Cascade Family Learning Services Offers Montessori Flexi Education Learning Pods

 * A specially designed program which ensures safety, mental health and well-being of children during Covid times

Cascade Family Learning Services (CFLS), a unique educational ecosystem, today announced the introduction of its Montessori Flexi education learning pods with an intention to empower children, self-direct their learning. Families cooperate to provide the needed facilities-academic and non-academic and come together to form these pods under the guidance of the CFLS team. Keeping the current Covid situation in mind, CFLS has specially designed this program which not only ensures safety, mental health and well-being of children, but also explores home based learning using classroom materials, yearlong parent education on stress-free parenting and supporting students at home.

This program caters to children in the age group of 1 to 18 years. Some of the key elements of the program:

¥ The Toddler Community ( 14 – 36 months of age)

Two or more adults to facilitate their daily routine. The main focus will be on personal hygiene, independent dressing and undressing skills and introduce toileting and food prep appropriate for that age. Also, it provides opportunities to contribute on care of environment, in both indoor and outdoor areas, designed to help the child refine skills based on real-life activities.

¥ Casa or Primary Program (2½–6 years)

This program encourages them to explore, discover and to collaborate with peers. It also inspires self-directed learning, promotes self-confidence, independent thought and action, critical thinking while fostering social-emotional and intellectual growth. Uninterrupted blocks of work time (typically 3 hours in length) allows children to work at their own pace and fully immerse themselves in an activity with undivided attention. This cycle respects individual variations in the learning process, facilitates the development of coordination, concentration, observation, peer interaction, independence and a sense of order while facilitating the child’s assimilation of information.

¥ Elementary program (6–12 years)

This is an individually paced curriculum that challenges children academically and safeguards their well-being and sense of self. Engaging as contributing members of a respectful community, they learn to question, think critically and take responsibility for their own learning skills that would support them in later education and in life.

¥ Adolescent program (12–18 years)

This adolescent program at Cascade is designed to provide a number of socially and culturally relevant discussions for their growing personality that hinges on moral development, while preparing them to live as an adult in the society. Field experiences in two associated rural centres offer deep impressions and systematic understanding of human needs vs earth ethics, combined with a call for action.

Admission of children is based on interviews and discussions with families, besides home visits, to recommend early head-start into screen free experiential learning at home.

Speaking on the flexi program, Ms. Vidya Shankar, Founder, Mentor, Adolescent and certified Montessori Coach and Sports Guide said, “We are proud to be the FIRST educational institution to introduce this unique and flexi program with utmost importance given to the parent-children-guide relationship. We strongly believe parents and guides are the main pillars for the child to construct early impressions on education and their pleasant collaboration in early childhood setting is critically important to the overall development of the child”.

She added, “We have supportive evidence from our extensive research on the impact of educating the child using this unique and collaborative approach. Our research findings have aided us to polish the unique path-breaking tool we developed, a few years ago, that would measure the Child Rights Compliance in schools. The CRCI Index tool is copyrighted and is expected to take-off soon”.

Schools that are keen to certify themselves with the CRCI index on entitlement of rights for children in their school, can apply to our parent organisation Relief Foundation. This tool would also enable parents to educate themselves on the safety and well-being of children if they are admitted into a school with higher order of compliance.

Many parents are currently facing a range of concerns in this pandemic situation, especially lack of continuity in their child’s education and progress, due to the sudden shift from the traditional face-to-face learning to online learning. CFLS has re-calibrated its learning program to address the core issues that have resulted from the pandemic, with counselling and support for parents and children to improve familial relationships while maximising their learning and fear-free, caution-laced gleaning of knowledge from the world happenings.

About Cascade Family Learning Services

CASCADE FLS was started by its 23 year old parent organisation Relief Foundation in 2010, aims to empower families into collaborative learning by offering collective resources in a common space, priming up parents to do Montessori courses and enter the classrooms as guides under the leadership of Ms. Vidya Shankar.

Families have stayed in as a community, helping through the Covid times and providing excellent support online for older students and offline, scheduling with the guides. It is a refreshing and enriching education place for families and children, to learn and grow together!