How to choose the best kindergarten for your child?

Putting a child in a nursery or kindergarten usually makes parents emotional. From now on, someone else will be able to influence the development and education of our toddler. In addition, for many hours we will let our children out of our sight, trusting that someone will take care of them as much as we do.

 

Due to the fact that there are not enough places in public kindergartens, we give up dreams about the perfect place and accept the only criterion: “Are there still vacancies?”. Meanwhile, the child’s mind absorbs the entire preschool reality around them like a sponge. For the first 7 years of their life, the toddler’s brain creates foundations for how they will react, process information, communicate, learn and even what type of relations they will build in the future. Never again will the human mind be more flexible. This invaluable time, unfortunately, can’t be made up for later.

 

“The best kindergarten” or what can I really expect?

You can absolutely expect safety, hygiene and compliance with the state educational programme for pre-primary education. There are many guides with a checklist to fill out before you decide to choose a particular facility. Here, we focus on kindergartens of a premium standard and discuss extra benefits some places offer. They let you provide your child with invaluable experience and skills that will pay off throughout their lives.

 

The holistic approach to child development: not just talk

 

Child development is not divided into any fields. Every trait and skill is based on those shaped earlier. The child’s primary skills develop in the first months of their life. Gradually, more and more specialized and complex ones grow on this ground. Therefore, the faster our child acquires all these skills, the easier it will be for them to acquire even more.

There are strict, though non-obvious dependencies between various skills. A poorly mastered ability inhibits the development of others. For example, if a child has problems with hearing, his emotional development will be hindered. If their motor skills are poor, their speech development may be at risk. And vice versa – exercises developing the child’s hearing and sense of rhythm as well as sporting activity support the general development of intelligence and cognitive skills. They can also reduce the level of the child’s anxiety.

Before you choose a kindergarten, check if the daily schedule is sufficiently varied. Are the caregivers able to pick up signals from different behaviours and find a connection between them?

 

Emotional intelligence and social skills

 

Creating norms and shaping proper behaviours is as crucial for the child’s future as learning to speak and read. Psychologists emphasize that cognitive skills develop properly only when emotional and social development is not disturbed.

The range of emotions experienced by preschool children broadens considerably. Still, children are unable to name and control them. At the same time, they begin to interact more intensely within a group. Social adaptation is something new and stressful for a toddler. They have to learn to accept social and moral norms and develop correct responses to the emotions and needs of others. Neglecting or overlooking this part of the child’s development affects their future private and professional life.

The role of caregivers is to both name and explain what the child feels, show them the reason why they feel this way, strengthen their sense of self-worth and teach them proper social reactions. You should ask whether the kindergarten has implemented a programme of specific rules and activities that will enable children to train social skills, explore the world of emotions in a safe and controlled way, learn to cooperate, listen, respect others and constructively express their opinions.

 

Learning a foreign language in kindergarten

 

In the first years of their life, the child is particularly susceptible to the acquisition of language. This ability will decrease over time in favour of others. Toddlers automatically learn the connection between objects and new words. It results in the natural understanding of a foreign language. They can also perfectly imitate new sounds and acquire the correct pronunciation. In order to trigger these natural processes, the kindergarten should provide children with an opportunity to interact with the foreign language spontaneously and on a daily basis.

Nowadays, language classes in preschool education are standard. In most cases, they are limited to an hour or two and separated from other activities. There are, however, English-speaking or bilingual kindergartens that help children develop natural bilingualism through a day-long natural contact with a foreign language. The all-day assistance of a native speaker  allows your child to acquire foreign speech. Using language spontaneously brings much better results than traditional lessons.

Exposing your child to a foreign language environment is called “language immersion”. According to many specialists, this is the most effective method of learning a foreign language. We can expect that after some time the child’s brain will switch to thinking in the foreign language, which will enable them to use this language effortlessly.

There is an additional advantage of bilingual kindergartens: the supporting role of another caregiver, who can speak the child’s mother tongue. It seems to be especially important when the toddler is sensitive or has some adaptive problems. It should also be noticed that bilingualism is compliant with the state educational programme for pre-primary education in Poland.

 

Metaphorical role of a preschool tutor – the child’s companion and interpreter

 

Educational methods in kindergartens should be focused more on helping children explore the world on their own than on typical teaching. The specific role and competences of teachers are similar. In modern pedagogy the role of a preschool teacher is metaphorically described as the Guide. Their role isn’t to set the only right path but to outline different ways to reach the goal and open the child’s mind to information.

Another important role is that of the Interpreter. Their task is to explain the world in an adequate language and make it more understandable to the child. When you have a chance to observe classes (for example during open days), please pay attention to whether children are sufficiently active and their initiatives encouraged.

Feeling good about a particular kindergarten thanks to great communication with one of the teachers is perfectly normal. However, remember that your child will be surrounded by many other people there. It can also happen that ‘your’ teacher goes on maternity leave or moves to another place. You should stay cool and make sure that the kindergarten provides the same standards, regardless of the kindness and personal involvement of one particular person. Ask about the trainings undertaken by the staff. Check whether the institution has defined rules of working with children, uses proven educational methods and has some standardized additional programmes for developing specific skills.

 

Multicultural environment

 

One of the most frequently discussed competences of the future is what we call cross-cultural competences – the ability to operate in a diverse cultural environment. During the first years of their life, children map the whole reality around them. They collect an enormous amount of information and accept everything they perceive as natural and equal. You should use this time to show your child as much as you can and help them widen their horizons, which will provide them with  a natural ability to accept the changing environment and adapt to it.

This responsibility should be partially taken by a kindergarten. Cooperation with foreign institutions, video meetings and exchanging experience, multicultural groups, foreign language teachers – all this will make your child feel confident and comfortable in many contexts and circumstances in the future and help them acquire high adaptation skills.

 

Interior and equipment of the kindergarten

 

Specialists exploring the role of education of the youngest children know perfectly well how important in the learning process is the arrangement of space. Classrooms in the kindergarten can be adapted to the child’s development stage through, for example, the right choice of colours (intense and stimulating for young children, gradually more and more subdued for older ones). Windows should be located at the height of the child’s eyesight, which encourages them to observe their surroundings. Properly designed changing rooms, hallways and playrooms should look inviting but, at the same time, can’t frighten children with too many visual stimuli.

In addition to traditional toys and educational materials, kindergartens of the 21st century should be equipped with modern multimedia devices, which will familiarize children with technology and teach them how to use it in a targeted manner, as a tool. Last but not least, the sense of aesthetics also develops from an early age. Beautiful, carefully arranged interiors have a great impact on the child’s imagination and their taste.

 

Food: good or “good”?

 

Your child will likely eat 3 or 4 out of 5 meals served in the kindergarten during the day (of course it depends on the frequency of snacks). We all know the saying “You are what you eat” and yet as parents we want our children to be healthy, resilient and to develop properly.

It’s worth considering whether the issue of nutrition is important for your kindergarten. If so, it will certainly choose diets, appropriate catering and methods of educating children so as to ensure that the food is healthy, tasty and helps to shape proper eating habits. In this way, the kindergarten at least partially relieves parents from taking care of this aspect of their child’s development and, additionally, it often has a positive impact on the child’s immunity.

 

Location of the kindergarten – logistics and the comfort of being close

 

For working parents every hour is priceless. The average commuting time to work in Poland is 41 minutes. If we add to this the time needed to take the child to the kindergarten, pick them up and then drive them to their dance classes, it turns out that the whole day is a crazy race. What if your workplace, the kindergarten and dancing lessons were located in the same area?

The logistic problems of young families have already been noticed and addressed by office property managers and even by employers themselves. More and more kindergartens, including those belonging to the KIDS&Co. network, are being opened in office buildings or in the immediate vicinity of large concentrations of workplaces. These are usually locations well-connected to other districts. It’s easy to get here avoiding traffic jams by taking public transport, for example subway or tram.

A kindergarten located close to your workplace allows you to reduce time on the road and be with your child longer – even if it’s only half an hour in the morning and in the afternoon in your car. You can discuss the events of the day with your child, ask about their favorite games, emotions, successes and problems. The biggest advantage, however, is the physical proximity of the child and the parent when they are both busy with their responsibilities. KIDS&Co. kindergartens are often located so close to the parent’s workplace that they can see the entrance to the kindergarten from behind their desk. Parents are aware that if something unexpected happens, they will be with their child in a few minutes. This gives them great comfort at work and allows them to focus better on their duties, while the child, knowing that their mom or dad is close, feels calmer and safer.

 

Tuition: price versus value

 

Every service has its price but the question is whether it has a good value. When analysing the offer of a kindergarten, many aspects must be taken into account: its programme, staff, food, location, etc. It’s also worth looking at the tuition as a whole – for example, calculate how much time you will save for additional English lessons if your child attends a bilingual kindergarten, whether you have a chance to save money on commuting, how much you have to pay for a special diet, how many hours of care are offered and so on. Kindergartens provide also many extracurricular activities, so you should check which of them are included in the basic offer and for which you have to pay separately.

 

Questions worth asking:

• Are there speech-language screenings in the kindergarten?
• Does the kindergarten offer free of charge any extracurricular activities, apart from gymnastics and eurhythmics?
• Does the kindergarten provide regular individual consultations with teachers or do they take place only at the end of the school year?
• How do teachers work with parents to ensure that the development programme is properly implemented not only in kindergarten but also at home? (workshops for parents)
• Are English teachers native speakers or linguists with pedagogical background?
• Do children in the kindergarten know all teachers (from all age groups)?
• Does the kindergarten focus on one method or is it open to various approaches?
• What does the teacher recruitment process look like?
• Is the kindergarten located close to my workplace? How much extra time will I spend with my child?
• How long will it take me to get to my child in an emergency?
• If it’s a kindergarten in an office building, is there a playground nearby and how much time do children spend outdoors?
• My child doesn’t speak either Polish or English. How will the kindergarten cope with this and can it provide appropriate care and give my child a sense of security in this situation?
• What kind of classes are conducted with the use of the multimedia whiteboard?
• What does the tuition cover? What do I have to pay extra for?
• How many language classes are there a day?
• How long is the kindergarten open
• Are there any additional discounts?
• Will my family logistics improve?
• What if I’m late to pick up my child from the kindergarten?
• Is the menu consulted with a children’s nutritionist?
• Can my child be provided with vegetarian meals?
• Are nursery children provided with pureed baby food or the same meals as kindergarten children?
• What is the attendance at the height of the sickness season (September-November)?