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

As preschools begin planning for the upcoming academic year, one question stands out:

How can we make our preschool stand out by providing truly high-quality education that parents value and trust?

Forward-looking preschool owners are realising that transforming their centres into joyful, child-centred learning environments is not just a trend — it’s the future. And transformation starts with empowering teachers.

The Shift Towards Quality Early Education

Parents today are more informed and discerning. They look for preschools that offer:

• Meaningful learning experiences
• Personal attention for every child
• Evidence of holistic development

But many schools struggle to move beyond routine teaching methods or administrative challenges. Change requires vision, structure, and the right tools — and this is where Kindiedays Academy comes in.

A Boost for Your Planning and Teacher Development