Stepping stone School

Our factory-like education system ignores the overwhelming body of research on how children develop, what motivates adults, and what families need.Moreover, the overwhelming majority of our investment starts at age 5 despite clear evidence that the most rapid development occurs in the first few years of life. As a result, children are not thriving (11% of low income children graduate from college), teachers are not thriving (lowest job satisfaction level in 40 years), and our society suffers.

Stepping stone seeks to radically increase the number of children from a variety of economic backgrounds benefiting from high-quality early learning experiences. We've developed a scalable platform for teachers to start and lead their own tiny Montessori schools by simulating environment and gamify learning along with machine learning which can improve learning and generate personalized feedback with mutual accountability. 

Our solution focuses on let parents, doctors,and teachers align around children's learning and health.

Ninety percent of a child's brain is formed by age three, long before school starts. To close K-12 learning gaps, we must start at birth, but there is currently no infrastructure, coordinated effort, or investment to enable that essential work. 

Globally the factory-like education system ignores the overwhelming body of research on how children develop, what motivates adults, and what families need.Moreover, the overwhelming majority of our investment starts at age 5 despite clear evidence that the most rapid development occurs in the first few years of life. As a result, children are not thriving (11% of low income children graduate from college), teachers are not thriving (lowest job satisfaction level in 40 years), and our society suffers. Today the learning experiences and outcomes among pre-school and kindergarten pupils are not upto desired level.The fluid interactive and dynamic approach is missing.

Stepping stone leverages the untapped power of parents PLUS the systems serving families to serve children better, together in the early years. Powering partnerships between parents, pediatricians, and teachers to benefit young children. Tracking milestones using parent observations through mobile technology.

Students & families: everything we know about early childhood development and learning integrated into one package - child-centered Montessori practices, empowered teachers, small size, neighborhood integration, intentional diversity, beautiful environments, and data-driven instruction through the use of observation support mobile technologies. This is available to some families at 25% less than comparable private schools, and to low-income families at a level that fits within existing child-care subsidies. Responding to local families and prioritizing equity is integrated into our organizational design. Teachers: the opportunity to start and run their own schools free from the bureaucracies of larger schools; a career track that encourages professional growth and supports a higher salary without needing to leave the classroom.  Communities: a spark to redevelopment efforts that aligns with many top priorities such as urban renewal, livable and walkable communities, and voluntary integration, among others. This school provides a vision for community-school fusion,built by and for local communities. 

This model operates at the intersection of parenting, health, and education, we help all stakeholders work together to make the most of the crucial early years between birth and age 8. Our network of support will enable the creation of many, many stepping stone like schools that will offer exceptional early educational opportunities to a diverse set of children and families. Our direct impact is in service of the children in our schools, their families and in the professional satisfaction of our teachers. Research demonstrates long-term positive impacts on both academic and socio emotional development from just a few years of early exposure to a Montessori environment. Our teachers often report that while it is hard work to create and operate a school, they are providing the best Montessori education of their lives, and we aim to gather systematic data on teacher and family satisfaction in the near future. We also have an impact on community design and development, as this idea sparks local energy toward building more livable communities and shifting schooling to more human-scaled settings. Our experience to date is that this process begins as soon as a this type of schools sprout in a new community. Finally, we take an open source approach to our learnings and technology development. Thus, our administrative utilities and observation support technologies can serve as the foundation for other efforts to develop micro school models or develop passive formative assessment technologies in other pedagogical settings.

The marginalization of low-income children exists amidst a web of aggressions against them, including through institutional learning. In harmful cycles, life struggles become academic struggles. Communities struggle, segregation increases, structures of support are overwhelmed, and communities struggle even more. We address this at two levels. First, our micro-Montessori approach allows us to focus on the whole child at a deeply personal level. Montessori education substantially decreases the gap in achievement across preschool years between children from higher and lower income families. Furthermore, very small schools have substantially lower correlations between economic backgrounds and academic success.

Many organizations are working to nudge parents to be better first teachers; many educators and education organizations are also working to serve young children and their families and increasingly, pediatric practices are focused on encouraging early brain development and identifying problems early. What Stepping stone school does that is innovative is to create connective tissue that allows three groups — parents, educators, and doctors — that usually work independently to collaborate, focusing on the same milestones and emphasizing the same activities and interactions. The unique collaboration that our process facilitates allows communities to more effectively serve their youngest children. Our early work and the partnerships we are forging  give us confidence that our approach of building bridges through this school that connect families, doctors, and educators fills a significant gap, and could change the way communities care for and educate their youngest members. Ultimately, we believe our school process will change the allocation of responsibility and resources for early childhood education and improve long-term outcomes for children.

Stepping stone provides an innovative platform that allows teachers to create and run their own one-room, intentionally-diverse, authentic Montessori schools as social entrepreneurs, and overcomes many of the barriers to scaling quality early childhood education.

More children than ever are now enrolled in schools but that does not necessarily translate to meaningful learning and to address this challenge using technology for education presents a promising solution and Stepping Stone school under the umbrella of Oriental Public School is a leading the pack with it's pedagogy based personalized adapted learning platform.We are wanting to create a world where children every where are learning with understanding.

We are using our existing technology like machine learning,gamifying learning , Mobile technology into the process for business model. 

We believe Stepping stone will produce long-term improvements in the ways systems support families, particularly those with complex needs; the ways parents interact with their children; and the learning and life outcomes of children. Specifically, we believe through such school we will do the following: 

1. Contribute to a significant increase in the quantity and quality of parent/child interactions that boost cognitive and non-cognitive development. 
2. Contribute to substantially larger numbers of children being screened for developmental delay prior to kindergarten and early interventions during the most formative years. 
3. Contribute to greater alignment between parents and doctors, teachers, and other professionals around the specific needs of each child.  
4. Contribute to a significant increase in the number of children who arrive ready for kindergarten and scoring on grade-level in reading and math by third grade. 
5.  Contribute to lower long-term costs of healthcare and special education services.

Apart from the above , 

1. Our business model and network of support will enable the creation of numerous schools that will offer exceptional early educational opportunities to a diverse set of children and families. 
2.  We also have an impact on community design and development, as the stepping stone school idea sparks local energy toward building more livable communities and shifting schooling to more human-scaled settings. Our experience to date is that this process begins as soon as a few stepping stone schools sprout in a new community. 

Oriental public school is the mother concern for Stepping Stone school. Under the pride umbrella of Oriental Public School, Stepping Stone is carving the niche market of learning with the best practices of pedagogy.Presently we are moving with five hundreds heads and have the target to cover two thousand per year. In next five years we would cover ten thousand head with reach out concepts(tentative).

Goals for next five years are as follows:

• To become a nerve center of the institute in terms of ideas, creativity and innovation.
• To promote research, educational management and administrative process.
• To pull interests manpower in the institutes as well as manpower from the outside.
• To organize special programs like practice school and vocational courses for the educational institution who wish to implement,such innovations.
• To organize special programs for the use of educators,planners,administrators and managers so as to enable the latest theory and practice in the different disciplines and functional areas to reach all sectors.

The barriers are as follows:

1. Financial Constraint.
2. People mindset
3. Complexity in the education sector
4. Social economic & socio cultural strata
5. Government policies & strategies
6. Insufficient infrastructure (both hard & soft)

1. Approaching bank,other financial institutions & Donors for financial support
2. Employee orientation
3. Improving interpersonal relations
4. Empathetic listening
5. Using proper language
6.  Communication through actions
7. Judicious use of grapevine
8. Lack of information feedback
9. Creation of an introductory activity.
10. Providing opportunities for learner interaction
11. Raising of funds through monthly fee collection.

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We have approx 15 numbers on payroll & 30 Volunteers  of team mates working on this model for the expansion. Inspite of these we have other advisory members from different universities, industries, institute of repute by making a consortium who are serving voluntarily.

We have the team of expertise in the field of education, training & research. Some of our team members are master with B.ed, some are Post Doctorate fellow , some are management background, advisory members are with the rank of professors ( retired) and others from the industry are administrative background.

Above type of expertise with expert dedicated team members are helpful for us to cater the needs of services for the people in the community.

Already we had the tie up for 5 years with the organization name " Pearson India Pvt. Ltd" on rent basis with the proper agreement. Now after completion of agreement period, all the materials as per the agreement has been possessed by us and we are operating of our own and collaboration with other companies is under process for AI, machine leaning.

Apart from the above, temporarily we are working with the another company on the trail basis as hire and fire system but as we do not have the permanent agreement we are not mentioning the name but very soon we will turn up with the collaboration process with that company.

We are always interested in partnering with service providers that have great outcomes and content providers that can demonstrate strong efficacy.

We are eager to form partnerships that help exceptional programs for skilling and scaling to reach out more families in the society.

we are moving ahead with Fee for social services model & The service subsidization model of social enterprise for providing services that generates fund for its social programs which incumbent combination of donations and service charges deposited by parents and other community. 

We will raise the fund through the donation, fees, and CSR activities.

Educated workers have “higher human capital”  and therefore higher productivity that education is an imperative aspect in influencing economic growth and improving the lives of individuals.“Finances are a critical aspect of the school…it is the bloodline of the school” 

The schools must convert the financial resources to accomplish and achieve an output that is of benefit to all children… must translate into value for money.Revenue is “based on the number of kids and amount charged per kid.

Schools do not want to be dependent on revenue sources that are outside
of control.Need revenue that gives visibility of future revenue.

Revenue is based on the school’s reputation as this will affect all stakeholders. its a long term commitment in a cyclical order.

Sustainability Model

If we follow the above model of course the expenses will be covered as well as it will have a exponential growth.

From the existing system we want to go for the scaling and skilling of the project. If we get the funds we will follow the management strategy for expansion of programme like 

1. Planning actions to increase the scalability of the innovation.
2. Increasing the capacity of the user organization to implement scaling up
3. Assessing the environment and planning actions to increase the potential for scaling-up.
4. Increasing the capacity of the resource team to support scaling up 
5. Making strategic choices to support vertical scaling up (institutionalization) 
6. Determining the role of diversification 

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We have the plan to partner with "Mindspark"  and other central government organization if we receive the fund we can make the partnership as service provider agency.  

AI is in our thought process of our progrmmae and due to the big investment we are planning to proceed for the AI as we find that this is important for young people. It is most interesting to see how curious children really are. In their world, robots and machines are already part of their daily life. children can express their desire to learn how to program and operate the robots or the computer. AI for Kids is to develop interest and understanding of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning concepts in our school children. The interactive and hands-on curriculum, which has to be specially designed  to guide the children to ultimately develop their own AI-centric solutions.Hence If we get the prize money for the AI, we will move with the above mentioned concept in the large scale where it will applicable for world wide.

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