Godwin Terrace School celebrates kindergarten signing day and early childhood success

For incoming kindergarten students at P.S. 207, The Godwin Terrace School, the new year includes an official signing to mark the big, new step as the children graduate from one program to another. 

At The Godwin Terrace School, located at 3030 Godwin Terrace, principal Tara O’Brien said the signing day was initiated to be a memorable moment for students celebrating the transition to a new level of schooling.

The Godwin Terrace School kindergarten students spend the first month undergoing teacher assessments to grasp where the students are individually in their learning process and how best they learn, so classroom experiences can be tailored to the students they contain.

After assessments, students get immersed in the skills they’ll need like reading, writing and math, and, beyond that, all aspects of their learning focus on socialization and team-building. 

An important piece of the kindergarten classes first month is getting to know not just the students but their families as well. Parents and families are welcomed into the school to meet teachers and staff and be celebrated alongside their little ones. O’Brien says identity work is incorporated into their classrooms, giving them the opportunity to make self portraits and learn about their classmates’ cultures and heritage. 

While the schools spends its time molding the children into successful learners, the student’s preschool foundation assists in this process.

Prior to the moving-up signing, students in their final weeks of preschool also get to celebrate their advancing into another year of their education, where they will get to meet the kindergarten teachers and see what could be their new classrooms.

Unfortunately, because of the city’s universal preschool, not all Godwin Terrace students return for the following year, as some are coming from outside the district to attend school and will return to their home district for kindergarten. 

The city has had established universal preschool since the fall of 2014, which allows city families to send their 3 and 4 year olds to a free full-day preschool program designed for families of all incomes. A 2023 report from 5Boro found 80 percent of city families cannot afford to pay for childcare, but many families are still put on wait lists and left without preschool for their little ones. 

Research conducted by the American Public University details the importance of early childhood education for the development of children academically, socially and emotionally. Education prior to kindergarten provides the foundation for crucial skills like problem-solving and critical thinking.

Different types of play offer various learning opportunities for preschool students. For children at this age, hands-on activities, such as sensory play, science experiments and building block construction within a classroom encourage exploration and creativity. Storytelling and reading are more activities that help build language skills and comprehension while fostering imagination. Other seemingly recreational activities, like singing and dancing, can help young children develop their motor skills, rhythm and self-expression. 

The environment inside of a classroom widely differs from any other social engagement a young child engages in, making that time invaluable with the inclusion of role-playing and group discussions.

Overall, both the lessons in a pre-kindergarten classroom and the ability of children to socialize with adults and students their own age build their cognitive well-being. 

O’Brien said the current Godwin Terrace preschool and kindergarten programs were years of hard work in the making. When she first arrived at the school in 2016, the school was on the state’s persistently dangerous schools list, a measurement based on the violent incidents and the seriousness of those incidents occuring in a school. Within the first months of her working at the school, she said security was entirely redone and the state was pleased to remove their designation, which was also the first pre-K to second grade school on the list. 

O’Brien herself attended the school when it was St. John’s and continued her education in neighborhood schools, so returning to the same building years later has reminded her it’s where she belongs. 

“I am a product of the neighborhood, and I am very tied to the school and the students and the community,” O’Brien said. 

Now the school services preschool through fifth-grade students with plenty of involvement from the parents. In revamping the school’s early childhood education programs, O’Brien learned parents were barely allowed in the building, let alone participating in activities with the school and their children. She said the school felt like a “dismal place,” and changing that was part of her commitment to her students. 

Now, children and their families get celebrated monthly, with various themed events like Book-a-ween for October, a cultural day potluck for November, Power of Our Words in celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. for January, and others. 

“There were so many changes to get everybody’s voice in and the parents feeling welcome and heard,” O’Brien said. 

The hard work put into the school is now reflected in the celebrations brought to the students, including the kindergarten signing day — in which students get their own diplomas signifying their graduation into the rest of their education — creating memories they’ll remember for life.

O’Brien said she remembers her own kindergarten teacher and experiences, giving her even greater reason to continue the tradition.