Hey parents, I have been a Planet Sparks parent for around 5 months now. I thought of sharing some genuine insights into Planet spark to help others.
My Requirements:
Every parent has different needs, so let me start with what was I looking for. My son is 11 years old and he goes to a good public school in Ghaziabad. However, I found the school to be least concerned about my son. He was very shy and underconfident. His English teachers mainly focussed on grammar and essay writing. I did not want him to remain like this and stagnate in his IT carier or any other field when he grows up.
So I did google search on different ways of improving his personality. I dont know how genius their marketing team is but I started seeing their video from the next day. So I booked a demo class and asked my wife to attend. The feedback was good and it seemed that they have interesting methods.
As IT engineers, we feel that people at our office did well when they had good comm skills. Though I went to DPS I still hestitate when I have to talk to my managers or clients in US. We did not want our son to suffer. So we enrolled in a 2 year program with them.
Teacher Review:
Our demo teacher was excellent. She was from Calcutta and spoke very good English. However, at the very last moment, there was a slotting issue and we were assigned a new Teacher.
I was very skeptical about this teacher change. Why did they not take a slot from the very beginning. Anyway since there was no other good option available in the market, I decide to take a shot.
The new teacher turned out to be very good. While her English was not as good as the Bengali teacher, she was very energetic and had good body language and she was genuinely interested in teaching. She also told us that she received a lot of training at PlanetSpark. Despite having 11 years of experience, she was forced to redo everything, which for me was good.
We likes our experience with the teacher. Firstly, she is trained to not put pressure on my son. She encourages and motivates him. The other day, when he recorded his speech on air pollution, she sent him an appreciation note hand writted(send through Whatsapp ofcourse).
Second good quality is that she keeps us infored about preogress and how we should help our son. She says that this is a "joint project". To this I thought why have we given so much money if it was joint project but my wife agrees that it is a joint project, so I had to also eventually agree;) Jokes apart, what I mean is that the teacher will give us tips to follow at home also. For example, on Holi, she asked us to tell our son about organic colours and then she made him speak on that.
One good thing they have is SMS after every class so I know my child has attended or not.
Curriculum:
I really liked the variety of the curriculum. These are things that arent taught in any school. It is nicely organized and is very detailed. I secretly hoped that this was done at school only.
I was not sure if I wanted topics like Youtubing in the curriculum. But when the classes began, I realized that YouTubing is just another way to learn to speak. I realized that it is not important that my child becomes Bhuvam Bham type but he just learns how to think and speak.So from that perspective, I think the curriculum was good.
In short, the curriculum game my child good exposure which my school can never give. So overall, I will give 4 stars to the curriculum.
Content
The class content is very detailed. I sat in some of the classes but the most of the information is from my wife. Sometimes, that much detail or high funda is not required also. Also, their design of the slides is not good. There are formatting issues and images could have been of higher quality.
But coming to activities and concepts - they are good. Some activities are really good and enjoable. The days my wife hears loud souds coming from the class, it is days when the activities are enjoyable. This was important criteria for us as our son doesnt sit at one place. God know how we managed in covid.
Their methods taught are good. We did not find them in text books. I had earlier tried following Youtube channels to teach him but than consistency in doing this is very tough. So we are happy that these methods are taught in a structured method.
Platform:
The design of the platform is complex and the look and feel is not very good. I was expecting better design. Maybe, it is the techie in me speaking. They should look at Cred and others how they are doing good design.
Navigating on the platform is not very simple, but after some time you get used to it.
The cool thing I found was a facebook type timeline where we can post videos and see other vidoes. For the first 2 months my son did not create any video but finally after creating one, he was very motivated to make more.
They also have many things like games, SparkX, blog creating tool etc. Honestly, the stuff there is a lot. It creates pressure on us that we are not using all features. I was toild by the teacher that we can feel free to use what we want. She said that some kids liked the Spark Diary feature, some kids like games and some kids like SparkX. So it is up to our child to choose. I wanted to choose Spark Diary but my son chose SparkX. Damn!
Their app is better than website but features are limited.
Impact on my son:
I think impact was not visible for the first two months. After that I think my son started coming to me to share some speech or something. For me that was a good sign. In PTM meeting school also his teacher told us that he was now giving answers in class.
One more thing that is good is that he participated in one competetion in school. This was the first time he did this. He did not win but I think it was good for confidence.
I think his turnaround happened after he gave a good performance. So, I am satisfied that it has made some difference. I think confidence is the key and that is what these people work on. However, I think he would need to complete full 2 years for us to see a complete change but early results are good.
We also see it like this - if we had not admitted on our child in PlanetSpark then no one would have done any hard work on this aspect. and then when he would have become 13, then it would be even more late.
Value for money:
It is not a cheap program. Also, the duration is long, so you need to commit for a long time. But generally if you need personal tutor, it will be expensive. I felt that long term committment to the growth of our child is necessary. Like we put him in Guitar classes at the age of 8 against the advice of people. However, now he is really good at it. Had we not taken that long term view then he would have missed out.
As far as our child is concerned, we think that if the results are achieved, then the value will be very high. From initial signs it seems that he is on the right track. I will update this in 6 months from now and if(fingers crossed) there is more improvement, then I think there will definitely be value for money.
So, surrently, my rating for value for money will be 4 but if there is more improvement as promised, then I will relook.
My final Summary:
Pros:
Good teachers that are trained well by the insti
Curriculum is detailed
Content has good activities
You can see change to start in 3-4 months
Cons:
Final Word:
If you want to invest in the long term development of your child, go for it. Make sure that you actively encourage and support your child in this journey. A platform is how you make the most of it - so make sure that you use all the offerings and that your child practices.
