Date: 19 February 2016 Friday
After months of researching and visiting different schools at different locations, we finally decided to enroll R at a pre-school near our home. One of the reasons include the convenience for my MIL to send/fetch R from her school when both of us are unavailable. I don’t really like this arrangement since I never like to 麻烦别人… … Another reason for selecting this pre-school is the fees. The fees are reasonable for a Montessori pre-school. However, I do not really like the pre-school very much as I had read many negative reviews online but JR was quite alright with it. It seemed to be an alright school to us after visiting the pre-school a 2nd time, so we proceed with the enrollment in Dec last year.
👍 The pre-school offers a 2 weeks trial for their students â˜ºï¸ and I suggested to JR that it would be good to start with the trial first before committing. The pre-school only introduce a new student to the class every 2 weeks in order to provide the extra attention to the new student. R was scheduled to start school in mid Feb 2016 and so R ended her Sunday Mum & Tot class at Brainy Montessori last weekend.
R working on one of her favourite materials. This is one of the materials she had chosen during her 1st day at Brainy.
Note: This long & wordy post is our personal reviews of the school, based on what we felt or saw during the 2 days when we attended the new school.
15 Feb 2016 Monday – Day 1
The actual school starts at 9 AM and breakfast is served from 8 AM to 8:45 AM (if I remember correctly). We arrived early on the 1st day so R could have breakfast in school. We “checked in” into the school. R’s name is already added to the N1 class register and her attendance was taken by an auntie. 👍 She also did some basic health checks on R to ensure that she is fit to attend school. 👎 No check was done on the parents though.
👍 We were told to leave her bag at the side and someone will carry it up to her class on the 2nd level. We took off our shoes and proceed to the Dining Room at the back of the school for breakfast.
Only about half of the Dining Room was filled with students, i.e. not many students choose to have breakfast in school. Guess what was provided for breakfast? 👎 A small plate of cornflakes with a slightly less than 1/2 filled cup of Milo was given to R when we came into the room. I tried some of the cornflakes and found them to be soft (æ¼é£Ž). No wonder breakfast in school is unpopular with the students.
JR left us for work, leaving R to me alone on her 1st day of pre-school.
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At about 9 AM, Ms G, R’s teacher, gathered all her N1 students from the Dining Room and led us up to the 3rd level for morning assembly. All students are supposed to assemble in the Assembly Room every morning. We sang the National Anthem, said the pledge and sang the school song. There was also a monthly certificate ceremony before the students were dismissed to their respective classes. R was very excited about her new school and ran all over the room during the morning assembly. It was quite hilarious and embarrassing to see her standing in front of the room trying to figure out what was going on.
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N1 students were brought down to their classroom on the 2nd level at about 9:20 AM. 👍 When we entered the class, I noticed that the students’ bags were all put away neater into pigeon holes in a corner and their water bottles, milk formula were placed neatly into different trays at the sides.
👎 I was told by Ms G, to follow R closely on her first day of pre-school. Shouldn’t it be her responsibility to pay extra attention to R and give me the assurance that she is in their good hands?
Ms G started the day by having Water Time (getting the students to drink water from their bottles), Story Time and Physical Exercise Time. After completing the above basic activities, she started Montessori Time. Each student was given a mat for placing the Montessori materials. Everyone is expected to work on the material individually. As R was not new to the Montessori materials, she found what she like and started to work on them.
👎 Neither Ms G nor her teaching assistant, Irene, came to us to give us any introduction on the pre-school’s curriculum / Montessori program. None of them approach us to see if we need any assistance to the materials or did I need any help with R.
The time given to work on the Montessori materials was much longer than what R had at Brainy. As a result, R was bored after some time and went around disturbing other classmates. R tried to snatch over a material from one of her new friends and Ms G had to step in to stop the fight. Sorry new friend!
While the students were all required to work on their own materials, Ms G was actually going around the class “testing” each student on one of the materials that she had selected for the day. 👎 Irene was going around the room comforting crying students. I wondered why there were so many of them crying… This is not a good sign.
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It was LUNCH Time next, at 10:30 AM! That’s quite early for lunch. The class was back to the dining room on level 1. 👍 Prior to lunch, each student was told to wash his / her hands. Porridge was served today. The portion looked kind of small, which might be just enough for each student. R ate her porridge herself and commented that it was yummy. I got a little over emotional to see my girl feeding herself. I felt very bad that I had to “dump” her at a full day child care centre…
The students were given 2 slices of apples each when they finished the porridge. R was a bit slower and her friends were already having apples when she had yet to finish her porridge. When she saw the apples, she didn’t want her porridge any more and took the apples from her classmates! 👎 Ms G didn’t stop her or replenish the apples to them.
When everyone was almost done with lunch, Ms G took out 2 rows of Yakult and began to distribute them according to a list she was holding on. R fought for her attention to get her Yakult. 👎 It was then I realised that Yakult was not part of the meal provided by the school! It has to be preordered by the parents. We had missed the current order period, i.e. there will not be any Yukult for R until the next order period for April to June! Luckily for us, 1 student was away and Ms G gave R a bottle for free. I couldn’t imagine R not getting her Yukult share.
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After lunch, the students were made to wash their hands again. They took a short walk to the garden to water the plants before heading back to their classroom. 👍 Ms G made used of her “Magic Box” (multi-sensory learning) to teach the class on plant leaves. After the short session, she sang songs with the students while waiting for their Chinese teacher to take over the class.
陈è€å¸ˆ came into the class hurriedly for Chinese lessons at about 11:30 AM. She plugged her iPhone into her speakers and started to sing songs together with the students. 👎 At the same time, Ms G and Irene started to bathe the students 1 at a time while the Chinese class was on, which means that the bathing student will miss part of the Chinese lesson.
We were informed during the school tour that the teachers will bathe the girls first then the boys. It was not true! 👎 Though the students were bathed 1 by 1, there is no separation of genders during the bathing time. Ms G could be bathing a boy and Irene bathing a girl at the same time.
👎 Anyway, Irene failed to bathe R. She struggled too much and Irene gave up on her after a couple of minutes. I even had to help Irene with dressing R after the failed shower.
When R & I rejoined the class, 陈è€å¸ˆ was using an iPad to teach the class. 👎 This is totally unacceptable! Despite using an iPad, 陈è€å¸ˆ was unable to get R’s attention. Chinese lesson ended at about 12 PM and just like how she came, 陈è€å¸ˆ left the room in a rush for her next class.
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I stepped out of the classroom for just 5-10 minutes to have lunch. Before I left, R ran to me and indicated that she was hungry. As she would be having her milk soon, I told her to wait for me and left.
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The half-day students had left the school and the remaining students were having their milk when I came back into the classroom. R was running around without her milk. Ms G asked me for her cup / bottle which I didn’t have one prepared (it was not on the list of items to bring). I recalled being told during the school tour that students were to drink milk from the cups provided by the school so the students could learn to give up their bottles. 👎 It was another untrue information I got from the school tour! Most of the N1 students are still during from their bottles!
We gave R her milk in a cup, which she rejected. We had no choice but to let her continue the day without her milk.
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Everyone was brought up to the Assembly Room once again at 12:30 PM for Nap Time. The teachers helped the students with the mattress covers and started to pat the students to sleep. R was very active and kept running up and down disturbing others. Ms G suggested that we move R to another room. After about 30-45 minutes, we decided to leave the room so the others could get their naps.
We were brought down to the office on level1 but were chased to the Playgroup classroom by the Principal. 👎 The Principal kept telling me to consider bringing R home for the day but I wanted to try to make her sleep so she could attend the afternoon session later. I fed R with some of cookies that I had brought. She finally fell asleep on my arm at 2:15 PM.
Nap Time was up to 3 PM and I had to wake R up reluctantly. We were told by the Principal to remain where we where and wait for R’s class to come down for Tea Break. After about 15 minutes, we went to check the Dining Room and realised that Tea Break for N1 is at 3:15 PM! We went up to the classroom and Ms G told her that the Principal wanted us to wait downstairs so we didn’t have to walk up and down. HUH??? 👎 Told us to wait downstairs for 30 minutes because she didn’t want us to walk up and down?
R did a puzzle twice with the remaining 10 minutes before Tea Break ☕ï¸. She could have done more if we came up earlier.
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Each student was given a small sandwich for tea.
👎 The OCD me couldn’t help to notice that the table was dirty!
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It was Arts & Craft Time after tea and students gathered around the table for leaves printing ☘. A student was called at a time to do the printing while the rest watch… As expected, R lose her patience to wait for each of her classmates to complete their craft work.
After everyone had completed the craft work, Irene lay a big mat in the middle of the classroom and placed some big foam blocks on it. Students were to play with them until 5 PM before going home. Ms G had 2 students at the table with her and she taught / guided them to work on their activity book on alphabets, numbers, etc… I am guessing that she teaches the students individually everyday.
R was bored with the foam blocks after a while and started running around the room, disturbing Ms G and the 2 students. 👎 Ms G asked me how to control R and also told me to stop her from running around the class! I really have no idea how to stop R. Maybe she should tell me how she normally handle active students.
It was also time for all students to pack up and proceed to level 1 to wait for their parents to pick them up. 👎 It was already end of the day and I am still very confused if this is the right school for R. None of the teachers had talked to me on R’s progress on her 1st day of school and I am quite worried about leaving R here with them now.
JR came to pick us up at 5 PM sharp! I had been complaining to him via SMS for the whole day. He was also feeling very upset and decided to take urgent leave the next day to accompany R so he could also assess the school himself.
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16 Feb 2016 Tuesday – Day 2 (Summarized)
👍 JR attended school with R on the 2nd day. According to JR, morning assembly was the same as Day 1 but R managed to sit still throughout the whole session 😅.
👎 Similarly, R was unable to work on her own materials throughout the Montessori Time and went around the classroom disturbing others. There was slight improvements though, since she didn’t fight nor made any friend cry on Day 2.
👎 For lunch, JR tried to leave R alone but failed. R kept crying for her papa and JR had no choice but to attend to her. He had to feed her her noodles 🍴.
👎 R’s teachers failed to bathe her again. JR had to bathe her 😖.
👍 My baby has grown up 😍😢. Usually she is unwilling to hold her own milk bottle and insisted that her grandma or mama to feed her. She held her own bottle in school!
👎 R was still unable to fall asleep even after having her milk. She did try but was unsuccessful after an hour. JR packed her things and headed home 🏡 cos there is no point wasting more time since she was unable to fall asleep in school.
The things JR noticed from school:
👎 The safety gates along the stairways were never closed even though they are to be closed at all times. These gates are to prevent the little students from accessing the stairs without adult’s supervision.
👎 The 2 security gates from the main road to the main school building were left opened in the evening. Level 1 was filled with students after 5 PM and they could just ran out unaccompanied to the main road.
👎 There was no school attendant at the security gates in the morning on the 2nd day. A stranger may get into the school undectected or a sick student may enter the school unnoticed.
👎 The school does not check the identifies of the people picking up students 😱. It seems so because JR said he could walk into the school compound and into the class without anyone stopping him.
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After discussing, we concluded that the preschool is unsuitable for R! Since we had already paid for the 2 weeks trial, we will continue to send R to school, but for half day instead. This decision was however changed again…
👎 It was expected that kids would fall sick easily when they start school and R got the common cold from her classmates after 1 & 1/2 days of school 😫! 👎 We didn’t inform the school about R’s absence (on purpose) and the school didn’t even bother to check with us 😤😡😫… What a lousy school!!! We decided to forgo the $$ and stop sending R to the school 😝! We will try to find another school for R… The search begins again… 😆!