The boys and girls bounce as the music starts. It is time for one of their favorite activities — “Alphardy.”

The four-year-olds sing along with the tune as it encourages them to repeat key word sounds: “N is for nap. N, n, n.” The preschoolers act out the song, resting their heads on their folded hands, pretending to nap. 

The students in Samantha Wessner’s preschool class at Primrose Hill School continue with the song, sounding out each letter in the alphabet, smiling happily along the way. Learning through play is a key approach when teaching the district’s youngest students. 

“When you talk about the vocabulary and the lessons these students are being taught, it’s really embedded into the centers. That play-based learning time,” Wessner said.

“We know all learners learn best when it’s across disciplines. To be able to teach it when they’re playing. To be able to teach it when they’re in small groups, and they can even carry that over to when in they’re in the rest of the building.”

Barrington’s preschool program, housed entirely at Primrose Hill School, recently received a five-star rating from BrightStars, which evaluates the quality of early childcare and education programs and helps them improve. The five-star rating is the highest possible within the state’s tiered Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS). 

The district’s preschool program was one of only six statewide that achieved the five-star rating, and it was the only recognized program that does not operate under direct oversight of the Rhode Island Department of Education. 

Five-star rating

Primrose Hill School Principal Dawn August said there are a number of factors that make the district’s preschool program a success — she mentioned the curriculum, the assessment system, communicating with families, and more. 

“First I would say it’s child-centered,” August said. “Everything that our teachers do is meeting a child where they are, and that use of a good curriculum would be part of that. Our teachers use an assessment, they have an assessment system where every single day they are taking anecdotal notes and making observations about where kids are. And then that informs their instruction. 

“So that cycle of ongoing inquiry and making sure we’re meeting students wherever they are. I also think the family piece — having that communication. Luckily lots of our parents drop off and pick up, so there’s that daily feedback loop with our families and I think that’s part of our success…all of these feed into great alignment to the K-3 structures and curriculums, so I think that’s also what makes us successful is that students that come out of our preschool are well-poised for success whatever school they go to after this, because we’ve been tightly aligned to what’s going on in the rest of the district.”

Sue Constable is the district’s Early Childhood Coordinator. She said Barrington committed to the BrightStars review process a year before schools are required to participate; all preschools will need to go through the quality improvement system by June 2025. 

Constable said there are two key components to the BrightStars program: curriculum and assessment. 

“And I think our work really started in earnest five years ago when we got a grant from RIDE called the comprehensive literacy state grant,” Constable said. “It was all around curriculum, language and literacy. And that really helped us… A big push in that was curriculum, so we chose a RIDE-approved curriculum called the Boston Public Schools or BPS. And we literally spent Year 1 rolling it out, looking at it, getting to know the components of it. Year 2 was putting it into action. So every year we’ve scaffolded onto that curriculum.

“With the grant, we were required to write progress reports every quarter to RIDE. And they did a year visit to us to see how we were doing.”

August said Karen Igoe, a preschool teacher in the district, played a very important role in the process also. 

“Initially she was the advocate for going through the (BrightStars) process and learning from that,” August said, “And then she volunteered, as she was advocating for us to look into this, to be the person — there’s a pre- and post-visit of two hours — and they can show the standards that they have to go through,” August said. 

The BrightStars review team visited Igoe’s classroom twice. After the initial visit, the program had already received strong marks. The review was even better after the second visit. 

“And we want to give credit to her too because she did initiate this process,” Constable said of Igoe, adding “The work really started five years ago. So she highlighted in her class all of those pieces for BrightStars, but the work was much broader.”

Kristen Matthes, the district’s Director of Pupil Personnel, said part of the review and rating process required teachers to have certain levels of education, that the district maintain a target teacher-student ratio, and that there is a good communication program that connects parents and teachers. BrightStars’s classroom visit is also a determining factor. 

“The piece of observing Karen’s classroom is definitely instrumental in this,” Matthes said, “but then there are a lot of other factors that have to do with the program.”

Program expands

Barrington’s preschool program has grown over the years, expanding from a single class in the late 1990s to four classes this year. The are two half-day classes filled with three-year-olds and two full-day classes with four-year-olds.

“And every year the lottery application response has grown. We have 27 on the waiting list for three-year-olds and 38 on the waiting list for four-year-olds,” Constable said. 

Matthes explained how the enrollment is determined for the district’s preschool program. 

“The preschool classrooms are all integrated classrooms, meaning that some of the students are students with IEPs (Individualized Education Programs),” Matthes said. “Some of the students do not have IEPs. All of our teachers are dual-certified — they’re general education teachers and special education teachers. So kids get into the classroom because they have an IEP. The kids who don’t have IEPs, that’s a lottery system. So every year we have a certain number of slots.”

The district’s preschool program features four teachers, two teacher assistants in each room and an occupational therapist, physical therapist and speech therapist. The teachers meet on Fridays to talk about challenges and how they can support each other. 

Alyson Tilley teaches three-year-old preschool students, and she absolutely loves it.

“I love everything about it, to be honest with you, because it’s their first experience in school,” Tilley said. “So everything is so new to them.”

Tilley said her work focuses on making those connections for students and ensuring that they have a positive experience. 

“It’s a great program, it really is. To introduce them to the school, to introduce them to just coming to school in general and then making friends and making those connections … especially coming out of the pandemic, kids were at home and not being able to interact with one another so much. So now they’re here and they’re learning all new things. It’s very exciting to watch — that lightbulb, when they see something that’s new, and making connections, recognizing letters, showing us what they know.”

Rachel Zelinsky teaches four-year-old preschool students. She has seen the benefits of the preschool program firsthand, and was happy to learn that it had received a five-star rating from BrightStars.

“Not surprised, but I’m excited,” Zelinsky said. “The BrightStars means we’re doing a great job with everyone. The classroom is a great learning environment. The structure of the day is a good structure. There’s a lot of time for play, but it’s also enriching and learning. We’re giving all the kids what they need.”

Constable said she is particularly proud of the preschool program’s work with social emotional learning. 

“So we do a lot in preschool of teaching kids to label their simple emotions, to understand what gets them upset or what makes them happy, and also how to self-sooth when things aren’t going their way,” Constable said. “So each one of our classrooms has a calming space, where we have feeling buddies which really help kids internalize what different feelings feel like, and that’s been really successful.”

The program’s parent-teacher communications also garnered rave reviews — they use a platform called SeeSaw (teacher Sierra Bloom often refers to it as Facebook for the classroom family), which allows teachers to share photos and updates daily with parents through an online app.  

“I’m a parent myself and I want to know what’s going on,” said preschool teacher Samantha Wessner. “I want to know that my child is safe and happy.”

Bloom added: “I really think we all strive to make it a very inclusive school and a very inclusive preschool program, with all of our different learners, all of the different needs we have. Our goal is when these families join us, they feel it’s an inclusive, warm, welcoming environment. They may look at it that their kids are playing, but we are teaching within all of those different skills. I think we all feel that what’s most important is that these kids have a love of learning.”