What is inquiry-based learning?
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Young children love to ask questions. It’s one of the ways in which they make sense of the world and their place in it. Questions are also a powerful tool for educators to promote children’s thinking and learning.  They exercise their sense of agency (or self control) and develop valuable and complex problem-solving skills. When children are able to pose questions and investigate the answers, they feel in charge of their own learning.
Inquiry-based approaches to learning harness this spirit of investigation, creating an interesting, engaging and meaningful curriculum that uses children’s interests and questions as a starting point for effective learning. 

​Inquiry-based approaches reflect a view of the child as a constructor of their own knowledge and learning rather than simply as a passive recipient of someone else’s. This active view of the learning process reinforces the need for learning experiences that allow children the chance to follow their own interests and shape their own learning. 

Unlike a theme-based approach, where a central question or idea provides the stimulus for a collection of pre-planned activities or experiences, inquiry tends to develop spontaneously as children engage with the original idea and then take it in their own direction. While educators plan with experiences and outcomes in mind, the essence of our curriculum is that it is responsive, flexible and open-ended, able to move with the children’s ideas and questions as they arise.

Why?
  • ​Young children learn best through finding their own answers. Preschoolers need to learn how to learn, rather than just learn facts.  

  • Each child’s agency is promoted, enabling them to make choices and decisions and influence events and their world. ​

  • Active involvement in learning builds children’s understandings of concepts and the creative thinking and inquiry processes that are necessary for lifelong learning.

  • When educators support children to follow and investigate their own ideas, they not only foster learning about the specific ideas under investigation, they also enable children to exercise their growing sense of agency and autonomy and promote inquiry, curiosity and exploration as valuable approaches to learning.  

  •  Inquiry-based approaches aim to encourage deep learning—learning where children are absorbed and fascinated; learning where children are active and involved; and learning where children make connections and develop significant understandings.​

How?
​​Inquiry-based learning is supported when: 

  • Educators respond to children’s ideas and play and use intentional teaching to scaffold and extend each child’s learning. 

  • Educators see themselves as co-learners, working with children as they learn.  When this happens educators feel less focused on transmitting knowledge and are more likely to support and extend children’s own attempts at understanding. 

  • The physical environment contains materials and spaces that encourage curiosity, investigation and wonder. Interesting and engaging materials or resources can provide the stimulus for children’s questions and investigations. It is also important to ensure that children can access the materials and resources that they need easily and quickly. When this happens, they are able to resource their own learning and to follow their own investigations in whichever direction they lead. 

  •  The daily routine allows children large blocks of uninterrupted time in which to think, investigate and explore. Thinking and learning happen more effectively when they are unhurried; ideas need time to develop. 
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  • Inquiry is seen as a collaborative task. Children’s learning is enriched when they work with others to solve a problem or investigate an interest. Exposure to others’ ideas and perspectives helps to broaden individual understandings, and as children work together on a joint project they develop strong relationships with each other. The inquiry process also provides a context for educators to engage in sustained, shared conversations with children. Through such conversations educators are able to enrich and guide children’s thinking and learning, and children gain new understandings of themselves, the learning process and the topic at hand.