Selection of Preschools- Dos and Don'ts

When we embark on the journey to hunt for preschool, we have quite a couple of checklist.

Our first school which we visited was in orchard. I brought along my parents-in-law, hubby and 18mth old boy along. Everything from the environment to lesson was perfectly fine except distance. Travelling from our home at Sengkang to Orchard is no joke for a 18 mth old baby, let alone feeling secure at the idea of letting him travel on the road via school bus. We dropped off the school because of the journey and safety. Of course, we went back to the school again when my boy turns 2.5 years old as this school was my ideal Montessori school which I have no regrets in sending my boy to.

The next school we visited was a private school that was located in the heartlands. Distance is not the issue anymore. However, my hubby was concerned about the safety measures especially when there were staircases leading to a 3-storey high classroom. For me, I was disappointed that majority of the Montessori learning materials are hidden or kept away from the tiny hands. I have always feel that it is a priviledge for young children to learn through activating as much sense as possible. This school is obviously too concerned about safekeeping their priceless Montessori materials than to stimulate the learning experiences of the children. Based on these 2 criteria on safety and learning environment, we crossed out this school from our list.

Schools that did not pick up my calls or answer my emails are crossed out of my list. Communcation is one of my utmost concerns when it comes to school selection. If a parent needs to contact the school urgently and yet no one picks up a ringing phone, this is definitely a big no-no for me. Furthermore, I’ll be worried sick if there is no one to tend to my call when emergency arises.

There was another school near my neighbourhood which I have permanently erased from my list. The visit proved to be most uncomfortable as I was not allowed to walk around the campus. I could only peek in from the entrance of the office to learn about the learning culture. Furthermore the person-in-charge was conversing with me at the entrance, without offering me a seat. In fact there was no sofa or chair around and I had to stand a solid 30min to learn about the school culture and environment. When some other parents came into the school, there was no one to tend to them so these poor parents had to wait impatiently for my conversation to end with the staff-in-charge. Customer satisfaction is definitely not their priority. The culture is too restrictive for my comfort too. Before this visit, I have contacted the other branches via text messages as requested by the school on their website. Till today I had no response from them. This lack of transparency and communication from the school has sure made me withdraw any plans to place my son in this school.

The  school which we finally settled for was just a 10min walk from my home. Though the school looked old and needed a good renovation, my son was enjoying his trial lesson under the tender, loving care of the playgroup teachers. He was happily navigating himself around the campus and joining in the activities with the existing students. It was then decided that the school is by far the best choice. Being in a cosy, safe and enjoyable environment, we are more rest assured in the school’s competency in offering the best experiences to any child who has yet to embark in their nursery education.  

When our boy turned 2.5 years old, we switched him to the school that was located in Orchard. Our expectations of an early child education had changed from being fun to more academic and lifeskills oriented. That is where our son picked up his language and potty training under the guidance of strict yet dedicated teachers and principal of this school. As parents, we are deeply impressed with the cognitive and holistic development of our child when he attended this school. The weekly communication between the teachers and parents, the semesterly based parent-teacher meeting, the fortnight excursion for the children and authentic Montessori learning environment plus the multiple ethnic groups in this school greatly assured us of a rounded education for our son in his nursery to kindergarten years.

 

As parents when it comes to selecting your child’s preschool, taking the time to visit, tour, observe and ask questions are vital ingredients to ensuring the success of your child’s education. Shortlist schools of your choice and contact them for trial lessons. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. The more you learn about the school, the wiser the decision in selecting the preschool. Remember, there’s never an easy way out if you want quality yet affordable education for your child. All the best hunting!

Selection of Preschool

Preschool hunting like primary school hunting is part and parcel of the parenting woe. Building a strong foundation at a very young age provides a better head start, spearheads a holistical development of a child’s character and most importantly, unlocks his potential be it from cognitive to non-academic, which in turn will develop in him into a champion in any field of his interest.  

Upholding this belief firmly, my husband and I decide to send our boy to a school of substantial quality.  My husband and I have visited numerous childcare centers and Montessori schools in our neighbourhood. We even travelled to Bedok and Orchard to look at authentic Montessori schools. We finally decided on our final two.

At the age of 20^th mth, Issac attended playgroup at a nearby Montessori school. This curriculum is not completely Montessori based. The school incorporate other learning methods to teach their students. For a start, the duration of 3.5 hours was just right. The lesson started off with circle time, physical activity to Montessori time and ended off with lunch. All the parent-teacher conference enabled us to have greater awareness of his learning and development milestones. It was all fun till we realized our son was bored with school and showed little interest in attending his school this year in February 2012. We realized he was assigned to a smaller class whereby the students could not really focus and sit still. The friends, whom he used to hang out with were attending lessons separately. It was sad having to part with the school and playgroup teachers but guess it was time to move on.

On April 2012, Issac boarded the first school bus to Orchard Road for his lesson in his new school. It was a horribly long trip of 1.5 hours ride from Sengkang to Alexandra and finally to Orchard as it was showering heavily that morning. The teacher did a diagnostic test on his language and phonics awareness. There were a lot of songs with movement, stories and hands on session with the Montessori materials. It was a really enriching lesson as the children are constantly occupied in their tasks. The session ends off with a 30min mini-gym lesson with lots of free play and expression. By 12.30pm, all the children were famished and gobbled down their lunch hungarily. What really impressed me is the random seating arrangement of the children from different age group and level? One gal was sharing with me about the day of the week which her birthday fell on. The other children of different level quickly joined in this birthday “day” discussion. My boy got so inspired that he recited “Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday”. I was caught off-guard by his ability to do so. In fact, I was impressed with the students’ ability to generate interest and discussion among different age groups and ability. Nevertheless, the day ended really well for both of us.

He has settled down in his new environment really fast and we are thrilled to see him off in his school bus every morning. When he turned 3 in July, he was promoted to the workgroup which is nursery level. At this age, Issac’s speech development has gained unprecedented pace . He started forming sentences and asking more questions. Even his Mother Tongue, Mandarin, takes a different turn for the better. To me as a parent and teacher, the child’s eagerness to know, learn and ask is the greatest gift of all. Never undermine a child’s potential and ability to absorb information and apply them.

The general guide for choosing school is to physically go and visit the school. Tour around the campus, talk to the staff and teachers, observe the student's enthuasism in the class, get involved by opting a trial class. If the school culture fits your value and beliefs, most probably your hunt will be over soon.

Objectives of Setting Up This Blog

The primary objective is to record the milestones of all the developments in my son’s life. With every step that he takes in his life, we as parents treasure every single moment of being with him. Hopefully, by the time he learns his words and masters a certain degree of comprehension skill; he will appreciate this blog that will send him on a trip down memory lane, enlighting him on parts of his childhood memories from silly to glorious events.

Additionally, this blog serves as a platform for me to share and even discuss ideas and approaches in nurturing the interest and knowledge of our children in learning. Being a parent, somemore a kiasu one with limitations in budget, we are constantly challenged to seek out the most effective yet realistic ways and approaches to enable our children to maximum their potential in learning especially in the academic arena. No matter what, we as parents do want to bring out the best from our children with good intentions.

Issac Chan, My Son

The name Issac was picked my son before he was born. My husband and I do not know the gender of our child during the first 4 months of my pregnancy. We decided to try the name Genevieve and Issac  with our preborn baby and he responded to the name Issac  several  times. We have been calling our baby Issac ever since regardless of the gender.

He arrived at the most unexpected period-my last day of work and the day my hubby contracted high fever during the H1N1 season in 2009. A smooth and quick delivery for me! Our pair of families were in deep shock with the arrival of our premature baby at 37^th weeks. Now he is tall and athletic built for his age of 2 years old. His sport coach refused to believe he is just 2 year +.

Being a jovial and outgoing child, he never fails to win smiles from his grandparents to even our neighbours. Our neighbours like him so much that they even bought him an Ikea arm chair. However, he gets really lonely for being our only child. He enjoys the companion of peers and family members tremendously. He looks forward to his school as there are a lot of music and interaction time with his peers. We never regret our decision to put him in preschool at such early age-20mth old.

Once he turns two, he amazes us with his ability to recite the numbers from 0 to 10. He simply loves singing rhythms in English and Chinese with us.  At his 27^th mth, he starts singing the complete alphabet song and counts his numbers backwards. It is weird that learning can take place at such unprecedented rate for a young child that you will never know what he will surprise us with. His favourite number is 5 as that is one of the digit of our flat unit number. That’s definitely in our checklist of items to bring when we pack his school bag or outing bag.

When he turns three, he is already reciting multiples of two till 10 during one of his playtime. As usual I play our usually game of completing the sentence for each other, in this case Issac has to identify the next consecutive number after hearing the number that I call out each out at random. This set of numbers is restricted to 10. One day, I decided to test if he knows his 11 to 20. Impressively, he was able to gather the momentum of reciting up to 40. He was able to identify the pages randomly picked from his storybooks correctly. That’s where I have decided to put him in abacus class to strengthen his numerical sense.

Welcome to my world of nurturing and cultivate the love for learning site.

A Brief Intro of Myself
I was an ex-secondary school teacher for 5 years and been in the private sector working for a dot.com company and an integrated communication and advertising firm for a couple of years. My most memorable days are during my education service. I was priviledged to work with talented colleagues who are either designated for promotion into upper management or attained the Presidential Award for Teachers. Though we have all parted to seek our endevours, the experience with them has highly shaped the way I look at my career, family and life.

Over the years, I realize teaching is still an integral part of my life as I love to teach and shape the hearts and minds of the next generation. Currently I am a full-time tutor and have students from Kindergarten to O-level. I have been tutoring since my University days as I have always enjoyed teaching and aspired to be a teacher after I graduated from the University. I have switched to being self-employed now as I need to have time for my family especially my little one, Issac who is currently in his three years old.


Being an educator, I believe in setting the right foundation for a child can do wonders for not only his confidence, later he will develop the right attributes to learn and move on to be independent. As a firm believer of teaching methodologies that work, I adhere closely to the Montessori methods in develop and nurture my son's ability and interest. I also adopt the Multiple Intelligence approach since I tutored students  of varied abilities and skills. While we may consistenctly hunt for the best formula that work to bring out the best in our child, we must be mindful that one's success in his/her method with his/her children may not necessarily work for others. So parents and teachers, keeping an open mind is essential to unlocking your child's potential.