From the National Directions for the Curriculum of the Preschool and First Cycle of Education:
The history of the Italian school, characterized by a pedagogical and anthropological approach that cares for the centrality of the learning person, assigns a preeminent role to pre-school and the first cycle of education in view of the importance that this period assumes in the biography of each pupil. With this inspiration, the school attaches great importance to the educational relationship and to teaching methods capable of fully activating the energies and potential of each child and young person. At the same time, the Italian school has learned to recognize and value general learning that takes place outside its walls, in the multiple environments of life in which children and young people grow up and through new media, in constant evolution, in which they also participate in diverse and creative ways.
The generalization of comprehensive institutions, which bring together preschool, primary and secondary schools, creates the conditions for the emergence of a basic unitary school that takes children in from the age of three and guides them through to the end of the first cycle of education and is capable of bringing together the many learnings that the world now offers within a single structuring path.
The profile that follows describes, in essential form, the competencies referring to the disciplines of teaching and the full exercise of citizenship, which a child must show that he or she possesses at the end of the first cycle of education. The achievement of the competencies outlined in the profile constitutes the general objective of the Italian education and training system.
