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If you are a parent and want to put your child in Mother's Pride Sector 61 NOIDA, then read this...
Subject: Marketing Mania among teachers and staff kills child development, breeds negative attitude.
As any parent looking for the best opportunity for his/her kid, I had got my son into the Sector 61 Noida branch of Mother's Pride. At the time of admissions, I and my wife, had chosen this branch because of the following reasons:
1. Proximity - Since we live in Sec 61, this was the best alternative. Though we felt the pinch when we had to cough up 4500 bucks per quarter for transportation for travelling less than 200m, we felt okay.
2. Preparation for formal schools - Mother's Pride promised us that our kid would be suitably prepared for interviews for formal schools, so we thought this would be a good place for our kid to learn and develop.
We took admission in April 2011. However, in a few months time, the school started marketing its Presidium School (both Mothers Pride and Presidium School are owned by same group). We started getting calls from the staff asking us to consider Presidum for Nursery classes. By July/Aug 2011, the marketing became more aggressive. We used to get calls almost everyday.
Once, they announced that there is a last date by which we must pay INR 10k to book a seat in Presidium. Since no school had started admissions, we thought it OK to pay 10k and secure a seat. Given the intense competition for nursery admissions, we felt that it was a good idea, more so as this amount was refundable, in case our kid got through other formal school.
About my child (<3 yrs old) : During April-June 2011 (before summer break), I realized that my kid was not picking up speech or learning anything new from the school. He is an energetic and curious kid with all shades of a normal childhood who would love to learn new things. Untill this time, we never paid much attention to his learning. We only followed whatever was being done by School.
During summer break (June-July 2011), I incidentally introduced him to alphabets and to my surprise, he picked them up so fast that within 5 days he could identify all alphabets, numbers (1-10) and also associate words with them. I was elated to see his interest in learning and his joy on demonstrating his new-knowledge !
This was an eye opener and I spoke to his teachers at Mother's Pride (in July and thereafter on a regular basis) to find out what he was doing in class and why isn't he learning from school. That was another shock - the teachers had a set opinion that my kid was a slow learner.
Going by my kids activities - be it sports, puzzles, physical activities, coloring, computers, recalling etc - none of our family members had any second opinion that he is a fast learner and has a good memory.
NEXT:
My child resumed his classes after summer break. We talked to his teachers and exchanged notes on how to improve his speech. But none of their efforts seemed to work out. This baffled us because any little effort we made at home produced immediate results but from school we were not getting any positive help or support.
September had already come and it was time for admissions to various formal schools and we got busy with filling up forms. This time, Mothers Pride came up with another marketing gimmick - to deposit another installment that would be 20k+ towards the nursery admission in Presidium school. Since nothing was finalized, we paid another 24k as the second installment.
By this time, I realized that my kid had not learnt anything new from school and whatever we had helped him learn at home was the only thing he could remember and recall. We realized now that depending on Mothers Pride for preparation to nursery admissions was a foolish thing from our end. They were not interested in preparing kids for an obvious reason - because of Presidium - their own formal school.
In the same month, they came up with a report card where our kid was graded on an average-below average scale. This was indeed disappointing.
We were in a dire situation, with only a couple of weeks for interactions to happen for Amity, Apeejay and others, we felt utterly unprepared. We started building an activity based learning system at our home. The Pooja holidays came as a blessing. We started giving our kid more time and engaged with him to help him learn poems, reply to questions and gain confidence in things he was already doing. To our shock (and pleasant surprise), he picked up so fast that we finished all coloring books, puzzles and other exercises within 10-15 days with our kid smiling at us and asking for more !!
The puja holidays ended and we still had few more days left for interactions to start. This was the first time when I and my wife gleefully decided to skip our office work (alternately) and prepare ourselves for the nursery interactions. Our kid too skipped a week at Mothers Pride, without any complaint.
Luckily, we had excellent interactions, our kid did wonderfully well and he got calls from all 3 formal schools we had applied for - AMITY, APEEJAY and MAYOOR.
NOW THE ELECTRIC SHOCK:
After the results, we were all very happy !! When I conveyed this news to my kids teacher at Mothers Pride Sec 61 Noida, I got the shock of my life. The teacher said "Why are you admitting him to other schools? He cannot learn there. You need to send him to our school for at least 2 years as your child has not developed yet."
When I went to get refund for the fees that I had paid for PRESIDIUM school, I could see the sullen faces of the staff. Obviously, they had lost business w.r.t. my kid. On telling them that my kid got through formal schools like Amity and Apeejay, they did not show any interest nor did they congratulate us.
So we wonder what kind of business is MOTHER'S PRIDE Sector 61 NOIDA doing? For sure,
1. They are not concerned about your child's development. They want your child to stick to their school for long time to give them business.
2. They have a negative attitude towards other formal schools and straight-forwardly discredit these institutions.
3. Mother's Pride sector 61 is a marketing hub. They are killing child's development for measly marketing gimmicks.
I wanted to speak to Ms Sudha Gupta, Chairperson, Mother's Pride on 20 October 2011. But she chose to make hersel[censored]navailable. Repeated calls to her office at Punjabi Bagh[protected] did not yield any result.
So would humbly request Ms Sudha Gupta to stop preaching "POSITIVE PARENTING" and stuff like that and look into the activities of her own schools esp - MOTHER'S PRIDE NOIDA SECTOR 61.
If teachers are more bothered about getting brownie marketing points - what motivation would they have in kids? So be watchful, if you are admitting your kid to Mother's Pride Sector 61 branch.
My suggestion, do not admit your kid to this branch if you really want your kid to explore his/her full potential.
Save yourself and your kid from these scheming teachers/staff.
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