The Jump Start Advantage
for Pre-Schoolers

Pre-primary, being a child’s first experience in formal schooling, can be an anxious time for both children and parents. Which is why we have taken special care to create a warm, welcoming and cheerful environment, in which children feel secure and happy. An environment that makes them want to come to school each morning.

Teachers become one of the most important persons in a pre-primary student’s life. Our teachers live up to a trusting child’s expectations—caring, friendly and fair; yet firm and discipline-conscious when needed.

Classrooms are bright and friendly. A special children's playground provides ample space for supervised play. A carefully selected range of toys, learning aids, craft materials and books completes the picture.

And, last but not least, there's Jump Start—a system of pre-school education designed and developed by The Brigade Schools, for The Brigade Schools.

The Jump Start System
The Jump Start system has been created by our in-house curriculum development team and is the basis of pre-school education in all our schools.

Jump Start introduces pre-schoolers to different subjects and ideas in comfortable, age-appropriate steps-so that learning is interesting, not intimidating.

Some of the Jump Start programme's advantages are:

• It combines the best practices of Montessori and traditional systems of education, using methods that promote intelligently guided freedom.
• Learning is through a multi-sensory approach, in which all five senses are tapped. (For instance, reading is introduced through phonics and whole language.)
• Teachers play the role of friendly facilitators of learning.
• The classroom environment is designed to be friendly, encouraging intellectual inquisitiveness and socialisation.
• Children are encouraged to work both independently and in groups
• A Montessori Math curriculum encourages children to understand mathematical concepts, so that math at higher levels is easy to grasp.
• And the Jolly Phonics initiative that introduces children to early reading and writing through sound. Children are taught not just alphabet sounds, but the 42 main sounds of English. They soon learn to blend thee sounds to form words and then move on, quite easily, to reading.

Some differences between traditional learning
and  the Jump Start system

Primary
Standards 1 to 5

Our Primary School introduces children to the excitement and challenges of independent learning. We try to involve and stimulate all the nine intelligences. So each concept is taught using audio-visual aids as well as story telling and enacting, to make it more exciting. At the primary level, children are still ‘learning to read’ and from Standard 4 onwards, they start ‘reading to learn’.

In understanding ideas, asking questions and working out answers, children improve skills like reading, writing, researching, reasoning and communicating. In the process, they develop both strong academic skills and lasting self-confidence. Arts and Physical Education, including swimming, become a part of their curriculum. In keeping with our philosophy of developing a “complete child”, emphasis is placed on imbibing attributes like respect, tolerance, integrity and personal accountability.

Upper Primary
Standards 6 to 8

New classes will be added to the school every year. In Upper Primary we will begin preparing children to face the exciting challenges of high school. Children in this age group have a growing, if unarticulated, need to shoulder responsibility and be allowed independence. We will give them opportunities to meet these needs, against the backdrop of the structure and support required to be successful in their efforts. The focus will be both on academic content and the development of essential skills like critical thinking, intellectual curiosity and the ability to speak and write effectively. Their school programme will include a variety of co-curricular activities and intra-mural and inter-school events. ‘Growing up’ classes will also be introduced, along with counselling on a regular basis, depending on individual needs.

Secondary and Senior Secondary
Standards 9 to 12

As students move into the final years of their schooling, we will ensure they are guided, engaged and motivated in a more adult-oriented manner. Teaching techniques will become more comprehensive. Assignments demand more involvement and independent thinking.

Students will be taught to learn to lead and also to be role models. They learn to handle stress and teenage-related problems. They also realise that they have to make choices. Their growing maturity is acknowledged through increased responsibilities, in a demanding, yet supportive, environment. Critical thinking and analytical skills are honed, in preparation for the undergraduate environment they will soon be entering. Now the emphasis is on learning to be masters of their own destiny, with the breadth of thinking, perspective and self-confidence this requires.

Thoughts on learning
We live in rapidly changing times within a rapidly transforming world. In this new environment, knowledge and learning have to be looked at somewhat differently.

Today, knowledge is something that is easily accessed and quickly outdated. So how you learn—the process of learning—is as important as what you learn.

Ours is also a very interconnected world. A certain breadth of vision—awareness of other cultures, countries, disciplines, developments, economies, perspectives—is a pre-requisite to 'making sense' of all that happens around us.

We believe that the more children want to know, the more they will enjoy learning…and the better equipped they will be to deal with all aspects of the world around them.