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Importance of early childhood education

Posted on by mindseed@admin

Early childhood education is an academic program or curriculum that’s specially designed for children who belong to the age group of 3-5 years before they begin their formal academic journey in life. The main purpose of this curriculum is to prepare children for primary school and their future. Institutions that offer this program are known by different names like Preschool, Nursery School, etc.

Children learn best when they are not pushed too hard and are allowed to express themselves. Parents today recognize the importance of such a conducive learning environment that’s provided during early childhood education and devote extra time to their young ones in order to teach them essential life skills from an early age. Let’s take a look at the importance of early childhood education in defining the bright future of children.

A fun way of learning 

Learning through play at preschools in Mumbai is a fun way to understand new concepts and develop new skills. It not only stimulates the child but also keeps him/her interested and connected for extended periods of time. From simple and colourful building blocks that help develop logic to dancing and running that increase coordination and flexibility, the activities that we can keep our little ones engaged in are numerous and so widespread that picking the right one for your child can be quite a task.

Development of good habits

Children benefit from daily routines because they feel safe and secure. They’re also an excellent way to instil good behaviours in children, such as cleaning their teeth and washing their hands. Childcare is a great way to help your child establish a routine. Educators understand the skills your child needs to develop and employ a variety of approaches to assist them in doing so in a secure and regulated setting.

Development of literacy and numeracy skills

The cornerstone for a child’s education is literacy and numeracy skills, but it’s more than simply reading, writing, and counting. Listening to stories, talking about pictures, and sketching shapes on paper help children develop reading abilities. The literacy and numeracy abilities your child acquires before starting school have a significant impact on his or her academic success later in life.

Developing a passion for learning

A high-quality early childhood education at a childcare centre will not only keep your children safe while you work but will also develop a love for learning in them. Early childhood education can help children develop independence and a positive attitude toward learning by providing them with social and cognitive experiences.

Development of social skills

Kids meet other children of their age in a safe atmosphere in preschools in Mumbai apart from their families, laying the seeds of socialization and friendship in their young minds. This helps your youngsters build self-confidence by removing their shyness.

Early childhood education is critical since it can influence a child’s mental, emotional, and physical development. Ensure that your child experiences the benefits of early childhood education to improve the quality of his or her schooling and life in general.

Learning from Students – Stories from our schools

Posted on by mindseed@admin

Joy is our school leader at Vishwajyot International School (Phaltan). And in this school, we have a mix of students – some who’ve been with us from their younger years, to others who’ve studied in Marathi medium schools and just joined us. This makes for interesting classrooms, where a diverse set of children, with diverse skills, abilities and interests all need to be catered to. Also, in the higher grades like the 5th Std, the children are slowly being inducted into the mainstream school system, so they all need to know some of the key basics in terms of information, and need to have developed the basic skills sets as well. Especially important are skills such as perseverance, creativity and problem-solving, all of which will form the basis for their preparations for high school.

Joy says, “This mix of backgrounds makes it challenging to draw out each child to their full potential, or so I thought! Until my own class proved me wrong”

Here is Joy’s story.

“I was conducting poetry recitation with the 5th Std class, but also wanted to build their critical thinking and communicating skills. So while children recited poems one at a time, the other children would assign scores to them. I would also ask a few of the children to give feedback to the speaker and to defend the scores they awarded.

Sagar was one such speaker. Objectively, his performance was poor. He fumbled many times and struggled to remember, but kept trying till he completed. I scored him 2 out of 4. But when I looked around and asked my students about their scoring I was surprised to see perfect/near perfect scores awarded to him. I was now curious. I asked Ayush “Why have you awarded 4/4 to Sagar”, I said. “Teacher, Sagar is from Marathi medium but yet he stood in front of the class confidently”. ” Hmm …But he made quite a few mistakes, how can you give him full marks?” Ayush replied, “I know but look at his confidence, although he didn’t recite correctly but he did not leave the stage in middle. He looked at our eyes and faced us. It’s true he couldn’t remember the whole poem this time, but we will help him learn next time”.

I wanted to hug him, but I had a class to conduct so I moved on to Rajdeep. Rajdeep himself was awarded 2 out of 4 earlier but had scored Sagar at 3.5 ” Why 3.5?”. He replied, “I wanted to give 4 but cut .5 so that he doesn’t become over confident next time.”

What a humbling moment for a teacher in the classroom! Joy’s students proved that context and effort are both factors to be considered while assessing a performance, something our system does not take into account when assessing students. Subjectivity is completely discouraged in our assessments eco-system today, a relic of the factory-type education system where the quality of teaching staff is highly variable. In today’s world however, the need of the hour is to besubjective – and systemically allow for differences in context.

Joy ends her story with an appeal to all educators.

“Instead of hiding behind objectivity let us consider the context in which performances are being measured. Let us try to move our assessments from being judgmental to being informative – systemically. Let us value effort and perseverance instead of pure performance, and then perhaps we can encourage kids to keep fighting for their dreams. If we let our kids lead perhaps they will build the school they deserve”