Preschool tour checklist: Checklist for touring a preschool

Checklist for touring a preschool

Choosing a preschool can be an overwhelming task for parents. We want to make sure we’re sending our children to a safe place that fosters academic, emotional, and social development.

When choosing a preschool, there are a lot of factors to consider. Price, location, hours of operation and availability are usually top of mind. You can use Winnie to find preschools that fit your criteria but once you have some strong candidates, it’s best to tour each contender to get a feel for what your child may experience.

To make the task of choosing a preschool a little easier, here’s a checklist for what you should observe and ask about when touring preschools:

Spend time in the classroom and observe the following

❏     Are the teachers kind and loving to the children?

❏     Are the materials in the classroom and outdoors safe and in good condition?

❏     Do the kids have opportunities for hands-on learning?

❏     Does the class follow a schedule or rhythm each day?

❏     Weather permitting, do children play outside?

❏     Are the kids able to make their own choices for some activities?

❏     Does the teacher use multiple methods for teaching information?

❏     How do teachers accommodate students who need special help?

❏     How do the teachers handle children who are not following directions or misbehaving?

❏     How do teachers facilitate social interaction and social development?

Meet with the staff to discuss questions and concerns

❏     What is the teacher/student ratio?

❏     Are parents welcome to drop-in without an appointment?

❏     What is the average length of time teachers work at the facility?

❏     What are the teachers education and/or qualifications?

❏     How do teachers communicate with parents about the day-to-day school happenings?

❏     What is the preschool’s written policy for discipline when behavior issues arise?

❏     Is there someone on staff who is trained to handle medical needs (issue medication, respond to injuries)?

❏     What is the educational philosophy of the school (Montessori, Waldorf, Reggio Emilia)?

❏     What is the sick child policy?

❏     What are children required to do in terms of personal wellness (bathrooms, napping, etc)?

❏     What safety procedures are in place to protect the kids? (Who is allowed on school grounds? Are the doors always locked? How does the preschool staff verify who is picking up each child? What are the emergency procedures?)

Once you tour a school you love, follow up with the preschool to reiterate your interest and to ask any new questions that come up. You can also ask the preschool for an introduction to other parents of current or former students to see if their answers and experiences are consistent with what you learned when touring. Ultimately trust your instincts. Do your instincts tell you that this preschool is a great fit for your child? There are a lot of options for preschool so choose a place you fall in love with.

A Preschool Tour Checklist to Help You Pick the Right School for Your Child

Play-Based Learning · January 24, 2020

{Looking for a preschool tour checklist to guide you as you visit schools? This checklist helps parents pick the perfect preschool for their child.}

One quick Google search turns up many variations of a preschool tour checklist. As a parent looking for a preschool for your child, this can be a bit overwhelming. What I have found is that most of these checklists focus on the most basic aspects of preschool operation. Of course, we parents want to make sure our children will be safe so concerns like emergency procedures, CPR training, etc. are important. Similarly, basic statistics like the staff-to-child ratio and class size are good to know too.

When it comes to picking a preschool that fits for your child and their developmental needs, however, many of these preschool checklists for parents fall short. In a sea of preschool choices, how do you really know which ones are developmentally appropriate and effective in helping kids learn the skills they need to learn?

Related reading: The Hidden Effect of Early Childhood Education Programs

After much research and reading, I’ve developed a preschool tour checklist that views choosing a preschool from a more developmental perspective. Research continues to point to the idea that a play-based learning approach is most appropriate for preschoolers. This play-based approach, however, does not mean chaos. Under the guidance of skilled teachers, preschoolers in a play-based setting learn through meaningful play scenarios that teach not only basic knowledge like numbers and colors but valuable social-emotional skills. The preschool checklist for parents (below) is designed to help parents assess the degree to which the school they’re touring is developmentally appropriate based on this play-based learning approach.

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Questions to Ask on a Preschool Tour

The preschool tour checklist above is primarily focused on the teaching approaches, social-emotional learning and physical environment of the school. As a parent, it’s always helpful to consider what other questions you might want to ask the preschool staff related to your particular child:

• consider your child’s temperament (i.e., introverted, extroverted, sensitive, etc.) and ask how the staff feels children of this temperament fit in their school
• consider any special needs or behavioral tendencies your child has and ask how these issues might be handled at school
• basic information about staff-to-student ratio, safety procedures, etc.
• procedures for drop off and pick up times–what role do parents play in helping kids transition to preschool?

Choosing a preschool for your child involves considering many factors. Hopefully, this preschool checklist will help guide you in making this decision.

Related Preschool Resources:

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Filed Under: Play-Based Learning Tagged With: checklist, preschool

Amy Webb, Ph.D.

Writer and mom of two who brings academic child development and parenting information into the lives of ordinary parents who can use it in their daily lives.

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Supervision and care in preschool institutions \ Acts, samples, forms, contracts \ Consultant Plus

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A selection of the most important documents on request Nursing and care in preschool institutions (regulations, forms, articles, expert advice and much more).

• Kindergarten:
• Kindergarten
• Power of attorney in kindergarten
• Office of the head of the kindergarten
• Preschool education is
• Law on kindergartens
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: Surgery and Care in preschool institutions

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Open the document in your ConsultantPlus system:
Form: Checklist (list of checklists, the answers to which indicate compliance or non-compliance by the controlled person with mandatory requirements), used by the Federal Service on supervision in the field of consumer rights protection and human well-being, its territorial bodies and federal state institutions when carrying out a planned control (supervisory) event (road inspection, on-site inspection) in the implementation of federal state sanitary o-epidemiological control (supervision) over compliance with sanitary and epidemiological requirements for the provision of services for the upbringing and education, care and supervision of children in preschool organizations that implement educational programs for preschool education and (or) provide supervision and care for children
(Order of Rospotrebnadzor dated 20. 01.2022 N 18)

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Form: verification leaf (list of control issues, verification leaf answers to which indicate compliance or non-compliance by the controlled person with mandatory requirements) used by the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare, its territorial bodies and federal state institutions during a planned control (supervisory) event (road inspection, on-site inspection) when exercising federal state sanitary and epidemiological control (supervision) over compliance with sanitary and epidemiological requirements for the provision of services for the upbringing and education, care and supervision of children when organizing temporary leisure for children in meetings (specially allocated places) arranged in shopping, cultural and leisure centers, airports, railway stations and other non-residential facilities (in children’s centers, child development centers that implement educational programs for preschool education and (or) provide supervision and care for children, children’s playrooms)
(Order of Rospotrebnadzor dated 20. 01.2022 N 18)

Judicial practice : Visit and care in preschool institutions

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Cassation ruling of the Eighth Court of Cassation of General Jurisdiction dated February 17, 2022 N 88А-4643/2022
Category: Disputes with authorities in the field of education and culture.
Requirements: On granting a place in an educational institution.
Circumstances: Failure to provide a child with a place in a municipal preschool institution to receive free preschool education indicates both a failure by the local government to fulfill its legal obligation, and a violation of the constitutional right of a minor to an accessible and free preschool education, and the proposed alternative option is to visit a group for supervision and care in a private kindergarten, as well as short-stay groups, does not indicate the possibility of exercising this right.
Decision: Satisfied in part. Rejecting the arguments of the administrative defendant about the absence of grounds for recognizing the inaction of the Main Department of Education of the Krasnoyarsk Administration, the court of appeal rightfully indicated that the Department, as one of the administrative co-defendants in the case, did not provide evidence of the absence at the time of the plaintiff’s appeal free places in full-time groups in municipal preschool educational institutions located on the territory of the plaintiff’s place of residence in the Zheleznodorozhny district of Krasnoyarsk, both in the priority ones indicated by her and in others, in connection with which, taking into account the established circumstances, the proposed options for obtaining a preschool child education in other ways (in a private preschool institution in the supervision and care group) does not indicate that sufficient measures have been taken to ensure that the administrative plaintiff’s daughter has access to preschool education.

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Resolution of the Seventh Arbitration Court of Appeal of 23.07.2021 N 07AP-5440/2021 in case N A27- 3712/2021
Request: On the collection of debt for payment for exceeding the standards for permissible concentrations of pollutants in wastewater under a cold water supply contract.
Decision: The requirement is satisfied. Challenging the decision of the court, the defendant in the appeal indicates that the institution is not a public catering enterprise and (or) an enterprise engaged in the production of food products, does not carry out, as such, the activity of showers for the provision of general hygiene services, but is in accordance with organizational and legal form of a municipal budgetary preschool educational institution, and by type – a preschool educational organization whose activity is to carry out educational activities in educational programs of preschool education; supervision and care of children. It draws attention to the fact that the amount of the parental fee is not a tariff that is a fee for laundry, canteen, shower, or food production services. The appellant refers to the fact that the preparation of food for children directly by a preschool educational organization in the process of looking after and caring for them cannot be food production, does not relate to the activities of public catering enterprises, therefore, the activities of preschool educational organizations (including childcare and childcare ), the presence of showers in the buildings of preschool educational institutions are subject only to SanPin 2.4.3648-20 and are not income-generating activities in connection with the provision of shower services for the provision of general hygiene services.

Articles, Comments, answers to questions : Survey and care in preschool institutions

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Article: Article:
Article: Kindergarten: problems and their analysis at the legislative level
(Yakovleva O. )
(“Administrative Law”, 2021, N 1) Federal Law No. public pre-school education and childcare in organizations that carry out educational activities and outside such organizations – in the form of individual activities. Unlike a preschool educational institution, preschool childcare groups are “the implementation of a set of measures to organize nutrition and household services for children, ensure their personal hygiene and daily routine” (clause 34, article 2 of the Federal Law of 29.12.2012 N 273-FZ “On Education in the Russian Federation”). Child care activities are not subject to licensing.

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Federation”
(item-by-article)
(Barabanova S.V., Peshkova (Belogortseva) Kh.V., Baranov I.V., Menkenov A.V., Selezneva A.Kh., Chernus N.Yu., Belyaev M. A., Zenkov M.Yu., Kotukhov S.A.)
(Prepared for the ConsultantPlus system, 2019) Currently, the most demanded and most common form of childcare and care in full-time groups, extended hours and round-the-clock stay in state and municipal educational institutions. They combine supervision and care with pre-school education.