hello mummies,
i'm here! down with flu for 2days, just eat med and sleep and sleep.
my 2cents worth on preschool. currently, only primary school education is compulsory in spore. however, there are many benefits to sending kids to preschool. for socialisation, for basic literacy and numeracy skills, for getting used to school environment etc. in fact, if your child is gg to be enrolled into some brand name primary school, the school would expect your child to be able to read and write at pri 1. so preschool is supposed to prep kids for dat.
from 18mths, kids can begin preschool. at this age till 3 is known as playgroup. usually 2-3hr in duration. a lot of singing, colouring, playing kind of activities. then they will move on to nursery and then kindergarten. usually by k2, they will prep kids for more structured pri sch environment. in kindy, they will hv to do spelling and such.
if your kid is in cc, they will also have curriculum tailored according to kid's age.
personally (my own views only), i dun tink there is a great need to send kids to brand name preschools. eton, pats, and those montessori ones are all v expensive. if you can afford it and distance is not a prob, i supp you can consider them. however, becoz these places emphasize a lot on learn thru play, sometimes kids hv great difficulties adjusting to a more structured pri 1 environment and thus hate sch.
for me, a few key factors i have in mind in choosing preschool. one would be distance from caregiver's pl, esp if you intend to have #2. my mum needs to bring my #2 to fetch my #1 from sch, so it should be a convenient pl. i bu fang xin to let young kid take sch bus so anywhere too far is out of the question.
another factor is the sch environment - whether it is clean, and i prefer non-aircon. the type of food served. i know there is a list of cc with the healthy eating certification from hpb.
also consider the type of curriculum - whether it's balanced betw play and learning, languages taught (our kids muz be billingual) etc
and imptly - the teachers. whether they love kids and tk gd care of them.
i didn't do research on preschool in bt batok coz my kids are with my mum in jurong in daytime. my #1 is with cherie hearts cc, so far, i'm happy with the cc and my gal loves sch.
quite a no of bt batok mummies dat i know send their kids to the preschool at grace assembly of god church at bb west ave 4. ak, you might wan to check it out.
ok, very long winded liao.