The educational groundwork for a new preschool campus starts well before the first child arrives: forming a founding team that already shares the curriculum, involving educators in preparing rooms and materials, planning the first weeks around settling children and building trust with families, and agreeing in advance how the campus will review its first year. A building can be finished on schedule while the school inside it is not ready. The difference shows in the first month, when children, families and a new team meet for the first time.
This article looks at the educational side of opening a campus, whether as a new independent school, a new site in an existing network or a partner school adopting a curriculum. It leaves aside investment, licensing procedures and property, which are covered elsewhere, and concentrates on the people, practices and routines that decide whether a new campus feels like a real school from its first term.
Why the first year shapes a campus for a long time
Every school develops habits quickly. Within the first few months a new team settles how meetings run, how teachers talk about children, what happens when something goes wrong and which parts of the curriculum are taken seriously. Families form a view of the school from the first weeks and pass it on to others. These early patterns are much easier to set well than to change later.
This is why experienced leaders treat the opening year as a distinct phase with its own priorities. The aim is not to reach the full richness of the curriculum at once, but to establish the foundations on which it can grow: secure relationships with children, trusting relationships with families, a team that shares a professional language and a few core practices done consistently well.
It also explains why the opening year deserves extra support from a network or partner, if there is one. A new campus has no history to lean on and no experienced colleagues down the corridor. Regular contact with an established campus, visits in both directions and an experienced mentor for the new principal can make a large difference.
Forming the founding team
Appoint the principal early. The person who will lead the campus should be in post well before opening, involved in recruiting the team, preparing rooms and planning the first term. A principal who arrives a week before children do inherits decisions made by others.
Recruit for shared values as well as qualifications. A founding team sets the culture. Teachers who understand and believe in the curriculum are worth more in the first year than teachers with longer experience in a very different approach.
Mix experience and fresh energy. If possible, include at least one teacher who has worked in the curriculum before, perhaps transferring from another campus, alongside new staff. That person becomes an informal guide for colleagues.
Plan the bilingual structure from the start. In a Vietnamese and English programme, decide how co-teaching pairs will work, how the two languages will be distributed across the day and who will lead communication with families in each language.
Include support staff in induction. Nannies, kitchen staff, guards and administrative staff shape children's and families' daily experience. They need to understand the school's approach to children too, not only their own tasks.
Induction before the doors open
The weeks before opening are the only time the whole team is available without children to care for. Leaders should use them for induction that goes beyond policies and procedures. The team needs to understand the curriculum's principles and why they matter, practise the core routines together, plan the first themes and agree on how they will observe and record children's development.
Shared experiences build a team faster than presentations. Visiting an established campus together, watching real practice and discussing it afterwards gives new teachers images of what the curriculum looks like with children. Setting up classrooms together, debating where materials should go and why, builds both rooms and relationships. Simple rehearsals of the first morning, from greeting families to the first circle, reduce anxiety on the real day.
It also helps to agree on a few explicit team agreements: how the team will give each other feedback, how disagreements will be handled, how quickly questions from families must be answered and who to turn to when a teacher is unsure. Written down and revisited during the first term, these agreements prevent many small misunderstandings from becoming lasting tensions.
Preparing rooms as teachers would
Learning environments designed by architects or suppliers alone often look impressive and work poorly. Furniture is too large or too fixed, storage is out of children's reach, decorative displays crowd the walls and there is no quiet corner for a child who needs to withdraw. Involving teachers in preparing rooms, ideally before the final furniture and materials are ordered, avoids many of these problems.
Questions teachers might ask include: can children reach and return materials independently? Is there space for a long construction project to stay in place for several days? Where will children rest, eat and wash, and how will transitions between these areas flow? Is there a place for documentation at children's eye level? Where can a child be quiet? How will outdoor space be used every day, including in the rainy season?
Rooms should also start relatively simple. A new campus does not need every material on the first day. A smaller selection of well-chosen open-ended materials, added to as teachers learn what the children are interested in, supports better play than shelves filled to capacity before anyone knows the children.
The first weeks with children and families
Most children starting at a new campus are also starting a new routine, and many are attending a preschool for the first time. The first weeks should therefore be planned around settling rather than around a full curriculum. A gradual start, in which children spend shorter periods at school at first and a family member may stay for part of the time, helps children form attachments to their teachers. Schools differ in how they organise this, but the principle that relationships come first is widely shared in early childhood practice.
Teachers should keep the day predictable, with clear routines and plenty of time for play, and observe children closely to understand their interests, needs and ways of communicating. These early observations become the starting point for the first projects and themes, which is one of the advantages of a curriculum that builds on what children bring.
Families need as much attention as children. Many will be anxious, especially if their child is very young or has never been separated from them for long. Short daily updates, a personal conversation after the first week or two and a clear way to raise concerns help families relax. Their early experience shapes what they tell other families about the new campus.
Planning the first themes and projects
A new team is often tempted to plan the whole first term in advance, to feel prepared. In a curriculum that builds on children's interests, this works against the approach. A better pattern is to plan one or two broad opening themes that suit any group of young children starting school, such as getting to know our classroom, the people who care for us, or our garden and the things that live in it, and to leave space for projects to grow from what teachers observe in the first weeks.
These opening themes also serve settling. Exploring the building, meeting the cook, the guard and the nurse, finding where the water and the toilets are and learning the names of friends all help children feel at home while giving teachers rich opportunities for observation and language in both Vietnamese and English. When the first genuine interests appear, perhaps a fascination with the ants on the path or with the sounds of the rain on the roof, teachers can begin the first real project.
Leaders should check early that planning is starting from observation rather than from a template. In a new team, this habit is still forming, and a few weeks of supportive questions, such as which observation led to this activity, help it take root.
Common difficulties in the opening year
Too much at once. New campuses often try to launch every element of the curriculum, every family event and every administrative system in the first month. Choosing a few priorities and adding others gradually protects the team from exhaustion.
Unfinished building work. Construction delays and last-minute repairs are common. Leaders should agree in advance which spaces must be completely ready and safe before children arrive, and keep children well away from any remaining work.
Early staff departures. A teacher who leaves in the first term unsettles children and colleagues. Honest recruitment about the demands of a new campus, and close support in the first weeks, reduce this risk.
Uneven enrolment across age groups. Classes may fill at different speeds, leaving some teachers with very small groups and others with full rooms. Flexible plans for combining or adjusting groups, within regulations, help the campus adapt calmly.
A principal pulled in every direction. In the opening year the principal handles builders, enrolment, staff and families at once. Protecting a few hours each week for time in classrooms keeps educational leadership from disappearing under operations.
A simple first-year review cycle
Agreeing on review points before opening makes it easier to look honestly at progress later, rather than reacting only when problems become visible.
| Moment | What to look at | Who takes part |
|---|---|---|
| After the first month | How children have settled; family concerns; whether routines are working | Principal, teachers, a mentor or coordinator from an established campus if available |
| End of first term | Planning and observation practice; first projects; team relationships; family understanding of the approach | Whole team, with a short family survey or conversations |
| Mid-year | Consistency of core practices across classes; use of outdoor space; bilingual balance | Principal, coordinator, peer visitors from another campus |
| End of first year | What the campus has established, what still needs work, priorities for the second year | Whole team and, where relevant, the network or curriculum partner |
The point of each review is learning, not judgement. A new campus that names its weaknesses honestly at the end of the first term is usually in a stronger position than one that reports everything as going well.
Connecting the new campus to the rest of the school community
A new campus within a group or network should not feel isolated. Planned links help: shared professional development days, teachers from the new campus visiting established classrooms, coordinators sharing documentation across campuses and joint events for children or families where practical. These connections spread practice and give the new team a sense of belonging to something larger.
It is equally important that the new campus brings something back. Opening a campus often prompts fresh thinking about rooms, routines or family communication. Ideas that work well there should be shared with established campuses through the network's usual routes for adapting the curriculum. A network that only sends expertise outward, and never learns from its newest members, misses one of the benefits of growth.
Schools working with the Global Nexus curriculum, including those opening through the Global Star campus franchise programme, can treat this article as a starting point for conversations with the curriculum team about the opening year. Practical and commercial aspects of opening a campus are handled separately by the relevant programmes.
Câu hỏi thường gặp
When should a new preschool campus appoint its principal?
Ideally well before opening, early enough to take part in recruiting the team, preparing rooms and planning the first term. A principal appointed only days before children arrive inherits decisions made by others and has little time to build a shared culture.
What should staff induction cover before a new campus opens?
The curriculum's principles and why they matter, core daily routines practised together, planning for the first themes, how children will be observed and recorded, and team agreements on feedback, disagreements and communication with families.
How should classrooms be prepared for a new preschool?
With teachers involved before furniture and materials are finalised, ensuring children can reach materials independently, there is space for long projects and quiet moments, and outdoor space can be used daily. Rooms can start simple and grow with the children's interests.
How should the first weeks at a new preschool campus be organised?
Around settling rather than a full curriculum: a gradual start, predictable routines, plenty of play, close observation of children and frequent, personal communication with families, who are often as anxious as their children in the early weeks.
How can a new campus review its first year?
By agreeing review points in advance, such as after the first month, the first term, mid-year and the end of the year, and looking at settling, practice, team relationships and family understanding, with a focus on learning rather than judgement.
How can a new campus stay connected to an existing school network?
Through shared professional development, visits between campuses, sharing documentation among coordinators and joint events. Links should run both ways, so that good ideas from the new campus also reach established ones.