2-year-old classrooms: an premiere with enthusiasm and even more relief for families

Thirty-four schools are preparing these days in the islands "with great enthusiasm and some uncertainty" the premiere of the two-year-old classrooms in the public education network of the Canary Islands, which will mean a "relief" for dozens of families who cannot afford a nursery.

CEO Argana is chosen to launch the public education network from zero to three years old in Arrecife, the capital of Lanzarote. The EFE Agency has shared with its educational community this Wednesday an intense day of preparations, meetings and large doses of enthusiasm from teachers and families.

"The implementation of the two-year-old level has been a challenge. Since the Ministry informed us that we were going to be the center that, within Arrecife, would implement this level, we have not stopped," acknowledges the director of the center, María Dolores Rocío.

Still somewhat overwhelmed by the delays suffered this summer by the adaptation works of the classroom due to the lack of some materials, Rocío tries to focus now on the organizational.

"It is another challenge, because it is necessary to start the functions of the Early Childhood Education teacher in the stage of zero to three years, those of the Early Childhood Education technician, those of the assistant... and integrate them into what is the organization of a center," she says.

But the director of CEO Argana believes that her new colleagues will help the school as a whole to improve, because they have a training that "will strengthen the stage of early childhood education."

The first cycle of Infant Education premieres in this school in Arrecife with the two-year-old classroom, whose tutor is the teacher Merci Hernández Perera.

"It is a challenge to have a two-year-old tutoring. I assume it with great enthusiasm and some uncertainty, because we usually work the second cycle of Infant Education and this first cycle even has a different curriculum," she explains.

Although there is only one year of difference with the children who until now started in schools (those of three years), Hernández Perera emphasizes that it is "one step further", because it is about working with children who have to be "accompanied in the maturation process."

"I think it will also help to compensate for those inequalities that we find in three-year-old children at a maturational level, because providing those experiences earlier will help them mature," she says.

Her classroom partner is the Early Childhood Education technician Nayra Suárez Rodríguez, who has experience in nurseries, so she already knows that a two-year-old child is very different from a three-year-old.

"They have nothing to do with each other. The two-year-old child is much more immature, is not autonomous at all, you have to help him little by little," she says.

She believes that she will be able to support the tutor a lot, due to her previous experience. But she also emphasizes that a two-year-old school is not a nursery, because the approach is different, so her partner Merci Hernández will be the one who complements her caregiving skills with her background as an Early Childhood teacher.

"And, in the economic issue, for families it is a great help, because in many neighborhoods not all families have the capacity to pay for a nursery," says Nayra Suárez.

Sara, mother of María, a two-year-old girl who will start her educational stage on Monday at CEO Argana, where a slightly older sister already studies, attests to this.

"For me it is a great relief that the girl can start the course this year, to start working, because the nursery is beyond our economic possibilities. It is a great facility for parents," confesses Sara.

The advantages do not stop there. Sara believes that the first beneficiary of going to school at two years old will be her daughter María: "I know that for her it will be something good, because, not being in nursery, she has taken a little longer to learn to speak and I think that here she will develop quite well." EFE