Preschool education (or infant education) is the provision of learning to children before the commencement of statutory and obligatory education, usually between the ages of zero and three or five, depending on the jurisdiction.
In the United Kingdom nursery school (or 'playgroup') is the form of preschool education. In the United States the terms 'preschool' and 'Pre-K' are used, while "nursery school" is an older term.
Preschool work is organized within a framework that professional educators create. The framework includes structural (administration, class size, student–teacher ratio, services, etc.), process (quality of classroom environments, teacher-child interactions, etc.), and alignment (standards, curriculum, assessments) components that are associated with each individual unique child that has both social and academic outcomes. At each age band, an appropriate curriculum should be followed. For example, it would be normal to teach a child how to count to 10 after the age of four. Arguably the first pre-school institution was opened in 1816 by Robert Owen in New Lanark, Scotland. The Hungarian countess Theresa Brunszvik followed in 1828. In 1837, Friedrich Frobel opened one in Germany, coining the term "kindergarten".
