Class sizes are slightly smaller at Karulaugu: one teacher and two assistants take care of between 20 and 22 children.
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Class sizes are large. At Kadaka, one teacher (with a bachelor’s or a master’s degree) takes care of 24 children, supported by a teaching assistant, though the ratios vary depending on where you are in the country. In the UK, ratios for teaching two-year-olds are set at one adult for every four children, and Liz Truss received much criticism for mooting plans to relax them.
Well, if Estonia’s so perfect then we should follow that system then, right?
As when folk talk so admiringly of Finland’s education system – a very strict division into academic and vocational quite early in the teens.
If we’re going to copy the “best” from elsewhere, let’s copy the best then, eh?
Ooh look, Finland has an equivalent to the 11+
Nasty divisive Finns. Their education system must be shit.
What’s that you say?
I employed an Estonian ex Nursery nurse. She said they start school at 7 so so most of their charges would be going to “school” in the UK. They also had weird, to my mind at least, practice of “quiet time” when the kids had to go to sleep or at least lie down and not move or talk for 30 mins to an hour, which makes supervision a lot easier i guess.
A pal has a granddaughter going to child care. When the business had just opened there were 4 staff for 7 nippers. The wee girl loved it. The next term there were 4 staff for 16 nippers. The wee girl was miffed.
Young children need a lot of sleep. Nothing to do with supervision, though it helps the staff to have a break. Our granddaughter, just gone 2, has just stopped having morning naps but she still has a nap in the afternoon.
French schools had a sleep time at maternelle a couple of decades back. They literally lay down on mats.
Because the French often keep their kids up late to eat, it was a requirement.
Same in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan. And that’s with, more-or-less the same school day, 8:45 to 3:15, same as when I worra nippa in the UK.
Hallowed be @ 12.58.
My mum told me that when she attended infant school in the 1920’s, they had a ‘sleep time’ during the day. The desks were turned upside down and a cloth hammock fitted over each leg of the desk.
I just fell alseep through boredom.