'A way we all should be teaching': Rural school wins national award

A rural New Brunswick school has been selected for a national award for breaking away from traditional classrooms in the earliest school years.

Keswick Ridge School receivedtheNational Inclusive Education Award for its melding of ages and traditional grades toemulatereal-world conditions.

Until Grade 3, students who would normally be split intokindergarten, Grade 1 and 2 are taughtcollectivelyin one classroom.

"In life you are not in a box working with people at all the same age level," said teacher MichelleBoreland.In real life, she said, people with different abilities and expertise sit at the same table.

"This just allows them to do this at ayounger age," she said of the combined classroom approach at the school about 20 kilometres from Fredericton.

The Keswick Ridge system isreminiscentof schools from NewBrunswick'spast, whenstudents learned inone-room schoolhouses.

But teacher MelissaChetwyndsaid merging grades together these days offers a lot of modern-day benefits.

"It's really a fluid environment, where the kids can learn at their own pace,"saidChetwynd."The award really illuminates what we do here and how we take the children's individual levels into account."

With a daughter atKeswick Ridge School, Chetwynd getsa unique look at how the system works.

"Just knowing that she was going to be a part of this environment, that when she came in she'd be able to work at different levels, with different students and have all those different experiences that she wouldn't get in a straight-level classroom, it was really exciting for us," Chetwynd said.

While themulti-age classroom model is uncommon in New Brunswick, it is not new at Keswick Ridge school. For more than two decades, students entering early education here have been mixed with students of varying ages and skills.

"I've been in set classrooms before," said Karen Howland, who has been teaching in multi-age classes for nine years.

"But I dobelievethis is a way we should all be teaching. Six-year-olds should not just be learning with six- year-olds. It's something that I think as a province we shoulddefinitelybe moving towards."

Other provinces haveexpressed interest in the multi-age classroom. Last year Newfoundland promised to start introducing the model to its ruralschool system.

Keswick Ridge School's award is sponsored by the Canadian Association for Community Living.