Comini Newsletter: December 2025
Moving (barely) to the finish line
Hello!
Welcome to the last newsletter of 2025! We’re running on fumes right now and really looking forward to the break—to catch our breath for a bit and come back stronger, fitter, and faster for the second half of our academic year.
2025 was quite the year for Comini. As we grow in numbers, we also have to grow in depth and expertise to make sure we’re doing right by all the kids we work with. We started Comini because we wanted a better education for our kids, and one thing we’ve realized is that for it to be truly better, we have to build everything afresh from scratch: curriculum, pedagogy, hiring, training, technology, meals. Even the way we celebrate each occasion, even if it happens every year. While it’s a lot, Sai and I are convinced this is truly the only way to get it right.
What this means is that we are juggling several pieces at once. That’s simply what it takes to build Comini the way we want to. This also means we don’t have established systems, approaches, or labels to fall back on. As painstaking as it sometimes gets, it is also fundamental to what we’re building, and a very conscious choice we are making. More than sympathy or concern, what we really need is literal and figurative support in making Comini a truly great school for our kids.
Intrinsically linked to this is parents’ understanding of what we’re building and why. We have been talking about how we believe that parents play an integral role in educating children. Fundamental to that is also understanding and believing in the Comini approach. We know we share a lot of reading material (and there’s more here!). We are actively working towards making it more playful, purposeful, and personalized, just like we do with learning with our kids. But it deserves to be said out loud that being a Comini parent is going to take a fair amount of learning and unlearning on your part.
If we are not aligned on at least the fundamentals, which are outlined in the Comini Playbook, it can become the basis for all sorts of friction we’d like to avoid. We constantly maintain that Comini is an alternative school in every sense of the word, and quite literally an alternative to the options for education available. That does not make it the best fit for every family, because hopes, aspirations, and value systems differ so wildly (as they should!). But clarity about those hopes, aspirations, and value systems really helps—for both families and the school.
The month that was
We are now generating activity observations along with overall monthly cohort summaries on the app. Please check them out.
The playschool explored the theme What we do with our bodies while the microschool explored Make it Move. You can find details of the theme and what we had planned for the month in our November Primers here
Navigating social dynamics
At both the playschool and microschool, the kids are getting older and expanding their sense of self, and of what they perceive of the world around them. This brings with it changes in social dynamics and we had some of it play quite intensely over the last couple of weeks at both the playschool and microschool. We put together a short guide for both parents and facilitators here which also includes a conversation guide for parents in case you realize your child is the one being unkind. In keeping with our goal of making these as accessible as possible, we are experimenting with visual (included here) and audio-visual versions (coming soon).
We must add this though. One of the joys of being a small school is that we’ve spent real time with every child. And we can say with confidence: this is a bright, kind group of kids. Bad days happen. Everyone needs guidance when things go awry. That’s true for all of us, kids included.
Playful practice
As part of working on the full stack of schooling (philosophy, pedagogy, process, practice), we also create games for playful practice. There's good and bad screen time, and we think constructive games can really aid learning and exploration. Here's one for foundational reading (Android and iOS) and one for foundational maths (Android only for now). Both are early versions, so please have your kids give them a spin and share feedback. There’s good and bad screen time, and we think that constructive games can really aid learning and exploration.
Lunch
The bane of our operational existence :) After much deliberation, we’ve decided to go back to daily lunches cooked out of our house (for now), with a dedicated Comini cook managing things end to end. A big thank-you to Roxane who has kindly helped organise the menu and coordination until it becomes self-sustaining. We would still like to explore some meals with Mem so we’re trying to figure out if we can do specific days (with his blessings) to include his fantastic menu into the mix
FleaPlay
We are working towards 17th January as the date we’ll organize FleaPlay but we don’t yet have confirmation from our preferred venue, DPRC. Hopefully something will turn up and we can proceed per plan
That is it for now folks. Thank you for all your support and love. We cannot be more grateful that we get to do what we do.
Priyanka and Sai