Singapore education group MindChamps makes history as the first to attain Patent Status for its breakthrough education methodology in 3 major territories

There are thousands of early education brands across the world, but only one brand, MindChamps, has achieved a historic first by attaining patent status across three territories – the US (Patent No: 11,790,800), UK (Patent No: GB2607416), and Australia (Patent No: 2022202096).

We often hear of patents in the tech and pharmaceutical sectors, however, in education they are extremely rare. Examiners in three different patent offices had to be convinced that this unique education programme's components were novel enough to warrant patents, and, more importantly, they formed key elements of a methodology that was truly a breakthrough approach. The breakthrough in this methodology was its ability to enhance students' interdisciplinary cognition – the brain's capacity to develop understandings (and neural networks) that integrate skills in multiple disciplines simultaneously.

This methodology draws on fundamental concepts shared between five literacies: Numerical, Language, Social, Emotional and Musical, and functions as a bridge and a catalyst to the development of other literacies. In other words, instead of the traditional method of teaching subjects such as numeracy, language and social skills in separate silos, this education programme takes an interdisciplinary approach, developing shared fundamental concepts across numerous subjects which leads to greater understanding.

The programme has already undergone a three-year empirical research study. In the study, the programme demonstrated significant improvements in scores on internationally recognised measures of language literacy (Test of Preschool Early Literacy - ToPEL) and numeracy (Test of Early Mathematics Assessment - TEMA), as well as results in musical literacy that were a remarkable 1.5 standard deviations higher than similar students who did not participate in the programme. These results have attracted the interest of major universities, including the University of South Australia (UniSA), which has already commenced the next phase of study on the programme.

UniSA's esteemed cognitive neuroscience laboratory has conducted controlled field tests at MindChamps PreSchools in Singapore using electroencephalography (EEG) protocols. They anticipate that the research results will greatly enhance the development of learning experiences that engage children, as well as deepen the neuroscience community's understanding of early childhood brain development.

David Chiem, MindChamps Founder, Executive Chairman and Group CEO, said: "From the very beginning to over the last quarter of a century, MindChamps has invested heavily in research, programme development and training in line with our Social Charter to challenge and lift education standards globally. Our vision has always been to integrate the best of global research and practice, and this milestone is a significant validation of our efforts. Nurturing the young minds of tomorrow is both a privilege and huge responsibility, and in an AI world that has changed so much, it is now more important than ever that how we nurture our children's minds must be based on the latest empirical research."