We started because preschool was too quiet.

Lucy Shaw opened the first Shaws campus in 1989 with a straightforward conviction: children learn more from doing than from being told. It was the first play-based preschool in Singapore, and it is still run on the same idea.

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1989Founded by Lucy Shaw

15,500+Children taught since

5Campuses in Singapore

18 monthsYoungest age we take

Our approach

Lessons that don’t feel like lessons

In 1989, most preschools in Singapore ran on worksheets and repetition. We built the opposite: a school where children are asked to explore a topic, work it out in a group, get it wrong and try again.

That approach became the ShawsPlay curriculum — inquiry-based learning wrapped inside genuine play. Children come out of it academically prepared for primary school, and, just as importantly, willing to have a go at things.

See how the curriculum is built

Our history

Thirty-seven years, three turning points

An archival photograph of the original Shaws Preschool

1989

Where it all began

Lucy Shaw opens the Mountbatten campus — the first preschool in Singapore to make purposeful play the teaching method rather than the break between lessons.

Sport

Sport becomes part of the timetable

Shaws was the first preschool here to make sport and outdoor play a regular, timetabled part of the curriculum. Today Shaws Little League coaches run sessions twice a week at every campus.

2017

Expanding into Serangoon

The Lorong Chuan campus opens, joining Braddell Heights and the East Coast schools. Between them, the five campuses have now nurtured more than 15,500 children.

Mission & values