How to help first time school goers get adjusted to the new offline schooling environment?

We are living in the most difficult times. As adults and educators we ourselves find it difficult to adjust and sometimes we are just pushing through the day. Now put yourself in the child’s shoes; they started their school on their laptop, they saw and met their friends, teachers and fellow classmates all in the virtual space. Suddenly we are telling them, go meet them in the real world, suddenly back again it can be again virtual; this experience can be very traumatic and children are literally finding it difficult to understand what exactly is going on and what exactly they need to learn.

At Abwa, we have figured out these core issues and brought a smooth transition without any pressure in their lives. We allow the children to transition on their own. Being an educator in an international school definitely has its perks. We don’t have teachers, but we have with us free thinkers and an action oriented staff. We have been one of the best international schools in Mumbai for many years and we are very well known in the South Mumbai region. We are an A-Level school and have received several accolades for being one of the best IB schools in town.

As an international A-Level IB school in Mumbai, we have taken many action oriented steps for our students to make this smooth transition from home to the classroom environment. Our first priority as an educator of an International school is to make sure our first time school goers are in no pressure, they are coming to school for a play day, so that the child feels comfortable.

It’s about making them feel they are putting on their uniform to play, meet new friends and enjoy games in school. This has a more a strategic approach to it. As we are an IB School in South Mumbai , we are allowed to experiment and do things that we deem as necessity for the child. We need to have a strict outcome on the results because as A-level school in Mumbai, outcome is the main priority.

Many of our students travel from far and wide across south Mumbai, because their parents have seen the outcome of this approach, and we have constantly been voted as one of the best International schools in Mumbai. As an educator, I can truly say that ABWA is the best international school in Mumbai, as it claims to be. I have seen children develop much faster, because of our unconventional approach to the students.

In fact, our entire pedagogy has become a case study for International schools in India and around south east Asia. We have taken the lead to conduct webinars for other schools because it’s for the social good of students. As an Educator, International school and the best IB School in Mumbai, we are become the torch bearers of the post covid era and we recommend everyone to understand and adopt our approach.

The basic need is to allow the child to be a child that is our motto as educators of an A-level school, there is no use of creating pressure to 4 to 6-year-old child, they are early adopters and need to learn from their peers, we are first hand witnesses to the entire learning process at Abwa, a renounced IB school in south Mumbai, then we understand each child more like a parent understands their child, this is the key, every child is different and just like a flower they need different levels of emotional nourishment to bloom, this approach has made us the best international school in the vicinity.

We don’t treat our students as a one size fits all approach, we customize our teaching for every child, and we create a learner’s portfolio in the lower kindergarten itself, which is then handed over to the subsequent teachers over the next grades. This creates a clear understanding of the child. Parents should create this kind of diary, as it helps to understand and implement teaching methods better over the years as the child grows.

Lastly, at ABWA the entire offline to online transition is not a quick transition, we as educators have understood this, and we have spaced this exercise for the entire year of 2022. Our slow and steady approach has always borne us results in the past and we are sure this time too, we will create an excellent moment in the lives of our students as they slowly come back to our international school. After all education in our school is both an A-level and international Baccalaureate, but most importantly its inclusive and structured, keeping in mind that every child is ours and is different.