Time ：May-17, 2023, 13:24
In recent years, with the continuous deepening of preschool education reform, mixed age education has gradually become a hot topic of concern in the education industry. As one of the earliest private kindergartens in Shanghai to explore mixed age education, Yilin Kindergarten has continuously optimized its ‘Family Style’ mixed age education model in recent years, and has made new breakthroughs in curriculum design, teacher training, and home school co education, which has been widely recognized by parents, experts, and education authorities.
Since the pilot of mixed age education in Yilin Kindergarten in 2005, it has gone through a process from parental questioning to social recognition. At first, some parents were worried about ‘Older Children Bullying Younger Children’ or ‘Learning Progress Being Affected’, but practice has proven that mixed age education can not only promote children's social development, but also cultivate their sense of responsibility and empathy.
‘In the mixed age environment, children will naturally form an interaction mode of‘Big Take Small’. Older children learn to take care of others, while children grow up quickly through imitation.’Jiaying Wang, Deputy Principal of Yilin Kindergarten, said, ‘This mode is especially suitable for one-child families, which makes up for their lack of brother and sisters interaction in the family.’ In order to make mixed age education more scientific, Yilin Kindergarten has continuously optimized its curriculum design in recent years. Teacher Jiaying Wang led a team to develop a three in one curriculum system of ‘Life+Learning+SocialPractice’, ensuring that children of different age groups can receive appropriate development support in a mixed age environment. For example, in the ‘Small Farm’themed activity, the senior class children are responsible for planting and recording plant growth, the middle class children assist in watering, and the junior class children observe changes in the plants. This hierarchical task design not only allows every child to participate, but also promotes cross age collaboration. In addition, the kindergarten has introduced ‘Project-based Learning’ to encourage children to explore around real problems. For example, in the ‘How to Reduce Campus Waste’ project, children of different ages discuss and develop plans together, ultimately forming specific actions such as garbage classification and water and electricity conservation.
Mixed age education places higher demands on teachers' observation, guidance, and curriculum design abilities. To this end, Yilin Kindergarten has established a ‘Teacher Growth Community’ and regularly carries out teaching and research activities. ‘Teachers in mixed age classes not only need to pay attention to individual differences, but also be good at discovering opportunities for interaction between children of different age groups,’said Teacher Jiaying Wang.‘We help teachers improve their professional abilities through case studies, classroom observations, research projects, and other methods.’In recent years, the teacher team of Yilin Kindergarten has won multiple awards in municipal and district level teaching competitions, and has published multiple papers on mixed age education in core journals, providing valuable practical experience for the industry.
In order to help parents better understand the value of mixed age education, Yilin Kindergarten regularly holds ‘Parent Open Day’ and ‘Mixed Age Education Salon’, inviting parents to enter the classroom and observe their children's growth and changes. ‘At first, I was worried that my child might not be able to keep up at a young age, but when I saw him actively learning from his siblings in the mixed age class, his language expression and social skills improved significantly, I truly recognized this model,’a parent shared. In addition, the kindergarten has established a ‘Parent Resource Library’ to encourage parents with professional expertise to participate in curriculum design, such as doctors explaining health knowledge to parents, engineers leading children to build models, etc., further enriching the practical content of mixed age education.
With the deepening of preschool education reform, mixed age education is receiving increasing attention from educators and policy makers. Yilin Kindergarten plans to expand the pilot scope of mixed age education in the coming years, explore more flexible class scheduling models, strengthen digital support, use intelligent observation systems to record children's growth data, cooperate with more universities, conduct empirical research on mixed age education, and provide a basis for policy formulation. From the initial pilot to the current mature model, Yilin Kindergarten's exploration of mixed age education has not only changed parents' attitudes, but also provided valuable experience for China's preschool education reform. In the future, as more kindergartens join the ranks of mixed age education, this model is expected to become an important part of early childhood education, helping more children grow up healthily, happily and comprehensively. (Author: Yun Zhang)
Editor in Charge: Xiao Zhi