The goal of the private establishment is to create a partnership between home and school where parents and teachers work together to support children’s learning.
ABC KinderCare has four groups for a total of 40 children between the ages of two and five. Unlike at most kindergartens in Bulgaria, where the teacher:child ratio is something like 1:30, here, it is one teacher to five children, director Rossitsa Ivanova told The Sofia Echo. This allows the instructors to know the children very well, and respond to their individual needs.

The school welcomed its first “pupils” on January 7 2008.

Since then, it has received positive appraisal from the expat community in Bulgaria. Take Uri Resnick, for example. He told The Sofia Echo that “the team of teachers is superb. ... All of them have a lot of experience and come with a very positive attitude which reflects on the atmosphere at the kindergarten”. He also praised the food as being “fresh”, “varied” and “very healthy”, and the strong emphasis on safety.

“The overriding point , though,” Resnick said, “is the following simple one: the kids are always really, really happy! The atmosphere is unequalled elsewhere (and we’ve had our kids in other kindergartens in Sofia). I can truly say that this kindergarten is leagues ahead of any other option currently on offer in Sofia.”

The school shares the responsibility of modelling and teaching the essential academic and life skills to encourage its students to become responsible, contributing members of society.

This is accomplished in part through the cultivation of each student’s personal strengths and the encouragement of his or her own positive character traits, while working on the importance of intellectual, physical and emotional balance.

Areas that receive particular emphasis, according to material from the school, are skills for thinking, communication, problem-solving, fine and gross motor, numbers and letters, eye-hand co-ordination, decision making, comprehension, and visual memory; how to follow directions; increased attention span; positive attitudes independence and confidence; and the sense of being a proud citizen.

The curriculum at ABC KinderCare is theme based, with an emphasis on multi-sensory teaching methods and language-rich activities. The use of themes provides the children with practice and skills application. Themes relating directly to the children’s real-life experiences are conceived so as to build on what they know. The school says that the same content should be offered more than once and incorporated into different kinds of activities. So, for example, a lesson on frogs would include listening to stories, modelling out of clay and acting out frog-like movements, Ivanova said.

Young children feel secure with routines and schedules. To this effect, the school has routines and schedules to help them learn sequencing and time-related activities. The schedule varies due to weather, school assemblies and special events.

During the school day, children participate in a variety of activities, such as circle time, small-group activities, independent work time, snack and movement activities. This latter includes yoga classes with a world-classed practitioner, who just happens to be Bulgarian.

To keep parents informed about what their tots do all day, there is a monthly newsletter that addresses the curriculum theme, projects, special events  and important notices concerning ABC KinderCare’s programme. In addition, the school gladly takes input from the parents themselves.

Nor does it push parental education to the side. A parent school is offered periodically throughout the year, scheduled on a parent-/community-interest basis. For this, lectures are organised by teachers specialising in different fields, dietitians, dentists, sport trainers and so on. The aim is to help parents face different situations with confidence and knowledge.

ABC KinderCare Centre collaborates with Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski’s teaching and psychology department, in which students from the university bring their insight and skills to the school.

The kindergarten is also partnered with BBC Centre in Sofia. Its research library helps ABC KinderCare Centre’s staff to be prepared in the best way for every theme in its programme.

And if all this were not good enough, the centre also places an emphasis on environmental awareness and responsibility. It uses environmentally friendly materials, which include choosing and using industrial materials during the renovation of the facilities. The furniture, carpets, curtains and its wide variety of toys are made of earth-friendly materials wherever possible.

ABC KinderCare Centre
25 Knyaz Boris I Str (near NDK), Sofia
Tel: 434 10 82 [http://carebg.org/]