A forest kindergarten in Zhongshan millennial parents are so crazy about they are reserving places a year in advance
- Rockies Forest Kindergarten in southern China’s Zhongshan city offers a rare nature-based curriculum for preschoolers
- Advocates are convinced forest schools enhance children’s confidence, learning capacity and communication
Rockies Forest Kindergarten, in southern China’s Zhongshan city, is one of a few schools in the country that offer a nature-based curriculum. Children spend a significant amount of their day playing and learning outdoors in a woodland, farm and green yard that spans more than 20 acres (13,333 square metres) at the kindergarten.
The concept originated in Denmark in the 1950s, and over the past few decades forest schools have come up in countries including the UK, Germany, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Advocates believe being in a natural environment enhances children’s confidence, learning capacity and communication. This form of education remains little-known in China.
“Children at our kindergarten can ‘go wild’ even in a big city,” said Tan Xuexia, principal of the school. “The experience-based learning has fostered strong teamwork spirit and creative skills among them, and they are truly happy and energetic.”
The kindergarteners are led by teachers to enjoy a variety of activities outdoors, such as learning to make a fire to cook and growing vegetables. In place of typical art classes, the children make paintings in the wild with leaves, flowers and tree branches.
The school now hosts 625 children, up from less than 300 when it opened in 2016. Most the families live in upmarket residential blocks nearby, while a dozen moved to the city in Guangdong province from Hong Kong, Macau or overseas because of work. The interest in the school has grown so much that parents were applying for a spot a year in advance, according to Tan.
“The parents are mostly born in the late 80s or early 90s. They are more receptive to new education models, and want their children to have a happier childhood,” said Tan, who has worked for 11 years with schools operator Ren Ai International Education and played a big role in founding the school.
Ren Ai International invested 68 million yuan (US$10 million) in buying land and building the school. It licenses the forest school curriculum from Canada’s Rockies Education Group.
Tuition and fees at Rockies Forest Kindergarten stand at 17,000 yuan per semester. In comparison, government-funded kindergartens in the city cost as little as 550 yuan per month. The average disposable income of Zhongshan residents was 50,478 yuan in 2019.
Demand for high-end international preschool education has been increasing steadily and is set to rise further in the coming years, Tan said. Living standards will improve in Zhongshan as the city grows with the Greater Bay Area, a 11-city urban cluster around the Pearl River Delta that Beijing plans to transform into an economic hub of the country.
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The local government in September sold a land parcel earmarked for an international school that can host 3,000 students, covering kindergarten to high school.
Kingston Kindergarten, another international kindergarten set up by two Chinese and Australian firms with an investment of 60 million yuan, has been operating since 2016.
