Choosing a preschool is among the most important decisions a parent can make. This is because the latest knowledge from child psychology and neuroscience informs us that the Early Years are crucial for creating a solid child development foundation. Conversely, poor experiences in early years can have a lasting, even permanent, negative impact. This covers multiple aspects like social development, cognitive capability, confidence and resilience as well as academic achievement. This is what psychologists refer to as “holistic child development” or “whole child development”. [See our Educational Approach section for more details]

Purple Dragon is guided by the latest in education, child psychology and neuroscience research on how children learn and how they develop. Our extensive personal research into Early Years learning methods and their correspondence with the latest research has led us to choose the play-based method as the foundation for our approach and curriculum development [see our detailed article on this research – click here].

Play-based learning techniques, such as the HEI School of Finland, bring the concepts of leading child psychologists like Piaget, Vygotsky and Ackermann on how children develop together with those of neuroscience research into how children’s brains develop. The play-based method produces much faster and more durable learning and development than other methods because it is aligned to how children think and explore the world naturally. We overlayed this with social learning from experience, qualified teachers who know how to apply the concepts to maximise the benefits for your children. This is underpinned by a structured timetable; centrally crafted curriculum and lesson plans; and regular milestone achievement monitoring and action planning. In addition, we use written and visual worksheet exercises to reinforce and recap learning objectives and book sets for Bahasa and Mandarin. We extract the best of the latest methods with the structure of the traditional approach to get the best of both.

In addition to all of the above we emphasise outdoor physical exercise and play as much as possible and a healthy, nutritious diet freshly prepared by our in house kitchen team. The benefits of both physical exercise and exposure to sunlight and fresh air are well documented in terms of physical and mental development, psychological confidence and resilience, healthy eyes and general overall wellbeing and strong immune system development. When you add all of this together you get an approach that is geared towards holistic child development that seeks to produce resilient, lifelong, motivated learners.

We also hold half year and end of year reviews with parents to discuss progress and any issues; publish articles on child development issues relevant for the Early Years; send regular picture and video updates on lessons your child is undertaking and proactively engage with parents on any development issues that may arise from time to time. We are regulated and licensed by the appropriate regulatory bodies.