Fun & learning at Leap Years

The early years of any child play a crucial role in shaping him or her as an individual. However, the idea should not be to burden a child with information and expectations but to help him/ her to gradually learn by careful exploration. A recent initiative in this direction is Leap Years, a pre-school established amidst lush green surroundings of 3.5 acres at Vasant Kunj.
According to the head of Leap Years, Sonia Kullar, "A school should be a place where a child loves to come and learns while having fun.Here, children learn by ''leaps''. By participation, they move towards self-reliance." At Leap Years everything is designed, keeping the child in focus, right from classroom decor to course curriculum. "For most of the children coming to us, it is being first time away from home into a social environment, where socialising can be a big problem. We encourage children to talk and express themselves. Our curriculum is centred around a child and his needs. It encourages one to explore and experience the world around," said Kullar.
At Leap Years, children are taught through both play ways that includes role plays, stories, puppetry, as well as montessori. In addition, parents of the children are involved into trips and other activities of the school. "We will soon have informal workshops for parents called ''coffee mornings'' where we will interact with them and try to address parenting issues," she informed.
Safety of students is one thing Kullar is extremely concerned about. She said: "To make the young children aware and alert, we have ongoing safety programmes where talk about fire safety, talking to the strangers, kitchen safety and so on; empowering our students to confidently move out in the world." Air-conditioned classrooms, play house, art room, TV for story time, indoor game facilities, a vegetable patch, music and dance room and even a library are some of the facilities available at Leap Years for the tiny tots. The pre-school may have a small fish pond in near future.
Admissions are currently on for the two level of classes First Leap, meant for two-year-olds and Lead Ahead for three-year-olds.
www.myleapyears.com