From Our Founder

In 2002, I came back to Sri Lanka on a long break — a mother of two young children, full of hope, looking for a preschool.

What I found broke my heart a little.

Classrooms full of tiny children — silent, still, and fearful. No movement. No laughter. No wonder. Children who had already learned, at two and three years old, that their job was to comply. Educators who were distant and stern. A system that measured a child's success by how quietly they could sit.

I stood in those doorways and thought, There is no way my children are walking into this.

And so, on January 3rd, 2003, I opened the doors of The American Preschool.

Not as a business. As a mother's answer to a question nobody else was asking.

I had spent years studying and teaching in California—learning, observing, and falling deeper in love with the science and the soul of early childhood. I had seen what was possible when a child was truly free. Free to explore, to question, to make a mess, to figure something out in their own way and in their own time. I had watched children light up when they were trusted. And I had watched that light go out when they were not.

I came home carrying that knowledge and an absolute conviction that our children in Sri Lanka deserved the same.

Twenty-three years later, that conviction hasn't moved an inch.

At APS, the child is at the center of everything—always has been, always will be. Every space we design, every routine we build, every educator we train, every decision we make begins and ends with one question: what does this child need?

Our EduPlay curriculum was born from that question. Drawing from the richest principles in early childhood education, it is designed to stimulate and gently challenge every dimension of who your child is — cognitively, socially, emotionally, creatively, and physically. We want children who think deeply, question freely, reason with confidence, and discover with joy. We want them to learn how to be with other people—how to collaborate, how to empathize, how to disagree, and how to come back together again. And we want all of this to feel, to your child, like the best day they have ever had. Because at APS, it is play that teaches — purposeful, rich, joyful play that builds the whole human being.

But we have always known that a child cannot truly flourish if the adults in their life are not aligned. The most powerful gift you can give a young child is the experience of home and school speaking the same language—of the grown-ups in their world working as one, seeing them as one, and believing in them as one.

This is why partnership with our families is not a policy at APS. It is a practice. It is a daily, living, breathing part of who we are. We welcome you into our classrooms. We invite you into our conversations. We want to know your child the way you know your child, and we want you to feel, from the very first day, that this is a place where your family belongs.

Because here is what twenty-three years has taught me: the children who thrive are the ones who feel held from every direction. By their educators. By their parents. By the community that forms, quietly and warmly, around them.

The children who have grown up at APS go on to excel in Colombo's most respected primary schools, and schools tell us, again and again, that our children stand apart. Not just for what they know, but for who they are. Confident. Curious. Kind. Resilient. Able to think for themselves and care for others at the same time. That is not an accident. That is twenty-three years of believing in every child before the world has had a chance to.

If you are reading this and wondering whether APS is the right place for your little one, I understand that feeling. Choosing a preschool is one of the most tender decisions you will ever make. You are trusting someone with the most precious years of your child's life.

Please come and visit us. Sit with us for a little while. Watch the children move through their day, the noise and the quiet, and the concentration and the laughter. Let your child lead you. And if it feels right, the way good things always do, we would be honored to walk this journey with you.

With all my love and belief in every child,

Mrs. Ramona Pulle

Founder, The American Preschool

Message from Our Founder