I'm going to try and walk you thru my decision. Or an account on 'here's why I did it'... Well originally I had a thing about BIG names! La Petite was GD Goenka and I wasn't looking for a 'brand' for the play school I send my daughter to. But then they won me over in ways I feel is hard to explain but I'm sure going to try...
Active Management: I liked the involvement of the management. The fact that I visited them when the school was off & the Principal was available to talk to me the first time around (when most of her teachers were on a break), appealed to me. She painstakingly spent more than half an hour with me answering all kinds of basic questions I had, about the set up and convinced me that my child would be in good hands.
Clean & Hygienic: Some of the playschools in the vicinity have sooo much promise- there activities for toddlers are really something(some maybe La Petite should look into & ape), but they loose out on this factor which to me is a very important criteria for where I send my daughter. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect hospital like antiseptic-dettoled up everything, but if my child is to spend 3 hrs of her day everyday in any place, I expect it to be clean enough for her to keep going back day-after-day without falling sick. Play schools are known to have the hazard of infections, through contact with other kids but can we minimize it please? So La Petite won that one for me hands down It was THE most clean play school I visited in the last 3 weeks.
Montessori: It is a Montessori play school and I like the fact that they have a lot of these materials in all their classrooms. I think this subtle way of teaching is far more effective in someways. (A footnote follows)
Daycare: They had a decent daycare facility for kids. Not something I need immediately but I liked the fact that if sometime in the future I do decide to go back to working, my daughter will have a nice daycare facility readily available in a place she would be used to.
Happy place: Somehow this was the crux of the whole thing for me. From friendly staff to brightly lit classrooms and corridors, sandpits to splash pools, activity room in the basement to pottery wheels outside; everything about the place just committed happiness to me. It just screamed that Ami will be happy here.
And at the end of the day isn't that, what all parents want? That when our child returns home, we can go down on our knees and ask him/her, not "What did you learn today?" but "Was school fun? Are you happy?" I know I'll be happy if my child just nods, smiles & wants to go back the next day. :)
Footnote:
Maria Montessori's story: A little girl once saw a wet sticky caterpillar trying to come out of a cocoon. She kept watching with wonder. The caterpillar gradually tried to spread out its wings waiting for them to dry. In order to help the caterpillar she brought a fan to hasten the process and enable the caterpillar to dry the wings faster and with ease.
The caterpillar’s wings drying unevenly and in haste did not open at all and the caterpillar toppled over, never to fly as a butterfly.
The girl learnt a huge lesson that day, that nurture has to be a very aware and conscious process according to the natural needs and growth pattern of the child. It cannot be as what we think it should be, at our convenient time and according to our unreal expectations .
La Petite is situated at Malibu Towne, Sohna Rd, Gurgaon.
