Introduction to Good Nursery School
You’re excited about your child reaching this milestone. You want to make sure they have the best possible educational experience.
Choosing the right school, then, is hugely important. If you want to encourage your kid to keep learning, then pick a school that will encourage that.
Here is a checklist of what you should look for when you browse for options.
Classroom Atmosphere
Is the classroom designed to feel welcoming? Do you see the kids having fun there, laughing, being joyful, and friendly?
This might not be a factor right now with online sessions, but your kids will return to in-person classes sooner or later. Knowing that you picked the school with an excellent classroom atmosphere will count.
Consider the Room
Are the learning materials appropriate for the kids’ ages? What about the furniture? Are the tables and chairs child-sized? Does it seem like the room has been child-proofed?
You will want to ask about these things as well. Your child is going to spend a lot of time inside that classroom. You want to make sure it’s safe.
Observe the Teachers
Teachers guide the academic growth of your child. If it is possible, ask if you could observe a class. Many schools offer virtual or online tours of the school, so this might be possible.
What you will want to see is how the teachers interact with the kids. Do they crouch at eye level when they talk to the kids? Do they direct the play?
Are they the center of the activity or do they facilitate the activities and allow the kids to be the center of the discussions?
Ask About Discipline
How do the teachers discipline the students? What kind of behavior merits a suspension? If your child misbehaves, how will the teacher approach that?
What you want is a school that has minimal use of exclusionary tactics to punish the kids. While short time-outs can be useful, it should not be longer than three to five minutes and should be understood by the kids as a chance for them to calm down.
The time-outs should not be regarded as a punishment. Kids should not be exiled because that is an opportunity to teach the child a lesson.
If the school suspends the kid without explaining why the action was wrong, then that does not resolve the problem as the child will continue with the action without understanding why it is bad.
Value of Emotional Development
A good preschool has a plan for teaching kids to deal with their emotions. They help the kids understand what they feel and how to self-regulate.
However, this cannot happen with only the school’s efforts. The teacher must reach out to you for help. The teacher can come up with a plan to help your child manage their emotions better in school.
If you support that plan by using the same tactics at home, the child will eventually learn the value of learning to control their feelings.
Talk About Academics
Preschool is more than just learning about fundamental academic skills. But it does make up a major portion of early childhood education as your kids learn skills in reading and math as well as science and social studies.
Creative activities help them acquire these skills. This will involve your child telling a story, playing with building materials like train or house sets or blocks, playing with puzzles, and more.
There’s also minimal use of memorization as kids learn to sing songs they have learned by heart or have been practicing.
Know the Extracurriculars
What afterschool activities can your child participate in and explore? Our cooking classes offered? What about drama classes, sports, writing, reading, singing, and more?
Choose courses or programs that you believe align strongly with your child’s interests. Letting your child try them out, too, will help your little one discover if they have talents or skills in a specific field. They could end up developing those interests further.
Discuss the Pandemic Response
What has the school done to respond to the pandemic? What is it doing to ensure that the school remains a learning environment that is free from the virus?
Will it reopen its doors for in-person classes soon? How is the timeline for that coming along? What kind of support does the school provide the kids and the teachers at this time?
What will they do if they open for in-person classes and then a staff member, teacher, or student becomes infected with the virus? How will they handle that situation?
Are they ready if that happens? The way that the school prepares for any situation is a good indication of whether they’re the best choice for your child or not.
When you check out the classrooms of a nursery school in Montessori, be on the lookout for clear focus areas.
There should be workstations where the kids could work, along with areas that offer a variety of activities, experiments, and more.
