Class Sizes

Parents who are uncomfortable with large classes may just want to consider private childcare centres as many of them offer smaller teacher-to-student ratio to ensure your child gets the attention, personalised care and education he or she needs. For instance, the ECDA staff-child ratio is at 1:25 for K2 students but some private childcare centres can bring that down to just 1:15, allowing teachers to take better care of each individual child.

Teachers

Besides having the state-mandated early childhood education certification, teachers in private childcare centres usually also undergo additional and extensive training when they first join these preschools. These training programmes cover knowledge of the preschool’s unique curriculum, classroom management, and may have hands-on apprenticeship sessions. For example, Mulberry Learning’s teachers undergo more than 250 hours of training in their first year! All of these further ensures that your child will be in good hands!

Curriculum

Most of the premium early childhood care providers offer unique pedagogies, such as Montessori, Reggio Emilia, and Multiple Intelligences approaches. These may seem like daunting big words to new parents, but it is certainly good to read up on these various early educational approaches and frameworks to find one that best suits your child. The best one may just be a unique blend of these frameworks!

For instance, Mulberry Learning’s proprietary curriculum features best-in-class global pedagogies like Habits of Mind^TM, Reggio-Inspired Project Inquiry^TM, and Multiple Intelligences.

Facilities

The higher prices you pay for also go into better facilities for your child. Unlike traditional preschools which utilise fixed classroom spaces, preschool layouts at private preschools could be more varied with shared learning corners to enable children to learn at their own pace.

Besides having beautiful learning spaces, premium private preschools could offer indoor or outdoor playgrounds, computer labs, wading pools, and even racetracks within the compound! Infant care providers may also have baby spa facilities for your precious tots! For instance, Mulberry Learning’s design philosophy is to bring the outdoors indoors. Its vibrant environment allows children to be immersed in nature while they learn and play!

Enrichment Programmes

We all know that early childhood education goes beyond just learning their ABCs and 123s, a good preschool curriculum should also include character-building and enrichment programmes that help to complement a child’s core learning by building up their creativity, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills.

Premium private childcare providers may already include these enrichment programmes within their curriculum, which saves you further costs of opting in the AOPs and POPs’ enrichment if they do offer these add-ons and it saves you the trouble of bringing your child for enrichment classes over the weekend.

Food and Nutrition

Premium preschools usually also put in more effort into the planning of meals for children. Menus may be designed by expert nutritionists to ensure your little ones have the right foods to improve their brain functions, memory, and concentration.

Since food consumed by children at an early age has a lasting impact on their dietary preferences in future, a well-balanced and healthy diet is important for a child!

Location

Another major difference is the location of these preschools. Should you want your child to be schooled close to your work place in the Central Business District (CBD), you’ll often not be able to find an AOP or POP. In comparison, many of the top private preschools have their headquarters in the downtown core, enabling busy parents to drop off and pick up their child conveniently in the CBD district.

Private preschools located in shopping malls that are conveniently located in CBD then do tend to have higher school fees as compared to those located under your HDB block or in the heartlands.

Use of High Technological Communication Platforms

Are you a first-time parent who is eager to find out all about your child’s progress and development in school? While most preschools do have student handbooks to note down children’s milestones, perhaps you do want more in terms of regular photographs and videos to virtually experience your little ones’ development.

The higher school fees would mean more resources for private preschools to invest in high technological communication tools to enable efficient communication between parents and teachers. While WhatsApp may be a good way to communicate, private preschools may also offer Parent Apps as a one-stop platform to track the progress of your child, including temperature-taking logs, portfolios, photographs and videos that your child’s teachers take during the day.