How To Start Play School In India
Playschools are a very popular business in the education sector. With an increasing rate, the new generation of parents are making it a must to send their child to play school for a better grooming. In this present time every parent makes it a point to look for the best playschools for their kids.
A play school also known as pre school is an educational establishment or learning space offering early childhood education to children before they begin compulsory education at primary school. A play school mainly caters to children aged between 2 and 4 years.
So if you are interested to open or start a play school at your place, it is a good business idea for you. But if you do not know the procedure to start a play school then this article will help you about this. In this article you will get the complete detail about ‘How you can start a play school in India’.
Important Steps To Start A Play School
You can either start your own play school or take franchise of a popular playschool brands such as Bachpan, Kidzee, or Mother kesary etc. Opening a franchise doesn’t need much planning as the parent company will set guidelines for setting up and running the school. However, it comes with the higher costs. Whereas if you are interested to start your own play school, you will need to manage everything yourself, from marketing to branding to designing your own curriculum. But, Don’t take stress to setting up a play school because its not that difficult. In this article you’ll have all the steps to start a play school at your space.
1. Need A Good Location
To start a play school, identify a good location. You will need around 1000 sq. ft. area for a play school that can accommodate up to 60 to 70 children. To decide a good location for your play school keep one important thing in you mind that parents prefer sending their kids to playschool in near vicinity, so locate your play school in a residential area.
Parents send their kids to a play school to explore things in an open environment and observe better. As per the location concern, setting up a play school in a spacious and green environment can be beneficial. This not only attracts children but also help them to connect to the environment, observe and become sensitive towards nature. Adding to this, an open environment helps in learning new things in a better manner.
2. Need To Get Permission
To start a play, first thing you need is to get permission or obtain a family child care license from your state. Each state is different and uses slightly different terminology. Generally, you will have to meet certain requirements in terms of education, age and teaching experience, safety measures, capacity background checks and many more things.
Presently, their is no central law regarding the registration to start a play school, though some state laws exist such as ‘ Private School Education Acts’ in some states. Some states have letters issued by the State Government( under the guise of RTE Act), regarding the starting and running of a play school or pre school.
After deciding the location , you must get a no objection certificate (NOC) from the society for running a playschool.
3. Name Your Play School
Name holds a lot of significance and importance. Do not copy other play schools name, as it is illegal as well as un ethical. Decide some attractive and good name for your school.
4. Investment Required
You will require an initial investment for setting up your play school, while other costs will be ongoing operating expenses. For setting up, furnishing and decorations will require you to shell out Rs. 60,000 to 70,000. Setting up the play area with toys and other play items can cost you up to Rs. 1 lakh to 1.5 lakh, whereas educational materials and learning tools in classes will be 20,000 to 30,000.
If you have your own property, its good you can save the rent amount there but if you are opting for a rental property for a play school then you have to pay Rs. 30,000 to 40,000 as rent. Electricity and water bills can be about 20,000 /- per month. The main amount will be on teaching staff and other staff like assistants.
Next, you will spend Rs. 10,000 to 15,000 on marketing every month until you get enough students onboard, that can easily take up to 6 to 8 months.
Starting a play school yourself works out cheaper compared to starting a franchise. Most popular brand of play schools ask for a one time investment of Rs. 10 to 13 lakh, which is much higher than the costs of your own play school.
5. Revenue
Source of revenue of your play school will depend on the kind of service you provide. For a play school that offers learning activities and a play area, monthly fees per students can range from Rs. 2000 to 2500. If you want to provide day care services and meals, you can charge upwards of Rs. 3500 per student.
So after you have 60 regular students attending your school, you can easily book a profit of 30-35% on the total revenue.
6. Teaching Staff and Other Faculty
Teachers are the base or root to a play school should always be on the priority list. Staffing the correct number of teachers in the school depends on the number of students you have in the play school.
Hire the teachers specialized in teachings and handling playschool. Also go for regular training session for the teachers with using latest technology along with the curriculum implementation to make teaching fun and boredom free.
Along with the teaching staff, employ the Other staff like housekeeping and ground staff for keeping the kids and the school clean and hygienic every time.
7 Choose a Philosophy and Curriculum
You may already have an idea of the type of early care and education philosophy you want to use in your play school. The following are some common types i.e.
- Play- based
- Reggio Emilia
- Montessori
- Forest school
Some Play School directors choose to combine different philosophies from a few together to create a unique theme to their school. You should have proper curriculum as the adage goes quality sells itself.
8. Policies and Procedures For A Handbook
Before you start your play school, you will need to decide on some basic operating policies and procedure for your play school. You can write it all up and use it as a parent handbook. Here are some ideas which you can include in your handbook :
- Timing of school
- Holidays and day off
- Breaks for meals and snacks
- Daily flow
- Payment schedule
- Children age criteria
- Capacity of student
- Emergency Procedure
- Discipline
You can also put this handbook on your play school’s website.
9. Use A Platform to Promote Your Play School
Once you are ready with all the above mentioned steps to start your play school, start with the promotions of your play school using various platform like online and offline platforms.
Advertise using physical print technology such as pamphlets, newspapers columns, boards and hoardings, banners etc.. If you have much amount to spend, you can also use television advertisements and social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, whatsapp, LinkedIn etc.. to promote your play school.
10. Use An Online Platform To Manage Your Play School
As you have probably realized by now, running your own business, whether it is a play school or not it takes a lot of organizational and administrative work and to organize this work use an online platform. By using an online platform you can become organized and have every record regarding your play school at one place. Now a days we have many software to manage our data and records. These software allows directors to manage their students, parents and program for one dashboard.
Conclusion
So if you are thinking to start your own play school, now you have these 10 steps to consider. With these tips you can also do one more thing before you start your play school, go and visit some play schools near your locality and observe the distinctive facilities they have in their school. this will help you to tease your thinking skills a bit more and you can use some unique propositions for your play school.
So don’t wait, now start planning and give your play school a kick-start.
With these 10 steps you can start your own play school with low investment, so if you find this article useful share it with you family and friends as well.
Choose a suitable location for your preschool. Consider factors like accessibility, safety, and proximity to residential areas. Ensure that the space meets all regulatory and licensing requirements.