What and How we do ?
1: What we believe
Note: “Why Learning at all” is answered in ‘Purpose of Education’
Baseline to Approach Learning at Diversity
A child comes to school to live his life, not learn to live life in the future. A school is an extended, warm, and safe family as his home. And if the child can’t find and discover himself through grades, curricula, syllabi, great philosophies, and for that matter with his biological age, the purpose is completely lost. A school’s job is to give playing grounds to nurture oneself.
Also, a child doesn’t come or be sent to train himself in certain subjects. He comes as a whole human being to explore himself and the world around him. If things around him help him grow and stay motivated to learn, he learns and we need to be thoughtful about it as a school.
Alignment with our Vision and Mission
(We understand the difference between PLAYING AND DOING ACTIVITIES)
We create an encouraging environment with our pedagogy of PLAY, PLAY, and PLAY wherein a child feels at ease, accelerating learning in a natural setting rather than a pressure-cooker situation of rote learning while confined in a classroom.
PLAY with friends, PLAY with toys, PLAY in the playground, PLAY with educational tools, PLAY with puzzles and boards, PLAY with facilitators, PLAY when free, and request PLAY when facilitators ask to learn. PLAY is part of everything. PLAY is a child’s serious work. Learning eventually occurs. We encourage them to PLAY without learning as well.
Below is our Main Syllabus
Pedagogies or Approaches at Diversity
Children’s needs, desires, and interests to explore, learn, and acquire are the real forces to make a learning space worthy. Scientifically, liberated learning spaces and educational institutes have been and are motivated to approach a child with simple and silly methods exactly like our life does to us, yes, with an intentional nudge to explore and learn new (if intended so) or leave the child to discover by himself.
Our parent partners can explore, understand, and look forward to witnessing us using different world-class pedagogies and philosophies-Old-age pedagogy of our Sanatana (Gurukul education system), Finland education system, Giju Bhai Badeka, Maria Montessori, Fredrich Froebel, Waldorf, Sudbury Valley, SummerHill, Rabindranath Tagore, Reggio Emilia and many more to create an unstated curriculum and paraphernalia for better absorption of what we want them to learn.
In most cases, children guide us to cover horizontal or vertical spaces of a skill. Given a child’s needs and interests, covering lengths and breadths of skill is done through different approaches by the Studio Facilitators* (find more “Settings & Culture).
In a nutshell: Great philosophers and pedagogies always have advocated and propagated liberation and enlightenment of the child through their education methods and approaches. We try our simple and humble ways
Whether this approach is detrimental to a child’s readiness for traditional K-12, i.e., the Macaulay education system?
Or considering how it is turning out to be positive in children’s holistic education.
a) Most of the time it depends on the child’s personality, parenting style, and environment in the child’s family. However, since the school is a child’s second home, it gives them opportunities to explore the positive sides of life.
b) In most of the research, the findings are that children, who have been independent in their pursuits, accept change in the environment. They settle in any environment sooner or later.
c) While you consider withdrawing your child at any point, we help you understand your child’s character and discuss at length what education model/pedagogy can suit your child the best.
2: What and How we do
a.Concept Building
Educating children is an endeavor that any educational institution would ever dare to do. We believe in our deeply-rooted philosophy that children (a child-a shishya-in Sanskrit) are complete in themselves, a playschool is just a community or a place where they come to explore as per their needs, interests, and trust. They carry all the power to enlighten themselves.
We put together and present to them what is fundamentally and crucially needed for their holistic growth and well-being. We are their facilitators. And, we feel fortunate to be part of their journey.
b.Character Building
This is probably the best thing that has ever happened to us that we not only come to learn but also find a window to execute our skills and make a community. Homo Sapiens is one of the very few species on earth who have to build a character out of one and live it.
A playschool must be the place to build one in our children. Diversity strives to plan and execute throughout the year.
c. Settings and Culture:
Environment, settings, or culture turn devils into angels and vice versa. Paying attention to culture and setting is as paramount as making curricula for a playschool. Many a time, it is more important where and how to reach a child than what to teach.
This is probably the biggest strength and the salient feature of our playschool and we call it Diversity The Playschool.
Studios, Mixed-age groups, and Differentiated Learning Opportunities
Explanation: Our Vividers have a timetable to group with a similar or different age group to achieve specific goals and learn concepts in a timeframe. However, activities like free play, festivals, clubs, field trips, and indoor games go with mixed age groups on certain identified days to reach their maximum learning capabilities and live a fulfilling childhood.
Please note that children know how to find compatible people, eventually, they discover their peers irrespective of their age. However, we have discovered that children love their age children and gang up with them. Parents should not worry about same-age play or different-age grouping.
Differentiated Learning is promoted for the betterment of a child’s ability to grasp and feel fulfilled. Children who take time to understand concepts and practice, we facilitate. On the other hand, if children love to take challenges, we give them such an environment.
Note: Diversity invites all types of personalities, social strata, and neurodiversity. However, children with neuro-difficulties (with no labels given) need to be taken care of differently and would require a shadow adult to support the child and the system and we limit the number of admissions to allow ourselves to deliver what is promised. This requires one-on-one meetings and discussions before the enrolment. The parents should reach out to the management for this.
Vividers learn to follow their timetables and days without a timetable.
Explanation: Children come to school with the trust that it is a safe community to grow in being away from their families. The Vividers slowly get to remember their timetable and maintain it in a self-disciplined fashion as we do in real life. They learn to follow the school ground rules with us and discipline themselves. Diversity understands a great definition of discipline.
In the whole gamut of planning, we have figured out that 86% of the children quickly self-regulate themselves to follow the routine. However, some children take time to follow their timetables according to their needs, interests, and trust in the environment. They need more adult intervention and support. Diversity stays in touch with their parents while settling them in the system in a peaceful fashion and continues to keep adults’ FOMOs (Fear of missing out) and insecurities away.
Sometimes, we should consider it as JOMOs (Joy of missing out), after all, life is for being joyful and we cannot have everything.
Vividers can eat at any time, i.e., whenever they are hungry, they can go to the café area and eat.
Explanation: Please note that at Diversity, we don’t force our Vividers to eat a portion that you are sending or put them in a timetabled eating schedule. They can go by their hunger time. Also please note that children are social beings. They love to eat with their friends. Following a discipline happens by itself. Diversity gives it time.
However, “Staggered Timings for Eating” works perfectly for the school to pay attention to each child and deliver quality services.
- School timings: 9:00 am to 3:00 Please check the FAQs section for timings for each class.
- At Diversity, the adult-child ratio is 1:1 to 1:20 depending on the activity being conducted.
Explanation: Diversity works in a studio model, not in a classroom model. Facilitators around them are to support all types of growth of our Vividers. Some activities require adults to be active partners whereas, in others, they are not required to handhold or spoon-feed children. The pertinent question should be how inclusive and warm the environment at Diversity is.
When the style of learning is heuristic, not mollycoddling, this question becomes irrelevant.
Also, when a child is stuck with a concept and not following it, he/she requires 1:1. Diversity tries its best to address every child’s individual needs.
Currently, the following clubs are running in Diversity but they are NOT limited to: The children can choose any club at any time. The basic feature of this facility is to stay happy and engaged given our children’s age.
- Nerdy
- Readers
- Sports
- Mathemagic
- Theatre
- Dance
- DIY or Creativity Club
- Play without goals.
Proof of Learning and Bagless Policy
We, at Diversity, go bagless education throughout the year.
- We don’t force children to use books for learning and take it as proof of learning.
- Let’s enjoy colorful books with our children without forcing anything on them.
- We believe in the learnability of a child, not what a child should learn.
After COVID-19, the school works in all modes (Online, in-person, and blended) to take care of different requirements of different children at the discretion of the school. This is NOT a replacement for a regular in-person school
Explanation: Optimizing resources and results, saving time, reaching better, increasing efficiency of operations, days when in-person school is not possible, and above all diversifying ways of meeting the needs of the stakeholders are always part of Diversity.
Parents’ partnership and volunteering are also incorporated every year
Explanation: That’s internally discussed and done with the parents after our Vividers start school in June.
The assessment system of the progress of a child’s developmental milestones and skills at Diversity is continuous and formative in various forms and technology-assisted.
Explanation: At Diversity, grades, marks, or any scales are NOT used to measure the dynamic growth of a Vivider. It is not logical. Rather, it is a documentation and presentation of the ongoing growth of exposure and learning experiences. Interpretation and analysis are done to take the corrective measures to stay on the path and to decide the action plans. Such exercises are done to correct the system errors, modify facilitators’ training and education, and mend parenting styles. This is a continuous exercise. A transcript is given once a year to parents for the child’s record’s sake.
Nonetheless, the following are also a part of the assessment process at Diversity
- Self-Review (Yearly)
- Peer-Review (Yearly
- Periodic Review (Monthly)-Applicable to PP2 to Grade 5
- Formative Review (Weekly)- Applicable to PP2 to Grade 5
- Parent’s feedback (Twice a Year)
How do we do facilitators’ training?
Explanation: It is a continuous process. The facilitators have individual and group training sessions throughout the year.
Some more simple yet important questions answered
Being a busy or naïve parent, what should I do at home for basic numeracy and literacy and other EVS subjects, does the school provide books or study materials?
Explanation: The school procures material and books from trustworthy publishers and facilitates books for the grades agreed upon by both the school and the parents and recommends some books according to the child’s milestones, the parents can buy from outside to help the child, and the school for reinforcements of the concepts.
How are writing skills understood at Diversity?
Explanation: Writing is a big and complex skill and takes time and support to work on. Since our Vividers are being exposed to it from their childhood, studio facilitators are given the liberty to choose the mode of writing and flexibility of achieving various milestones for each child. Spending more time on writing at school and depriving a child of other activities does not serve the purpose. Each child has a personality and we guide each parent, on how to support us and what to look forward to.
This niche skill is to be carried out with a goal of continuous-development in mind all the time and the parents are guided as per the child’s personality.
That said, it is a beautiful skill to help sharpen your child’s brain. Parents out there are requested NOT to hurry or be pushy.
Last but not least question, what side effects our parents may expect during settling into such an independent learning environment
Explanation: Parents can expect misplacing belongings, unfinished tasks, unfinished tiffin boxes, soiled clothes, messy clothes, open lids of tiffin boxes, complaints of feeling bored at school, and many more. Vividers are given time, opportunities, and required emotional and physical support to fix their basic self-management and life skills. It can take one day to one year or longer. Our partner parents are made aware to stay informed and support us in children’s self-discovery and self-sufficiency.
