Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | NXg | Friday Review | Cinema Plus | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Photo: R. Ashok

Impressive Learn while you play

“Now kids, watch what I paint,” says their ‘aunty,’ as she blotches a white chart with well-rounded dots. After two hours of rhymes recitation and painting, the kids with colour-smeared faces dart out eagerly to get picked up by their parents.

Most of them are hardly three years old. But they have jumped into academics well before the schools reopen.

While already teeming with such play schools, the city now has a handful more of them, all franchises of leading chain of pre-schools in India. The schools no more talk about alphabets but phonetics, rhymes and crafts are given importance and young parents are overbooked with attractive offers.

Dhurriya Lal, who co-runs Tender Feet, one of the earliest entrants in the race, couldn’t agree more. “It’s no more pure academic and kids are enrolled as hotcakes.”

At Eurokids, which has just begun its operation in the City, the apple-shaped chairs beckon kids’ attention. But the month-long play school struggles its way out in attracting parents. “Conventional mind-set of parents has not changed much. They want to get their child admitted in school where they would continue their higher standards. Need of play schools is not felt,” says S. Premalatha, coordinator of Eurokids.

While Eurokids organises summer camps to make its presence felt, Kidzee, a chain of preschool of Zee TV, hops into the bandwagon with a good number of playthings to back it. The school at Thillai Nagar is overfed with colourful furnishings, play materials and learning resources. Tiny round-tables, sense-triggering games, magnetic board, kitchen set with ultra new gadgets, puppetry theatre and a tiny library seem to cheer up whining kids.

Two teachers are given five-day training at the head-office of Kidzee and periodical assessment of the school keeps the quality under scrutiny.

Franchisor of Kidzee, Sornam Lakshmanan, says parents are careful about choosing the right play school for their kids. They pore over minute details, check out the infrastructure and inspect the quality of toys. But what the over-scrupulous parents fail to notice is the method of teaching in most pre-schools.

Says Dhurriya: “Franchisees are provided with good resource materials. But in most cases, the teachers aren’t trained much, which challenges the very purpose of sending the kids to a play school.”

Here is what you have to keep in mind when you enrol your child in any of the play schools: check out the experience of the teacher and make sure he/she is familiar with handling kids. Ensure enough ventilation in the school, where your tiny tots would be spending most of the day. Even if the school authorities feel you’re finicky, don’t hesitate to ask the school-in-charge about the quality of toys that they spread across your kids. Cheap plastics do more harm than good.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail