Preschool owners are shifting from traditional, teacher-led practices toward more child-centered, play-based, and research-driven approaches inspired by global best practices, especially those of Finland.

Yet one major challenge persists: how to show parents that learning is truly happening every day.

Parents no longer choose preschools only on convenience or buildings. Today’s working, aspirational families want proof:

• What did my child learn today?
• How is my child developing socially, emotionally, and academically?
• Is the preschool truly offering quality, or is it just saying it?

This is where high-quality assessment — especially formative assessment — becomes a defining pillar of any preschool aiming to position itself as premium, holistic, and future-ready.

This blog explains:

1️⃣ Why formative assessment matters in playful classrooms

2️⃣ How it strengthens your school’s brand, parent trust, teacher professionalism, and learning outcomes

3️⃣ Practical ways to embed it in daily preschool life

4️⃣ And finally, how Kindiedays supports your entire observation-to-assessment workflow so your team can deliver quality without extra workload.

1. Why Learning Through Play Needs Thoughtful Assessment

Play is the central driver of learning in early childhood. Through play, children express ideas, test theories, collaborate, solve problems, and regulate emotions.

But here’s the challenge: Learning through play doesn’t look like traditional “studying.” There are no worksheets, no memorization, no drills. So parents may not always understand the deep learning happening beneath the surface.

This makes assessment even more essential. When teachers observe children in action — during free play, group activities, outdoor exploration, music, dance, storytelling, or STEM stations — they make learning visible.

Formative assessment captures the learning journey.

It documents:

• Early attempts
• Small emerging skills
• Social interactions
• Problem-solving moments
• Emotional milestones
• Language growth
• Creativity in action

This day-to-day documentation shows how children think, not just what they know.

Term-end assessments and exams only capture results. Formative assessment captures growth, which matters most in the early years.

2. Why Formative Assessment Is Essential for Premium Preschools

A premium preschool is defined not only by its infrastructure but also by the quality of its learning experiences and its transparency with families.

Here’s how thoughtful assessment elevates your school.

Simply put: Assessment is not an administrative task — it’s a strategic brand advantage.

3. How to Embed Assessment into Daily Preschool Life

Many school owners believe assessment requires extra time or paperwork.
But when done naturally and systematically, it becomes part of the daily flow.

1️⃣ Define clear learning goals

Connect your curriculum to domains like:

• Social-emotional development
• Physical development
• Thinking and problem-solving
• Language and communication
• Creative expression
• Early literacy & numeracy foundations

This helps teachers know what to observe.

2️⃣ Observe naturally during routine activities

A child helping a friend, asking questions, stacking blocks, singing loudly, joining a group — these everyday actions reveal development.

3️⃣ Document moments in simple ways

Short notes, photos, quick videos, audio recordings, learning stories

None of these requires lengthy writing.

4️⃣ Build child portfolios over time

Individual portfolios show each child’s journey from the first day to graduation. Parents love them, teachers rely on them, and school leaders can use them for progress tracking.

5️⃣ Conduct weekly or monthly reflection

Teachers review patterns: Who needs more support? Who is ready for new challenges? How do we adapt next week’s plan?

This is the heart of a responsive, child-centered preschool.

6️⃣ Communicate regularly with parents

Parents feel reassured when they see tangible evidence. Updates should be frequent, meaningful, and connected to learning, not just activities.

4. Assessment Is the Heart of a Premium Preschool — Kindiedays Makes It Possible 

Kindiedays was explicitly designed to address the challenges modern preschools face.

Instead of juggling paper files, WhatsApp groups, and scattered documents, Kindiedays brings everything into a single digital workflow — aligned with research-based Finnish pedagogy and adapted to Indian preschool needs.

Here’s how Kindiedays supports your entire assessment lifecycle.

📲 Smart Digital Tools for Daily Classroom Observations

Kindiedays includes dedicated apps for teachers, parents, and school heads. Teachers can make observations instantly — without disrupting class time.

They can capture:

• Notes
• Photos
• Videos
• Child achievements
• Social interactions
• Learning activities
• Daily routines

Each observation can be linked to learning objectives for more profound insight.

This ensures documentation happens in the moment, not later from memory.

🗓️ Automatic Child Portfolios That Build Themselves

Every documented moment is automatically organized into a child’s digital learning portfolio.

These portfolios become a rich reflection of a child’s growth, including:

• Cognitive skills
• Social-emotional milestones
• Creative exploration
• Early STEM learning
• Physical development
• Communication & language progress

Parents value portfolios among the most meaningful items they receive from a preschool.

📊 Insightful Progress Tracking for Teachers and Center Heads

Kindiedays generates clear, easy-to-understand learning statistics for each child and group.

School leaders gain visibility into:

• Which learning objectives are well-covered
• Which areas need more focus
• How each child or group is progressing
• How consistently do teachers document learning
• Quality across batches or branches

This helps with curriculum planning, audits, teacher training, and long-term school development.

🫶 Strong Parent Engagement Through Transparent Communication

Parents receive timely updates through the app, including:

• Photos and videos
• Daily routines (meals, sleep, hygiene)
• Learning stories
• Highlights from group activities
• Progress summaries

This keeps parents connected to their child’s day and strengthens trust in your preschool.

When parents see real learning every day, satisfaction rises — and so does word-of-mouth enrollment.

⏳ Reduced Teacher Workload — More Teaching, Less Paperwork

Teacher burnout is a real challenge in preschools.
Kindiedays significantly lightens administrative work by:

• Automating reports
• Storing all documentation digitally
• Making observations fast and straightforward
• Eliminating manual portfolios
• Supporting consistent routines

When teachers feel supported, they deliver better experiences for children.

🚀 A Scalable System for Growing Preschool Chains

For owners managing multiple centers — or planning to expand — Kindiedays provides a strong backbone.

You can centrally manage:

• Curriculum settings
• Learning objectives
• Reporting formats
• Teacher accounts
• Parent communication
• Quality benchmarks

This ensures every branch offers the same high standard of education.

Click to watch the video!

Ready to Elevate Your Preschool?

If your vision is to build a school where learning is joyful, transparent, and truly world-class, then formative assessment supported by Kindiedays is your most powerful tool.

You can create:

✅ A school parents trust
✅ A team teachers love working in
✅ A curriculum rooted in play
✅ Evidence of real learning
✅ A brand that stands out in a competitive market
✅ A scalable system for expansion

What next?

👉 Learn more about how Kindiedays can support your preschool with a complete Curriculum Partnership — combining Finnish early education principles, digital tools, lesson plans, and teacher workshops tailored for challenger preschools. 

I look forward to meeting you.

Milla van der Burgh

👉 Click here to schedule a consultative call on Zoom or contact me on WhatsApp!

PS Join our official WhatsApp group 👉 click here to join the group!

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Starting a preschool is one of the most meaningful ventures an education entrepreneur can take on. Young parents increasingly seek safe, nurturing, and pedagogically balanced early learning spaces. The demand for high-quality preschools continues to surge. However, the landscape has also become competitive, and families now expect much more than basic childcare. They look for schools that combine international best practices, joyful learning, and holistic preparation for the future.

Together with Senior Preschool Consultant Ranjan Goyal, we recently published a blog series in 7 steps from Planning to Launch for a modern preschool. Here is a compilation including links to the original full blog posts. We also included some extra highlights.

1. Laying the Foundation: Starting a Preschool

Launching a preschool goes far beyond renting a building and hiring a few teachers. It requires clarity of vision, careful planning, and a deep understanding of how children learn. Today’s forward-looking preschools are built around play-based pedagogy, meaningful child engagement, quality documentation, and transparent communication with parents. These align directly with new education policies such as the National Education Policy (NEP 2020) in India, which strongly encourages experiential, child-centered learning.

Define the Vision and Identity of Your Preschool

Your vision sets the tone for everything that follows. Will your school focus on experiential learning? Will you follow an academic readiness model? Or do you aim to offer holistic development blending academics, creativity, physical development, and social-emotional learning? A well-expressed philosophy not only guides your teachers but helps parents understand what makes your preschool unique.

When you set up a preschool that is not just “good enough,” but truly modern — one grounded in a global, play-based philosophy — teachers become the most critical lever of success. Why? Because the shift from a traditional rote-based curriculum to a playful, inquiry-led model isn’t simply about different activity templates. It’s fundamentally a change in mindset, relationships, and purpose.

New competencies, teaching/learning methods, learning materials and tools are all required to make the change possible and sustainable.

The Challenge: Why It Is Hard to Build That Kind of Teacher Professionalism

In traditional rote-based preschools (and sadly, still common in many places), learning is driven by repetition, memorization, and worksheets. The teacher’s role is often that of an instructor who imparts facts; children are seen as recipients. This model is efficient at delivering knowledge but limited in building skills such as creativity, critical thinking, self-regulation, and social-emotional competence.

By contrast, a modern, international, playful curriculum encourages children to explore, experiment, and co-construct knowledge. The teacher’s role shifts to facilitation: guiding, observing, scaffolding, and reflecting. This approach aligns with new education policies such as India’s NEP 2020 and the NCF-FS 2022, which explicitly advocate for play-based, experiential learning.

In such an environment:

Part 7 of 7

If you have followed our six-part blog series on "How to Set Up a Preschool" with Senior Preschool Consultant Ranjan Goyal, you now know what it takes to get started — from infrastructure and staffing to licensing and admissions. But once your preschool is up and running, the next big question arises:

How do you ensure your preschool stands out — offering visible quality that parents trust, teachers enjoy, and that keeps your classrooms full?

That’s where a Curriculum Partnership comes in.

The curriculum is not just a set of books — it’s the heart of your brand, your learning experience, and your parent-engagement strategy. For a challenger preschool with ambitions to grow, choosing the right curriculum partner can be one of the most critical business decisions you make.

This article will show you why, and — most importantly — how to select the best one for your school.

Why a Curriculum Partner Matters

Most mid-income city preschools today face three ongoing challenges:

1. Teachers struggle to plan, document, and assess learning consistently.
   Without structured lesson plans and modern tools, teachers spend hours preparing activities, leaving less time for interaction with children.
2. Parents demand visible learning results.
   Families want to see their child’s progress, not just receive verbal updates. They expect stories, photos, and learning portfolios that demonstrate their child is making progress.
3. Competition keeps growing.
   New preschools open every term, all promising “international” or “activity-based” learning. It’s hard to differentiate unless you have a recognised framework behind you.

A strong curriculum partner solves all three — offering:

As a preschool owner or manager, your mission is to provide a nurturing and high-quality educational environment that fosters the holistic development of every child while growing admissions and parent satisfaction.

But there might be a mismatch between parents’ expectations and pedagogical principles.

While new education policies explicitly promote play-based, child-centered learning, many parents remain more comfortable with traditional models emphasizing structured instruction and measurable progress.

How can these goals be effectively combined in practice?

Kindiedays Blended Curriculum: Where Experiential and Academic Learning Come Together

In our previous blog post, we explored how teachers can overcome this by blending experiential and academic activities into the daily activities with the children. 

• Playful Lesson Plans from Kindiedays nurture creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration, reflecting Finland’s holistic and child-centred pedagogy.
• Coursebooks and workbooks strengthen foundational literacy and numeracy skills.

Now we will take a look at how to engage parents and show evidence of children’s learning.

The Importance of Parental Involvement