Small Class Sizes and Structured Routines

It's simple, smaller class sizes and lower teacher/student ratios translate to better results! Our students are better prepared for success in Kindergarten and beyond! 

With smaller group sizes and structured routines, our Teachers can focus on enhancing your child’s learning and self-confidence. 

Students build social-emotional skills and slowly gain confidence in a small classroom setting before transitioning into formal schooling with larger class sizes.

Research-Based Approach leads to

"Ahead of the Curve"  outcomes

Our unique curriculum uses learning outcomes from the Edmonton Public School's Kindergarten and Grade 1 curriculum and merges them with the best research-based methodologies and approaches from around the world. 

Our approach results in superior reading and writing skills – this is obvious when our children graduate to kindergarten and both teachers and parents report how far ahead our kids are, with some reading one, two, sometimes three grade levels ahead. 

Qualified and

Passionate Educators

By far the most important ingredient to your child's success are their Educators. That's why we invest in finding the best qualified people who are passionate about Early Learning and provide them with the tools and resources required to do what they do best! 

Our staff is not focused on 'caregiver' duties, but rather on providing an unparalleled educational experience that follows a research-based program plan.

Parents can feel confident in knowing that every student is guided along with a proven road map to success by qualified and experienced educators.

Improved Behavior

When your child learns through teacher-led structured routines and hands-on activities, they not only develop critical thinking skills, their behaviour improves due to their active listening, sense of purpose, and participation. 

We encourage eager, happy children to make decisions, make mistakes, follow instructions, and gain confidence.

Clean and

Safe Environment

Our facilities are kept clean and sanitized with all required maintenance kept up to date to ensure a safe and inviting environment for your child.

Classrooms are under video surveillance.

All our teachers are first-aid and CPR certified. Our top priority is always safety first.

The COVID pandemic has inspired us to redesign our programming and remove shared supplies. Each child receives their own supply kit which includes games, activities and manipulatives. This greatly reduces the risk of any communicable diseases spreading in the classroom.

Initial Assessment and Ongoing Progress Reports

Each student receives an initial assessment using our proprietary assessment tool which incorporates key learning outcomes from the Kindergarten and Grade 1 Alberta Education Curriculum. The information from this assessment is used to create a personalized plan for your child. 

By providing the skills necessary for your child to succeed in Kindergarten, you can feel confident that your child has the best start possible.  

The initial assessment is followed up with multiple Progress Reports throughout the school year using the same tool so you can track their progress.

Proven research-based methodologies combined

Literacy (both oral and written language) is the main focus of our program and is a part of all activities throughout the day. We include phonics, rhyming, segmenting and blending, concepts of print, oral comprehension and vocabulary, questioning strategies, sequencing, predicting, and storytelling.

Our Literacy library boasts over 300 books for each classroom. Rifling through pages at first, and later piecing together words and pouring over pages, reading is the very basis for the skills your child needs for success in school. We also have a lending library, named the “Library Book Exchange” for your child to borrow books to take home. They love this!

By the end of our Program, your child will be more successful developmentally and academically. Your child will have learned all of the skills necessary to succeed.

Our approach is guided by reseach-based methodologies to ensure success

In order to help children understand letter-sound relationships, we begin modelling reading and writing on the first day. Our morning message is one way we invite students to see, hear and touch letters that create words. By creating a repetitive morning message, students come into the classroom excited to read the message of the day. It becomes a familiar routine that gives them confidence in their learning abilities. The morning message is used to show the directionality of print, highlight the letter of the day, review previously learned letter sounds, introduce students to high-frequency words, introduce punctuation, as well as differentiate between a letter, a word, and a sentence. It is possible for your child to read the morning message independently by the end of the month. What an accomplishment!

At JumpStart, we do not focus on memorization techniques. Studies have found that memorization is not an effective way to learn since focusing on memorization ignores the underlying concepts needed to develop successful problem-solving skills. For example, we do not teach the alphabet song as many students can memorize and sing the song but do not understand that each sound they say is a letter, each with its distinct language properties. Often, ‘l-m-n-o-p’ sounds like one long sound like 'elamenohpee' where individual letter sounds are masked by one long sound. Understanding the unique letter sounds is a key learning principle that children at a young age can easily grasp with the proper instruction from a qualified professional. Our focus is on letter sounds and understanding that each sound is represented by a letter that, when put together, creates a word. Young children are excited to learn new things, and absorb information like little sponges when provided with opportunities to do so!

We also do not teach the alphabet letters in order but rather in a way that scaffolds their printing skills. We use a technique created by Alberta Health Services that provides students with an effective way of learning to print letters correctly while learning their sounds simultaneously. These approaches equip your child with the skills needed to ensure educational success when entering school.