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Kindergarten in town with experienced teachers

Discuss the many options of preschools and which suits your children.
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Regin
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Kindergarten in town with experienced teachers

Post by Regin » Sat, 09 Nov 2019 1:51 pm

As i read about the branded kindergartens posts (St James, Newton K, Barker Road etc), there is a little-known small church kindie in the vicinity (SPARK-accreditated) I would like to recommend.
I have placed my elder kid there back from day 1 in 2013. With no tuition, he got through the Primary 3 GEP (some gifted program in primary school) first round. Though he didnt make it through the second round, we consider this an achievement.
For my younger son, we placed him at different reputable childcares as we could better-afford in 2016. I mentioned different because we tried several centres as he was labelled as autistic, ADHD but I refused a formal assessment because his elder brother primary school in the prime district does not accept special needs kids. I wanted to give him a longer runway. At a renowned reading program at Novena, he was labelled as the "unteachable" group.
In desperation, I brought him back to Foochow Methodist Church Kindergarten, forsaking the working mothers' subsidy. The experienced teachers and principal (average 20 years each under their belt) quickly dispelled my fears on him. It turned out his inability to sit down at those childcare centres was because he was not engaged and the lack of eye contact was because he felt ashamed he could not cope. His fascination for spinning wheels was rooted with his passion for vehicles.
With love and encouragement from the staff (Principal: Mdm Ten; Teachers: Yvonne, Ms Lim, Ris and even cook: Aunty Ong), his previous behavioural issues were overcome and he is now captain of his own learning progress e.g. an avid reader (reading some extra materials on digestive systems which is a subject at school). Previously, at late K1 when he went Foochow, they recognised he needed help and recommended him to be placed on the FLAIR reading program from MOE. (Your kid needs to be weak enough to qualify. Weak as in won't be ready for MOE P1 unless there is intervention.)
His progress in 10 months: At the recent graduation concert, he could introduce a younger class on stage with a memorized prologue confidently. His K2 cohort, over the span of some months designed some robotics (a core curriculum) which winked, bowed, danced to songs. Undoubtedly, they received some guidance on their coding but still, everyone in the audience was awed. Diversity thrives at Foochow with students from various backgrounds (including minority indian muslims), yet these non-chinese students could rap flawlessly in Mandarin. They actually know the chinese characters and were not just ramblings.
Other than academics, the school is also commited to emotional resilience education. Having had two outstanding friends who suffered bullying and commited suicide, I am most grateful Mdm Ten prioritises this.
Learning for my kids goes beyond the school, they would sometimes ask me for online coding games with python as a treat we bond over. (As a data scientist, I can oblige them). I know many parents jam-pack their kids with enrichments. However, at Foochow, an innate desire to learn is already seeded and thriving among their students.

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