Teacher with students in the classroom

Welcome to the “Maternelle”!

Our Head of Primary School

Jean Pierre Plaa

Directeur de l'école primaire, Primary School Director

Our Deputy Director of the Primary School

Rochambeau’s preschool welcomes you into a multicultural learning environment based on the highly respected French Ministry of Education's early childhood education.

In a warm and nurturing environment, appropriately called the “Maternelle”, students from 2 to 5 years old discover the world and acquire skills and knowledge, in both French and English, that will ensure their future academic success. 

We favor a project-oriented, interdisciplinary approach to learning in which logical thinking, math, imagination, creativity, communication and physical education are combined to be both stimulating and fun!

A caring French preschool which its main mission is to make children want to go to school to learn, affirm and develop their personality.It all begins in the "Maternelle"!

Guiding principles

Rochambeau believes that:

  • Children learn through play:
    Games help children become autonomous, understand reality, use their imaginations, improve motor skills and test out different social roles.

  • Children learn by resolving problems:
    High level cognitive activities stimulate a child’s curiosity, desire to learn, and intellectual independence.

  • Children learn through practice and reflection:
    Young children learn over an extended period of time and their progress is rarely linear. Learning requires time, repetition and conscious reflection.

  • Children learn by remembering and memorizing:
    Teachers propose learning activities then ask the children to recount each experience and demonstrate the knowledge and skills acquired.

Cycles of learning

The Maternelle is a 4-year "Initial Learning" Cycle during which students develop their linguistic and social skills and become active members of their class and school communities. 

Rochambeau's preschool education focuses on:

  • Spoken language
  • Group integration 
  • Becoming a “student”
  • Physical activity to explore and develop their motor skills
  • Discovering the world
  • Perception, imagination and creativity
  • The discovery of writing.

Our early learners in the Maternelle explore the world through play and “hands-on” activities.  They discover new sensory experiences and develop their motor, emotional and intellectual skills. The highly skilled Rochambeau teachers instill learning techniques that create a firm foundation for future knowledge acquisition. 

Curriculum overview

Each child makes progress at his or her own pace, by the end of preschool, students will have acquired many new skills in several principal areas of focus:

Open House Presentation - December 2022

Specific Programs

Maternelle News