espais Nexes

The school has an indoor space as a reference building, which is open and directly connected to the natural outdoor space. The children can move freely through both environments as they need to, as both inside and outside there is an adult who accompanies the play. The interior space is always available during the day to meet the needs of rest or shelter, so that children can live in it autonomously. It has different areas for reading, experiments, constructions, unstructured material, mattresses and pillows, fabrics and swings, mirrors, costumes, tables for artistic expression… 

The outdoor space at Nexesis where most of the symbolic play takes place and is made up of a large porch where we enjoy our meals, a vegetable garden area, chicken coop, experimental table/kitchen, tool corner, several small houses, pond with fish, fruit trees and various natural elements. At the same time, it can be connected to another outdoor space right in front of the school. We call it a space for movement as it has several ramps, swings, ropes and a climbing wall that invite children to play in a more active way.

In addition, the facilities of the Fundació S’HORT VELL are also part of our daily life, and we use them continuously when we visit the horses and ponies, go for food, or go on an excursion. So, the sand tracks, the cross country, the paddock paradise, the paddocks, or warehouses are also spaces that are filled with play when we set foot in them.