What is a day in the life of a Tokyo International Preschool kid like? Let’s explore!
Let’s look at the timings first! A Tokyo International preschool starts around 9:30 AM and goes up to 2:30 PM. Now such a timing is kept so that there is ample time for a child to get good sleep and also to get his major meals on time. The timings can get extended up to 5 PM if the preschool extends as a daycare as well.
Apart from that, Japanese families are early risers, they spend time amongst their families before moving to work as well. They are highly disciplined with respect to their culture and thus everything is generally planned. They also have a strong work ethic so there is hardly any slip in their timelines. Working parents drop off their children at a preschool or kindergarten and then move on to their jobs.
In case they are unable to pick them back up at exactly that time then there are also preschools that work as daycares too. This concept is quite prevalent in Tokyo because of the highly active metropolis that it is.
First Half of the Day in a Tokyo International Preschool
It starts with snack time at around 10 AM and that can change depending on the age of the child or as per instructions of the mother. After that, they move to a common area with around 3 assigned teachers for a group of 10 children to keep an effective eye on each child. Here, they spend around a couple of hours or more in activities. Each age group in a play school has a specific name and some are in a group of 10 and some can even be in a max group of 16.
In general, there is a large hallway along with a common space as well as toddler sized toilets and two urinals. This makes toilet training pretty easy since the caretakers can observe more than one child at a time and the children learn very quickly imitating each other. Each room has child sized hand wash basins at their height.
Latter Half of the Day in an International School
In an international school in particular, there can be a naptime for children post which both bus services are offered or parents themselves come to pick them up. In the meantime, the children are still made to engage in different activities thought through by the caretakers or teachers.
Some kindergartens in Japan start making children who are around 3+ do basic house chores also in order to make them get used to high school life wherein students usually are responsible for keeping both the classrooms and the washrooms clean. However, this is not as prevalent in international schools.
In a Tokyo International Preschool like GIIS (Global Indian International School) that is located in Seishincho, Tokyo, uses a 9 GEMS holistic framework is a dynamic pedagogy that is a combination of Eastern and Western teaching and learning methodologies that emphasises on the goals in academics, sports, skills and values.
With such extraordinary value based programmes, students can focus on developing entrepreneurship, leadership skills, universal values, ethics and creative skills. It is an award winning pedagogy and it increases the learning curves of students and positively impacts their personal and professional lives in the future as they transition into primary schooling.
Conclusion
All in all, it is a pleasant experience and a quite unique one as well. This is simply because of the aspects that Japanese culture mixed with the idea of a Tokyo international preschool brings into it. If you are looking to move to Japan anytime soon, then you are surely in for surprises!
