by on 12/11/2019 3106
Located at a hot spot in Petaling Jaya, Lil Faculty International Preschool is strategically situated in the airy retail center—The Curve, Mutiara Damansara. Upon concluding my interview with Ms. Joey Liew, the Operation Manager for Lil Faculty, it struck me that the students here are taught to become lifelong learners rather than solely for vocational reasons. When the school was founded in 2005, there was a scarce number of preschools available. Lil Faculty is affiliated with Lil Baby Haus (day care service) and Mandarin Lighthouse (preschool programme) to offer a strong foundation for child development and early learning. As such, Lil Faculty International Preschool and Child Care Centre at The Curve welcomes babies and learners from as young as 3 months old to 6 years old.
Lil Faculty fully adopts the Montessori curriculum to provide students with learning experiences through play-based learning, sensorial exercises, language, alphabets and blending of words, science, mathematics, cultural awareness, bits of history, as well as art and music. Since Montessori is a child-centric education method that involves child-oriented activities, these areas of learning are vital (and proven effective!) for early childhood development. The children’s learning journey begins soon after their enrolment at Lil Faculty, which is from 3 months to 6 years of age. This kindergarten readiness helps them to be more well-prepared for their education later on. Students are taught using learning blocks to trigger their imagination and creative thinking. There are designated learning spaces for the students, depending on the type of activity conducted. Field trips are also a vital part of interactive learning for the students. They are brought to the National Zoo, aquarium, farm, and museum among others, to awake their curiosity while stimulating their observation and exploration skills.
Lil Faculty is designed in such a way that the indoor environments are engaging and well-organised for preschoolers. Owing to its spacious dimensions, there will be multiple activities organised at the same time to fully utilise the space. These large room layouts will allow for activities that may combine students of different age levels to help develop the children’s communication skills. Lil Faculty also has a preschool toilet design (i.e., child height basin). Children in this Montessori setting are taught various critical skills, such as having a good pencil grip, proper eating and walking habits, even effective potty training!
Lil Faculty offers half- and full-day programmes, where parents can make special requests for their children, such as having lunch first before heading home for those enrolled in the half-day program. Extra class is also offered here, but only for Mandarin class (aged 3 to 6). The Mandarin lesson will be introduced to the children at the age of 3, and upon reaching the age of 4, the lesson will be more advanced to help them prepare for their Year 1 education. This preschool adopts a Mandarin-English bilingual programme, where English is taught between 8 A.M. and 12 P.M., and for those who opt for the extra class, they are taught Mandarin later in the evening. Apart from the locals, Lil Faculty International Preschool also extends the tuition programme to its international students.
At Lil Faculty, DIY (Do-It-Yourself) activities are encouraged to develop the children’s fine motor skills and make them feel alive (read: unrestricted to the conventional ways). These activities include arts and crafts, as well as concerts and performances, all of which are capable of promoting a whole range of essential skills for the children. For instance, concerts at Lil Faculty come with DIY costumes. Making a DIY costume requires brainstorming, thus stimulating the kids’ creativity.
Apart from that, the teachers and nannies at Lil Faculty have a vast experience in childcaring and childhood education. They are experienced in handling delicate babies and children, and possess good character traits, such as attentive, motherly, warm, gentle, highly alert, and patient, towards the children. They are also exposed to the lesson plans, activities, health and safety procedures as safeguards to ensure smooth operation. Furthermore, Lil Faculty is equipped with CCTV to monitor the children. Because children are largely indoors in this preschool, there is as an added safety feature, where each room has two doors—one connected to the other—that lead to the main hallway. This provides two escape routes for emergency escape and fire fighting. How convenient!
Undoubtedly, Lil Faculty places equal emphasis on both academic and non-academic skills as both are vital for its preschoolers. More evidence has reflected that the non-academic skills are what strengthened the social and life skills for the children. Nevertheless, there is a higher competence for students’ future due to the tougher and more rigorous national curriculum. As such, Lil Faculty prioritises on the children’s academic learning outcome to achieve academic success for steady—if not better—opportunities for advancement. Lil Faculty adopts curriculum and programs that can help build the children’s basic life skills. These skill sets are crucial to developing the qualities of becoming a proper human being first before all else (i.e., before any profession).
What’s more, Lil Faculty understands the vitality of assuring children’s participatory and communication rights in education. The children are given their freedom of speech and movement during designated times (e.g., recess) to support voice-inclusive practice or inclusive pedagogy. Here, children are exposed to early childhood settings that emphasise their character-building (e.g., good values, self-confidence and discipline) and school autonomy. Phonics activities are incorporated to begin their lesson on reading, writing and spelling, and their level of advancement will be assessed from time to time. This progress will be updated to the parents by the children’s respective teachers during a parent-teacher meeting.
The teachers at Lil Faculty are very passionate about childcare and early childhood education, where the children are treated as their own. Coupling this warm-yet-responsible trait of the teachers and the comprehensive programmes this preschool has to offer, rest assured that Lil Faculty will guide your children—the next generation—to become the best versions of themselves.
