Horizontal and vertical groups within childcare: what’s best for your child?

The difference between horizontal and vertical groups

In horizontal groups, children are placed with other children of a similar age. Take Kindergarden for instance, where we have separate groups for babies, infants, and toddlers. By contrast, in vertical groups children of different ages are placed together in a group, with ages ranging from zero to four years.

This means that if your child attends childcare that places children in horizontal groups, they develop alongside children who are at the same developmental stage, whereas if the childcare offers vertical groups, for four years your child develops alongside children of different ages. As you’d expect, both these group structures have their own distinctive features.

Which group structure is best for your child?

Both horizontal and vertical groups have their own advantages within a childcare organization. Within vertical groups, when your child is young, they learn from older children and when they’re older, they can learn to take younger children into account. It also makes it easier to place siblings together. In horizontal groups, your child is able to play with more children of their own age. Childcare staff members also have in-depth knowledge of child development in a particular age group.

Making the right choice depends on various factors including your child’s age and developmental stage, although the childcare organization’s childcare vision and the available resources, space, and design of group rooms are also key factors.

What are the advantages of horizontal groups?

Why do we use horizontal groups for our childcare at Kindergarden? In our view, each developmental stage of a child requires a different approach. That’s the reason we organize the groups at Kindergarden according to age and use horizontal groups: baby, infant, and toddler groups. There are various advantages to this approach:

• Age-appropriate activities: In horizontal groups all the children are of a similar age, making it easier to organize activities that are appropriate for their developmental stage. This results in children being more involved in the activities and enjoying them more.

• Design of group rooms: At Kindergarden, our interior, furniture, and play equipment are all aligned to the developmental stage of the children in the group. This creates an optimal balance between rest, routine, and challenge.

• The same daily routine: The children are all at the same stage of life. This makes it easy for us to maintain the same daily routine and offer the children both rest and challenge in the right way and at the right time.

• Developing social skills: Horizontal groups offer your child the opportunity to play and communicate with children of the same age and who are at a similar stage of development. The children can then learn from each other, and there is more balance and equality in their interaction and play. For instance, when sharing toys or working together.

• Responding to needs: Horizontal groups enable us to tailor our childcare policy and our activities to the children’s needs. Our childcare staff members can also focus better on developmental goals that are a match for your child’s age.

• Shared experiences: Children in horizontal groups generally reach developmental milestones at the same time. This means there are fewer major differences between the children and they enjoy shared experiences, which can really help create a sense of belonging within the group.
  
  

In practice, this all means that horizontal groups enable childcare professionals to respond effectively to all the children’s needs and development levels. For example, a childcare staff member can ensure that babies in a baby group get the right amount of rest and structure in their daily routine. If your child is older, horizontal groups help foster an environment in which your child is more likely to make friends. Horizontal groups also enable us to be more effective in stimulating and developing children’s motor and cognitive skills, including through climbing, or doing puzzles or sorting tasks.