Hi All ,
Something to share with all parents who intended to start your child with Zoophonic .
We had some friends who brought their child to Zoophonic and most came back with very poor remarks ,
regarding their deposit collection , staff's attitude as well as the standard of some of their " teachers " .
We had initial intentions to start our boy with this programe ,
so to check it out for ourselves , we called up Thomson's Branch ,
which is the nearest branch to our home .
To our geat disapointment , the staff who answered to our basic enquires , was very , very rude ! Besides being rude over the phone ,
"She" told us : "You may come on down to sign up , pay for just the class , registeration fee , as for the deposit , we may pay only after one(1) lasson , when we had decided to continue ."
We were glad to hear that as we had friends who were very unhappy as they had paid for all the above charges and after three(3) lassons , they decided to stop attending , due to poor standards , only then they realized that they need to have a month's of writen notice , therefore they would either have to pay another month's fee or use the deposit for the 2nd month .
This seems like , we do have to attend a compulsory two(2) month's lesson , so if you want your deposit back .
We were told that the staff's attitude at Thomson's branch is very poor and rude and yes indead , so we proceed to Serangoon's Branch indstead , which the distaince is still fine with us .
We brought up the information given to us by Thomson's Branch and to our surprise , they had totally disregard the information as an option .
However , they offered us to sign the termination form at the same time ,
so as if we had decided to stop the lesson , we need not provide another month's of wruten notice and we could have the deposit refunded in full .
We signed up in mid Feb so we paid only for the last two(2) lesson's fee , S$50 and other related charges , as we were told .
We have our boy attended the two(2) lessons and we took turns attending the lessons with him .
After the last lesson , we sat down and talk over the lessons ,
we both felt that the main problem is with the teacher , who not only does not remember names of her students , in a class of ten(10) , but couldn't even speak good english , worest , a phonic teacher who couldn't pronounce words correctly .
We were convinced and truely disapointed !
At the same time , we were glad that we are able to have our deposit refunded in full and need not go through such lessons for another month ,
we called up Serangoon's Branch today , asking for the arrangment of the refund ,
the staff who answered the call , told us that she does not know what she should do and the "Principle" is not around , she said that she will call up the "Principle" to seek his advise and return us a call .
She later called back , with the "Principle's" instruction that the deposit can only be refunded in ONE(1) MONTH'S TIME and we will only be refunded S$45 as we will have to pay for the other three(3) lessons , S$75 , EVEN if we are not attending .
We replied that , this was not the agreement and she told us that she will have the "Principle" to call us personally ,
we did not hear from him so far .
To conclude , we do understand the differences in the charges as compared with the other schools with the similar curriculums .
Does that mean , PRICE=STANDARDSSERVICES .
If so , how sad , parents , like us who wants their child to grow up writing/reading/speaking good english , would have to send him/er to better schools , which may cost more .
As all of us hope that our children will end up , "better" than us , parents , we often are more particular with the teachers who are the very ones , your child would learn from .
We hope that if there are any other parents here who sadly had gone through the same incident and would like to share , as well as if you do have a great school , you like to talk about ,
please do write to us .
