29 Jul 2024
During its chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) last year, Indonesia chose to promote a clear focus on the role of education as a means of pushing the region to the forefront of innovation and unlocking the potential for investment in the future. With a stated government view that to ensure growth, quality education has to start at a very young age, it is perhaps not surprising that Xin Zhong School in Surabaya, Indonesia has chosen to add the Cambridge Early Years programme to its curriculum to make children ready for the world.
Xin Zhong School has been a Cambridge International School since 2012 and offers trilingual education to 1800 students from pre-school to pre-university. Although the Cambridge Early Years programme was only launched globally less than a year ago, its addition to the Cambridge Pathway now enables the school to offer Cambridge programmes from age 3 through to 19 years. The school is currently working to blend Cambridge Early Years with Chinese and Indonesian National curricula so that it can begin offering the programme from the next school year.
Jecky Right, Head of Cambridge at Xin Zhong School, explained that the goal is to equip children with a solid foundation for lifelong learning: 'Young children's brains are like sponges, soaking up new things quickly. High-quality learning experiences during this time help them develop important skills such as thinking for themselves, solving problems and remembering things well. These skills are like building blocks that help them succeed in school later and make them feel proud of what they can achieve.
'The Cambridge Early Years curriculum is a perfect fit for us! It smoothly prepares children for primary school, regardless of whether they continue with Cambridge Primary or another programme. Additionally, it provides teachers with age-specific assessment tools and top-notch teaching resources, allowing them to personalise learning for each child's needs.'
Xin Zhong School is the 300th school worldwide to register for Cambridge Early Years. The programme is play-based and designed to give schools everything they need for high-quality learning – a holistic and balanced curriculum, engaging classroom resources, professional development and assessment approaches to help schools measure learners’ progress.
To find out more about the experiences of Cambridge Early Years Centres around the world, including Xin Zhong School, read our case studies.