Prep school for the very young

“I believe children should be taught and developed from when they are still very young,” she said.
Jiraorn decided to open Kinderprep by Ivy Bound because parents were always seeking her advice on how to get their children ready for nursery school.
At the new prep centre, located at CentralPlaza Chaengwattana, kids aged six to 12 months and their parents will be taught “baby sign language”.
The programme is aimed at teaching how babies communicate with their parents, and how to understand them in order to reduce frustration in the tiny tots, she explained. “Children are very happy when their parents understand exactly what they want,” she said.
The programme uses American Sign Language to teach both parents and their kids, and parents who join the course practise with their offspring at home. “This method will help the kids to communicate early [in their lives] and clearly,” she said.
Another course – called “school readiness” – is designed for young children aged from 18 months, and aims at preparing them for kindergarten and avoiding separation anxiety.
Jiraorn first dreamed of opening a perfect school when she was a teenager, so she decided to study psychology and education at university. She received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Yale University, and two master’s degrees in education from Harvard and Stanford in the US.
With the knowledge and experience gained from studying abroad, Jiraorn at the age of 29 opened her first school – Ivy Bound – on 3.5 rai (5,600 square metres) of land in Sukhumvit Soi 39.
She designed her own courses, which she calls Inno-Education, for the institution, which caters to children between the ages of two and five.
“We need to start at school if we want to raise children to become good people. School is the first place in society to nurture attitudes towards life for kids,” the 38-year-old educator said.
Her Inno-Education is not an educational system or curriculum as such, but a concept for bringing together a body of knowledge, research and experience to develop and apply to the learning culture of children, teachers and parents, she said.
The curriculum is focused on a holistic model of learning, composed of learning how to live in society, how to balance emotional development, and cognitive learning or the development of thoughts or know-how to analyse, adapt and think outside the box, she said.
Jiraorn realised that the Thai educational system did not provide much opportunity for assertiveness in children, which was different from the situation in foreign schools. Hence, at her school, a public-speaking course is designed to empower children to be confident in speaking. In addition, her course stresses fostering curiosity in children, as she believes that life-long learning will follow as a result.
With Asean nations having started full implementation of the Asean Economic Community at the beginning of this year, Jiraorn is concerned over the potential for rapid growth of international schools in the region.
She said businesspeople might take advantage of the AEC to open international schools merely for business purposes. They often hire foreign teachers to teach children and design the curriculum, she added.
“What will happen to our children? They will be blended by foreign culture, and ‘Thainess’ will gradually disappear,” warned Jiraorn, who calls herself an educator but not a businesswoman. She suggested that anyone interested in opening an international school should not think like a businessperson but as an educator, and should add Thai culture to their curriculum.