The unique environment at COSMOTOTS has been carefully crafted in order to help students realise their full potentials. We take great pains to ensure that all the elements that make up COSMOTOTS work together to this end.
- It is okay to make mistakes.
- All classes are as interactive as possible. Students are encouraged to talk.
- Our system allows each student to progress at his or her own learning pace. Therefore, no individual student is restricted to the same classmates and the same mentor for a whole year. If a child proves capable enough, we will move him or her up to the next level.
- We do not have a rigid pre-prepared syllabus. As far as possible, we continuously adjust our course contents to answer to the needs of each class and of each student.
- Our programmes are thus constantly updated to become more effective and to reflect our students’ interests.
- We concentrate on the process of learning rather than on mere results.
- The management oversees a system where no mentor works alone.
- We coordinate mentor teams such that each class receives the best in terms of skill, experience, knowledge, and enthusiasm.
- The management also ensures the continuity and smoothness in transition when a student moves from one level to the next.
Since each mentor works in a team within the COSMOTOTS system, an individual mentor’s role is ultimately less important than that of a teacher’s in a mainstream establishment. However, we still have the highest of expectations for our mentors:
- Mentors must be warm and understanding. There is no space here for harsh schoolmarm types.
- Mentors must be organised. Performances in the classroom must never be unplanned or slipshod.
- Mentors themselves must take pleasure in learning. They must be intellectually alive before they can even hope to stimulate a class.
- Mentors must have a sense of fun.