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Important Points For Setting Up A Nursery School

  • May 24, 2010 11:40 am

Setting up a nursery is a good idea because the need for these is increasing as more and more people realise that preschools are essential to give children a head start in life.

Like all other start-ups, market research is vital to setting up day nursery in Croydon too. People generally like to use nurseries which are close to their homes. The easiest way to check whether such a venture will be viable in the location that you have chosen is to go through the local birth records for the past few years. That will enable you to determine whether you will have a steady flow of students or not. You may consider setting up a preschool in an area that is preferred by people who are likely to have children.

It takes time to establish a reputation as a trusted nursery. Croydon is a place where there are a fairly large number of people with young children, so you may consider setting up a business there too. You may seek help from financial advisors as they can help you determine the number of years you may have to wait before breaking even. These days it is possible to reduce risks by opting for nursery insurance. The premiums may seem somewhat steep, but they enable you to reduce losses in the case your preschool does not manage to attract enough business in the first year.

You may also opt for a business plan prepared by professionals who are aware of the various factors that affect such ventures. Always remember that merely knowing how to handle children will not bring in the money. Since day nursery in Croydon is a lucrative business, you will have many competitors who may have the business advantage over you.

This is especially important if you have to borrow money to start the nursery. In the beginning, you may not know exactly how many people you have to employ. If you employ too many people you will find it difficult to make money while paying their salaries.

Always take time to respond to the queries of the parents and talk about the ways in which you will help their children.

The Montessori Style of Nursery Education

  • May 10, 2010 1:38 pm

Montessori nurseries are very popular among parents for pre-school education for their child. These can be easily found in Surrey or Kent with all the modern facilities that a nursery should have to properly guide and educate your child.

Montessori nurseries are named after their founder, Dr Maria Montessori, an Italian woman. She developed this child education method through her extensive research work and study of children. Her form of teaching is based on various principles and these principles are still followed in nurseries all around the world and you can easily find one such nursery near you.

Children Are Individuals

Dr Montessori’s research focussed on the principle that all children are individuals and each one will be affected by the social environment in which they live and the world around them. According to her research, every child has a creative potential which should be explored and encouraged, and every child should be treated as an individual with unique abilities and qualities. Nurseries in Beckenham follow this policy and treat children as individuals.

Nurturing Natural Potential

Every child has a natural potential which should be properly nurtured. This helps them to learn and develop in a social environment.

Children Need Freedom

Another principle of this style of teaching is that every child needs his or her own individual space and freedom to learn and develop. No child should be forced to complete activities in stipulated time periods. They should be allowed to take their time in the initial stages of learning. However, there should be some limitations to ensure that tasks do get completed in a reasonable timeframe. Children should also be given the choice to select their own activities as this helps them to become self-sufficient.

Mixed Age Groups

This form of education allows children of different ages to come together and learn in the same group. This system of learning in mixed age groups is really helpful. You will find nurseries in your area following this system and are also very successful in educating children as it helps children in deciding what is best for them on a social and intellectual basis.

The Importance of Equipment

Children learn faster when they are taught with care and kindness.  Also nurseries should have access to good quality equipment which will support them in their learning process. It is not necessary to get the biggest and flashiest equipment but rather equipment which helps children develop unique skills and explore the world around them.

All the above principles developed by Dr Montessori are being followed in nurseries across the UK especially in cities like Croydon or Beckenham. These nurseries are highly supportive to children and the staff work together with the little ones to help them develop a better character and adjust perfectly into the social environment.

What You Should Know Before Sending Your Toddler to Preschool

  • April 20, 2010 11:51 pm

The first challenge for parents is to determine whether their child is ready for nursery school or not. You must remember that children who are more than three years old ought to be sent to nursery. Croydon has many nurseries, so you do not have to travel too far to find one. Research has shown that children who are sent to a preschool between the ages of three to five are more likely to do well in life.

If toddlers can recognise the alphabet and numbers, they will find it easier to learn reading when it is taught in primary school. In nursery, toddlers learn to interact with their peers and staff and when they are placed in similar environments in schools they do not take as long to adapt to the new surroundings.

One of the key skills that children learn in nursery school is to stay somewhere without parents for a longer period of time. If your child finds it difficult to stay without you, most nurseries will provide a settling in period for as long as is necessary for both parent and child to be comfortable with the new surroundings.

Children also learn to follow instructions at nurseries in Croydon. Unless this skill is picked up before important skills like reading are taught, a young child may not be able to pick up those vital skills in a busy classroom. In classroom situations, teachers are not able to pay attention to all of the children all of the time. Unless a child is able to do what he/ she is told to do, the child may get behind.

Before taking your toddler to your chosen nursery in Croydon, you should introduce him/ her to the pleasures of listening to stories. If you read out stories to toddlers on a regular basis, they will concentrate when a story is told in a nursery. Eventually this curiosity will translate into the desire to read as the child grows up. You may also ask the child to draw pictures about a story that they have read to check if they have understood the story or not.

It is important that your child enjoys his or her first experience of school because this will ensure that they do not harbour any negative feelings about places of learning.

Tips For Finding a Good Nursery School

  • April 20, 2010 11:39 pm

When you feel that your child is old enough to interact with his or her peers you need to start looking for a nursery school. The first question that you should ask yourself what exactly you want. If you are just looking for a day care centre, you need to check how safe your child will be in the nursery. Croydon has some good day care facilities. In some cases, you may wish to leave your child with a childminder who is qualified, as they may provide their services at relatively lower prices.

If you want to ensure that your child picks up some skills before going to school, you will need to make more enquires about the nursey or preschool that you want. There is no specific age for enrolling your child in a preschool. If your child seems mature enough to start learning new things in a group, you may consider sending him or her to a nursery so that they may learn assisted by professionals who are specialised in teaching such young children. Apart from the alphabet and numbers, day nurseries in Croydon also help toddlers socialize and encourage them to become more independent.

You can talk to other parents with children in the same age group to find the right nursery in Croydon. The advantage of talking to parents is that they will be able which schools to avoid. Once you have a list of day nursery schools near your house, you need to decide the one that is right for you.

It is a good idea to visit a few schools to personally look at the facilities and talk to the managers about their philosophy. Nursery schools adopting the Reggio Emilia approach place more emphasis on a child’s ability to develop naturally, the HighScope approach teaches children to set goals for themselves, the Waldorf approach focuses on enhancing the creativity of the child while the Montessori approach fosters independence among toddlers. Most day nurseries in Croydon interpret these approaches in their own way.

It is vital that the nursery has the correct staff to child ratio and that all staff are appropriately qualified.

Different Approaches to Nursery Education in Croydon

  • April 20, 2010 11:36 pm

There are different approaches to educating pre-schoolers that the nurseries in Croydon follow. Each approach has its own speciality. There are three major approaches that are prevalent in nurseries in Croydon: the Reggio Emilia Approach, the Waldorf approach, and the Montessori approach. We will now look at the unique aspects of each of these teaching styles.

Reggio Emilia Approach

This approach was first developed by Loris Malaguzzi, in and around Reggio Emilia in Italy, after World War II. Parents in Reggio Emilia felt that the destruction caused by the war would leave negative impact on their children. Hence, a new approach was quickly needed to educate their children during the early years of development of a child. In order to build up the individuality of their children they developed a new program of education on the principles of respect, responsibility, and community.
The city of Reggio Emilia is recognized as the home to this innovative approach to education. This was later adopted by rest of the European cities, Croydon being one of them.

The Reggio Emilia philosophy is based upon the following set of principles:

•Every child must have control over the direction of his/ her learning
•The program allows the child to learn through personal experiences of touching, moving, listening, seeing, and hearing
•The program also allows children to understand and develop their relationships with other children and with material items in the world
•It also gives children opportunities to explore different endless ways to express themselves

Waldorf education

This educational philosophy was originally developed by an Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, who is also the founder of anthroposophy. This approach emphasizes on the role of the imagination of a child and allows it to develop which enhances the creativity of the individual and is based on the practical, artistic, and conceptual elements of learning. This philosophy encourages the child to become free, moral and integrated individual. It also supports every child in fulfilling his or her unique aspirations.
In 1919, the first Waldorf School was founded in Waldorf-Astoria, to educate the children of the employees of the cigarette factory in Stuttgart. This form of education has been adopted by nurseries in Croydon also. There are several Waldorf-based public and Charter schools and homeschooling environments. Even pre-schools and nurseries have also taken up this educational philosophy to educate toddlers.

Montessori nurseries

These are exceptionally popular for pre-school education and can be easily located in Croydon. The nurseries are named after their founder, Dr Maria Montessori. Dr Montessori was an Italian woman who developed this method of child education. Her work and study of children developed a unique form of teaching method which is based on various principles. The main principle is that every child is an individual who is affected by the social environment and should be encouraged to learn from his or her surroundings.

Advantages of Sending Your Child to a Nursery School

  • April 20, 2010 11:34 pm

If you have a child who is about two to three years old, you may consider sending him or her to a nursery. Beckenham has some good preschools for toddlers. It is important to send a child to such a school because children who are deprived of this phase of education may remain behind others when they join primary school and this can prove to be a disadvantage.

Children in this age group learn very quickly and can assimilate information very fast. If they are gently encouraged to learn through interesting games, they pick up skills that will help them maintain an edge through out their lives. This is because the brain tends to develop connections at this stage and the child picks up cognitive skills quickly. If you boost the development of the child’s brain by teaching the alphabet and numbers, you will enable him or her to pick up more complex skills like reading when he or she is old enough for school.

If your child can read relatively early on, they will be able pick up more complex skills and enjoy the lessons that are taught in school. Parents may not always have enough time to sit down regularly with their children and teach them skills like reading.

A study entitled ‘HighScope Perry Preschool Study’ was conducted in 2005 to gauge the impact of nursery schools in a person’s life. This study compared the achievements of two sets of 40-year old subjects. One set had been to preschool while another set had not attended preschool. The study revealed that people who go to preschool are more likely to earn more, commit fewer crimes, and get better exam grades when compared to people who do not go to preschool.

However, you must be careful while choosing the school for your child because children who do not enjoy their preschool experience may well develop a dislike for school. Therefore it may be a good idea to take your child to a nursery in Beckenham before admitting him or her. If your child is comfortable in the nursery, they will develop a love for places of learning.

Preschools provide a soft landing to children when they eventually go to primary school because they are already familiar with their roles as learners. In schools children are expected to perform well. If they are not accustomed to a social environment, they tend to get overwhelmed by the large number of people around them and by the time they get used to the system, they have lost valuable time. Interacting with peers does not come to everyone naturally and some toddlers need to be given some time to learn how to communicate with unfamiliar people.

Remember that distance from home is an important factor that determines the choice of the nursery. Beckenham has several nursery schools, so you should not find it very difficult to find the right one for your you and your child.