India is a land where family bonding is quite strong and a child begins his first years of education perpetually from home. Why? Because it is believed what parents and grand-parents can teach, none else can. But with time, this trend is slowly changing and play schools are gaining popularity. Especially so, in the cities where joint families are giving way to nuclear families and where both parents are working. Play Schools come as a boon to working parents. Now, parents are eager to send their toddlers to schools as soon as they turn two. Not only because they feel these pre nursery schools are safe but also because toddlers seem to learn faster when they interact with children of their own age. And play schools in India are definitely witnessing a boom as leading international preschool chains choose various cities in India to set up their operations.
Playschools in India usually consist of four grades; Playgroup, nursery, lower kindergarten (LKG) and upper kindergarten (UKG). Some have after school care centers too. Children can be retained in care center after the school hours. Such playschools are a boon to working mothers.
Benefits of Play schools in India
The main benefit of play school is that it helps children fight separation anxiety. In nuclear families where the child is totally dependent on parents, it helps in a way when the child moves out of home into a preschool and start spending a couple of hours there. All the parents shower children with toys but play schools give the children the right kind of toys to play with, those toys which have a learning value attached to it. So, a preschool does a lot of value-addition as far as a child’s preliminary education is concerned.
Indian play schools prepare the children for bigger schools. Once a child starts going to a pre nursery school, then a kind of lenient routine sets into his life, which will stay with him and help him further as he starts going to a proper school. In fact, in a play school a child is taught various things that will help him adjust in a proper school without any difficulty.
Preschools in India allow a child to become confident and independent- allow a child to become part of the fast-advancing hi-tech world that he will soon be brushing shoulders with.
How to select a Play School?
As pre nursery schools in India gain popularity, everyone seems to be jumping at the idea of opening a pre nursery school. So, it comes as no wonder that pre nursery schools seem to spring up from everywhere. So while choosing a play school for your child you need to pay attention to the following points:
- First check on its authenticity- whether it is run by a trained professional. If a good play school has a positive impact on a child, then a bad play school is bound to have a negative impact. So first verify that the person running it as well as the teachers teaching have all taken proper training in childcare.
- Next check out the concept behind the play school. Find out why the person is running a play school and how he chooses to be different from other pre nursery schools.
- Next check if the play school is following the correct student – teacher ratio. It is ideally 1: 10.
- Take a round of the school and to see if the rooms are big and spacious and if they are well ventilated.
- Check if they have proper maids who can handle the children when they have to go to the washroom.
- Finally, ensure that the distance to the pre nursery school is not too much from your
home.
