Choosing the right kind of preschool for your child can be daunting. Prajodh Rajan shares a few tips that can help parents
With the presence of a large number of nuclear families, there is a growing need for good pre-schools which can help the child in his formative years. The structured curriculum, fun learning and engagement activities help to positively influence the child's growth needs at this stage.
Selecting a pre-school that is a good fit for your child can be overwhelming. As a parent, you want to be confident that you choose the best preschool for your child, but how do you make the best choice? Here are some factors that can help:
Presence of a Child-Centered Approach: For a preschool, it’s imperative that it must have at its core, an ideology that aims to keep solely the interest of the child and the parents at its very centre. A preschool that adopts a child first ideology, would have its pre-schooling DNA conformed to its vision of ensuring that all initiatives and efforts resonate with this child-centric objective.
Safety & Security: For a parent, a preschooling environment must principally be a safe and secure environment that can be trusted. Safety and security of the child should be the first priority of the school. The preschool must be equipped with CCTV cameras, so the child remains supervised at all times. It must have child-friendly furniture with rounded edges to avoid any untoward incident at preschool.
Toys used in the school should be of great quality and 100% non-toxic in nature. Teachers and support staff (an all-female staff) must be hired to post a rigorous background check including police verification and previous employer check prior to employment. Emergency training for the staff as well as teachers is important so they remain prepared in event of an extreme scenario.
Health & Hygiene: A non-negotiable factor whilst selecting a pre-school as the environment is where the child will play, make new friends and spend three-four hours each day. The ambiance must be clean and well sanitised.
Regular health assessments of the children by pediatricians and a special focus to a child's health and well- being through fitness programs must be prevalent at the preschool.
Caring and Qualified teachers: Teachers must be well trained and experienced to handle children. They must be certified in ECCED and their skills must be continuously updated through periodic, training and development. Teachers must have a great deal of love and patience to handle young children.
Close Parent Interaction: To complete the last mile in this pre-schooling world, the school must ensure that it creates a close-knit bond with the parents. They must reach out to parents through various platforms like parent orientation programs, parent-teacher meetings, informal and casual conversations with parents on an everyday basis so that they are always assured that their child remains in the best of hands.
To keep the parents in the know of all the developments at the pre-school, there should be a dedicated app for parents which showcases all the activities, learnings, and fun times at the preschool so a parent is aware of the typical day at the preschool.