Dear all,
To begin, i would like to express my heart-felt apology to the parents of the bitten child.
Regarding the bitting incident posted by cutebaby77, i need to add on some details in order to prevent the one-sided story from affecting our school image.
Following are the few areas i will be addressing in today's message in order to clarify on the misleading information provided by cutebaby77 regarding the bitting incident:
** Principal, teachers did opologised to the parents and in fact have informed the measures taken to prevent such incidents.
** Suggested to parents regarding considering a transfer is based on the ground that mum of bitten child commented that in future she will send her child to consult doctor if there is any scratches found on her son. Has explained to parents that children bound to have conflicts during play especially for children in this age group and those who are still unable express their needs well verbally yet. Push and pull, snatching are inevitable during play. However, if this is the action parents will take to protect the child, as teachers, we are leave with no chioce but to keep the child within reachable distance at all times. In such case, i personally feels that the restriction will not benefit the child's development. Children needs to have the freedom to make chioces and socialise with others. If we are unable to gain the parents trust again after much assurance and things have to work out this way, it will not benefit the poor child. That is why i have suggested maybe a changing in environment.
**Scratches found on the child's chest. When informed by the parents about the scratches, i did checked with the teachers-in-charge and was informed that there was no fighting incident as observed; during showering time scratches were not seen and child did not complain about it. However, did feedback to parents that the teachers and i have seen the child scratching his boby, could it be due to dry skin problem that has caused irritation to skin and lead to scratching himself. Suggested parents to bring in their own bath form (for dry skin) and miosturiser. After the change, parents did not report to us about scratches on the child's body.
** "Principal told parents that the teacher is well trained and has not done anything wrong" Mum approached me on Friday evening, 19/09/2009, saying that in the morning when her husband asked the English langauge teacher who is the bitting child, the Chinese language teacher hugged the child in a very protective way and is she trying to imply that her husband will harmed the child. Told mum that the teacher has such reaction most likely is because her boy's grandma has confronted the child who has inflicted the bite mark on him the day before. My teacher has definitely done the right things in this case as it's our responsiblility to protect every child under our care. However, after checking with the Chinese language teacher,i realised that the hugging action is a softer approach she has decided to used on the child to persued him to seat down and have lesson with the other children and she did not know that at that time the boy's father was watching.
** Regarding the doctor commented that the bite was very SERIOUS and has written a letter to Kinderland, till date we have not received any letter from the parents yet.
Hpoefully, the information provided will give parents using this site a clearly picture of the whole incident.