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The nursery schools
These are of many types and forms based on purpose they serve. This includes cooperative nursery schools, laboratory nursery schools and traditional nursery schools.
Cooperative nursery school: - It is an educational group voluntarily organized by parents for their preschool children under the guidance of a trained and experienced teacher. The remarkable feature is parents’ cooperation and participation in the nursery school. Mothers take part in participating in the school and assisting the teacher-in-charge.
Laboratory-nursery school: - Mostly serves as a research center for an institution or agency and mostly to facilitate student participation for practical purpose and also to provide on the job training to the teachers. The emphasis is on the 3 R’s.
Traditional nursery school: Started by McMillan sisters in England in 1911. The main objective of the nursery school is - to help in the physical and mental development of young children. Curriculum stresses more upon basic socialization and child’s physical health needs. Emphasis is also laid upon fantasy play to promote sensory motor and emotional development.
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Kindergarten school
A school prior to entrance to the first grade is designated as kindergarten. It is the unit of the school which enrolls 5 year old children on a regular basis for a year, the purpose of the kindergarten programmes is to further the developmental growth of the children through experiences that are of interest and help them. Many of these units are a part of the public school system; others operate as church related, privately owned or sponsored groups.
Fredrick Froebel (1782-1852) opened the first kindergarten in Germany in 1837. He formulated his philosophy around the spontaneous and self sustaining nature of children.
Functions of Kindergarten:
In kindergarten schools, major emphasis is given on sociability, aesthetics, sensory, motor development and achievement motivation. The functions of the kindergarten school according to Headley (1965) are to assist the child towards realization of the following objectives.
- Friendliness and helpfulness in relationship with others
- Greater power to solve problems based on individual activities and group relationships
- Responsiveness to intellectual challenges
- Achievement of good sensory-motor coordination
- Understanding of concepts necessary for the continued pursuit of learning
- Responsiveness to beauty in all forms
- Realization of individuality and creative properties.
Curriculum of Kindergarten:
It includes gifts, occupations, games and songs and nature study. Activities of Kindergarten includes
- Creative activities: 40-50% of the time is devoted to specific creative activities like art work, model building and so on.
- Music: singing, listening and rhythmic activities.
- Language based activities: story listening and telling, poetry and group discussion.
- Self care activities
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Schools for disadvantaged children
The disadvantaged child has special needs which are not found in groups of other children. For these types of children a center should provide many opportunities to widen the child’s horizons to assist him to express himself orally. Notable among such preschools are the
Head start programmes: It was designed for the disadvantaged children of America in 1964 by the Education Opportunity Act to assist communities financing centers, for children of limited opportunities. It was designed to improve the children’s health, help their emotional and social development by encouraging self confidence, self respect and dignity, spontaneity and self discipline, to improve the mental processes and skills and to improve their language competency.
Balwadi: Tarabai Modak (1892-1973) was the first one to start the Balwadi in Korsabad village in Maharashtra in 1957. It is a type of indigenous nursery school meant for tribal children. Later these Balwadis were taken up by the Central Social Welfare Board and spread in all the urban and rural areas.
The main activities of the Balwadi center includes
- Outdoor games
- Informal talk
- Rhymes
- Stories
- Science experiences
- Creative activities
- Field trips etc.
The main services offered to the community are
- Immunization
- Health check up
- Referral services
- Non-formal preschool education
- Health and nutrition education
- Supplementary nutrition.
The target group includes children from 0-6 years, pregnant and lactating mothers of low income groups.
Anganwadi:
Under the Integrated Child Development Service scheme, Anganwadis were established. It is a centrally sponsored programme introduced in 1975, with the main objectives of reducing the incidence of mortality, morbidity, malnutrition and school dropouts in the age group of 3 to 6 years, laying the foundation for proper psychological, physical and social development of the child and enhancing the mother’s capability to look after the child’s health needs through health and nutrition education. This programme was designed for the disadvantaged section of the community.
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Creches
These are one kind of day care centers that take care of children below 3 years whose parents are at work. There are many types of crèches based on the organization and location and the services it offers.
Mobile creches: these are mostly designed for the moving population i.e. construction workers who move from one site to another. These programmes make it possible to reach the under privileged marginal and migrant population whose living conditions are very bad.
Family creches: These are operated in homes. The woman of the house takes care of small group of neighborhood children.
Parent operated creches: These are financed by parents. Parents also participate and play active role depending on their availability and provide continuity between the home and institution.
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Montessori Schools
Maria Montessori developed this method for slum children in Rome. The basic principles of Montessori are
- Every child has the capacity within him for his own development.
- Environment can modify development by helping or hindering it.
- The child develops through a series of stages. At each stage he requires a new type of learning experience.
- Freedom of action allows the child to seek out situations from which he can learn.
- The child must be moulded by himself rather than moulded by an adult.
- The role of the school is to create an environment where the child has an opportunity to learn, based on his developmental needs.
Her programme includes practical life activities, sensory training, nature study, intellectual activities and language activities, pre reading, pre writing and pre numbering activities.
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Open schools
The curriculum of the open education system follows combination of three models: Kindergarten, Montessori and Nursery. It has no clear cut schedule of activities. Children will be given freedom to select activities. They are allowed to move out of classroom to play new activities in the corridors or play ground. Books, structured and unstructured material are provided in the classrooms. Children will be given freedom to arrange the classroom, to add new material and to play at their own time. These type of schools help the children to extend their intellectual and emotional resources.
Curriculum: it includes the following important aspects
- Play is given special importance with no distinction between work and play.
- The content of the programmes is organized in some integrated fashion and topics or projects are used as integrating vehicles.
- No concern to cover any specific amount of content and there is no necessity to involve every child to achieve this curriculum.
- The success of the child is purely individualized.
Participants