The Pre-School Development Project, Batang Pit-os, Cebu

Startup funding for a neighborhood preschool

Last Tuesday, June 12 2012, we had an orientation with the parents of the 34 enrollees with the Batang Pit-os Pre- school.

The Orientation dealt with the basic principles of the school. In general, the approach is largely taken from the Waldorf Pedagogy on Early Childhood Care Development (ECCD); that this is basically a PRE-SCHOOL, i.e. in preparation for the formal education( K1 to 12); that therefore, the approach is basically facilitating Natures way of Personality Development. This does not start with the IQ, but with the formation of the will Q, then EQ and IQ. Because of this, the basic approach is through Play. Of course we started the Orientation with getting the expectations of the parents. We also told them about what we also expected from them. At the end of this, the parents knew what to expect from the pre-school.

The age-range of the first batch of students will be 3 to 5 years old.

The school starts on June 25,2010. There are two sessions: AM: 9:00-11:30 & PM: 1:30-4:00.

With regards to payment, the parents pay Php 50.00 per week. So, they pay Php 200.00 per month.

At present, we are preoccupied with preparing the physical facility and materials to be used, such as teaching aids.

Part of the approach is an individual conference with the parents of each child. Meetings with the parents as a group will also be called from time to time.

Since most of the parents have no work, we thought of the possibility of conducting skills training on livelihood projects for them.

With regards to Reports, the project will be reporting quarterly to PSGM. These will cover the following areas: Status and Development of the Project: teacher’s on-going evaluation, monthly attendance, problems , difficulties encountered, learnings.

With the above will be our financial reports: teacher’s salaries, overhead expenses, educational supplies, teacher’s on-going formation.

General Objective of the Tulunghaan sa Batang Pit-os:

To provide an appropriate, student-centered, holistic, integral and humane development according to the principles of the Waldorf Education and best practices of similar educational approach in order to prepare them for formal education.

Particular Objectives:

A. In the cognitive area of Development: (Pre-Math, Language and Literacy ,Pre-Reading Skills)

*They are able to identify shapes and spatial relationships. E.g. identify colors, shapes, sizes and spaces.

*They have acquired a sense of number; e.g. sorting/classifying/sequencing/comparison.

B. Physical Development(Large/Gross Motor; Fine motor/Hand grip/flexibility)

*Awareness of Directionality or position in space;

*control movement

*proper crayon/pencil grip

*use hand-eye coordination, visual perception and tracking

C. Social and Emotional Development:

-expresses thoughts, feelings and ideas

-interacts verbally;

-Willing to try new things

-Participates in group activities

-respect other people’s space and personal belongings

D. Science:

-cause and effect relation

-identify parts of the body

-explore surroundings using the senses

Evaluation of the first two weeks:

The discussions centered on the question: can we expect our children to be able to write and be prepared for the formal school i.e. grade one, for some. Of course they were given an orientation on the approach which they accepted. However, some needed more explanations. So, we reviewed the orientation and repeated some basic principles. Hopefully, we will have parents who will promote the same educational orientation. Actually, we explained the whole pedagogy above.