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Looking for a school for your little one in Kemang/Prapanca/Brawijaya/Cipete/Wijaya/Pangpol area? Then why don't you give Nizamia a visit? My son goes there for his last year of Kindergarten/TK B, he spent TK A in Al Azhar Rawamangun, but because we moved house, we decided it was best for him to move to a nearer school. I first heard about this school from my best friend, whose daughter went there a few years earlier. When I went there for a trial, I knew it was the right school for my son as soon I stepped my feet in there. Besides, I found the report on Parents Guide magazine that considered the school as #4 of ten best playgroups and kindergartens in Jakarta, so that kinda sealed the deal.
I have a lot of good things to say about his previous schools, but this one tops it. First, the fact that it is a bilingual school made it a better fit for my son who hardly understood Indonesian at that time. Second, the school is located in a quiet neighborhood, but still close to the main road, and since it's right next to the American Club, it's in a pretty safe surrounding. The building resembles a home, so it's not intimidating at all for the kids. It has a nice colorful decoration, full of kids paintings and artworks, which show that they are proud of their students creation.
Nizamia was established in 2003 by Prof. DR Nurcholish Madjid, the name means united. Andalusia comes from the name of a city in Spain which used to be the center of power in medieval Muslim in 711 for as long as eight centuries. The school also uses Islamic political philosopher as the name of the class such as Avicenna, Averoes, Algazel and Alfarabi. I am one of those people who believe that name has to have good meaning so I like the idea of using great names for inspiration. I can see that they expect big things and prepared the kids to do big things.
What interesting about Nizamia is, even though it is an Islamic school, it also accepts non-Muslim students. In fact, 10% of the students are non-Muslim, which are mostly expatriate. It's comforting to know that your kids school teach you kids the fundamental things of your own believe and at the same time, also teach your kids to embrace diversity and appreciate other religions. They emphasize on universal Islamic values in forming character competency to prepare the kids to be citizens of the world without losing nationality pride.
The curriculum is based on the national curriculum, but they add their own global touch program. They have activities to introduce cultures from other countries, such as throwing an ASEAN week, where each class learns about a particular ASEAN country for the whole week. My son class learned about Thailand, and he was exposed to a lot of things Thailand that week. From the food, the language, the tradition, the dance, the currency, the flag and everything else. The week was closed with a performance from each class, attended by the parents. One time, they had Arabic cultural week and learned about South America.
With all of the International-oriented activities, one would think there's no room for embracing our own heritage. Not the case with Nizamia. The kids learn about Indonesian culture just as much as they learn about global knowledge. I remember they were throwing a traditional week where they ate Indonesian food and played games like Gobak Sodor, Congklak and the like. My two year old went for a trial last month and guess what they did? They made Pisang Ijo from Makassar :D.
Inside the music room, is a full set of Gamelan instrument. I'm happy that my son can play Angklung :) and they perform every now and then. If I'm not mistaken, the principal, Ibu Zahra Fajardini, who graduated from Washington State University wrote a book about the relationship between learning and playing gamelan jawa and emotional quotient on kids. So it's something that they believe have a good impact, not just for the sake of preserving tradition.
Other things I like about the school is, they teach modesty. They ban birthdays if you want to celebrate it in school. The birthday boy/girl is allowed to bring cake and small goody bags, but nothing too fancy. That's about the only rule they force and they are pretty flexible with the other things. Kids don't have to wear black shoes and boys can have long hair if that's what they want. Communication book is well perused in this school where teachers lay out the things they learn that week as well as for important announcement.
Parents are encouraged to be involved with the school activities, and lots of them are involved but not too much that they interfering the system. Lastly, I appreciate the fact that the school pays attention to the nannies. They understand that nanny plays a big role in the day to day operation, so instead of letting them just chitchatting with each other while waiting for the kids, they sometimes hold activities for the nanny. I remember one time was like a workshop on healthy food, child safety, etc. The last one I remember was they gathered the nannies in one room to watch 'Ketika Cinta Bertasbih'. A pretty nice gesture of them, don't you think?
Now it's come down to the tuition fee. I guess I have checked enough school in its class to safely say that it's well-priced. The enrollment fee for the 2 year olds is Rp 5,250,000, Material fee Rp 1,750,000 and monthly fee of Rp 400,000 for three times a week. The enrollment fee is a one time fee, so for the following year we only need to pay for the material fee, although the monthly fee for Kindergarden goes up to Rp 700,000.
A small stage for the kids performance.
Here's a picture of the boys in Jibran's class. They were gathering outside to take pictures for their yearbook. My little one is going to be in elementary school next month. How time flies!
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