UAE Business Awards 2023 28 Most Nurturing Early-Years Education Centre 2023 It’s vitally important for children to have access to nurturing care in their foundational years. When it comes to early-years education, there are few organisations and enterprises more adept and experienced than Masterminds Preschool and Kindergarten (Masterminds). We spoke with Director Tania Siddiqi to find out more about the centre’s history and dedication to the highest quality of care. astermind is a perfect synergy of long-tested traditional wisdom, and decades of leading-edge research in child development. Together, the centre provides exceptional intellectual, physical and social excellence for children aged 1to 6 years through, as Tania calls it, “joyous learning.” But how did Masterminds get its start – what was the inspiration behind its incredible offerings? “The inspiration for Masterminds was conceived along with my daughter, Athena. Like every parent, I wanted to provide our child with every opportunity in life. This triggered a global quest to find the most pioneering thinking in early childhood development. We finally came across a globally renowned institute that had been a pioneer in early childhood development for over 60 years,” Tania explains, before continuing. “After walking the grounds of their school and seeing these amazing, happy and kind 3, 4, and 5 year olds, all of whom could read, do maths, talk about the great artists of the world, speak three languages, play the violin, do gymnastics and have a love of learning that we had never seen before, we knew that we had found something extraordinary. We took the programs home and started doing them with our daughter and personally witnessed their extraordinary results. We wanted to provide all children with the same opportunity, and this is how Masterminds was born.” This is the crux of Masterminds– a pursuit to making learning fun. To make it seamless, and organic. There’s a prominent image of learning as being all grey walls, homework, endless lists of words, everything decidedly ‘unfun’, but the truth is remains, learning doesn’t and shouldn’t lean into that stereotype. There are other, better, ways forward. “Children would rather learn than do anything else - as long as the process is joyous and operates at the pace of the child. For a young child, learning is the highest and best form of play. They want to learn about everything and anything and they want to learn right now. Children have within them the capacity to learn virtually anything from birth to the age of six. “What they can learn without any conscious effort at age two, three or four years of age can only be learned with great effort, or may not be learned at all, in later life. What they learn at this age remains with them for the rest of their lives and ignites a love for learning that can never be diminished. We simply harness this innate desire through personalized attention and provide opportunities, experiences, and guidance to develop Intellectual, Physical and Social excellence within each child.” It all seems rather simple through Tania’s words, but that does a disservice to the immense skill, talent and expertise at the heart of Masterminds and its team. For that, and for many other reasons besides, Masterminds Preschool & Kindergarten has become a paragon of early education, with no signs of slowing down yet. Company: Masterminds Education Address: Masterminds Preschool & Kindergarten, Villa 17, Rumiah (12A) Street, Umm Suqeim 3, Dubai, UAE Email: [email protected] Telephone: +971 4 346 9210 Website: masterminds.ae M
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