Registration for Pre-Nursery

It may sound like we're jumping on the bandwagons of the typical "kiasu" Singaporean parents to think about registering Faith for pre-nursery when she's only 19 months.

Let me assure you that we're not. At least, not going by the queue number that we've been allocated for one of the schools.

Louis and I have kinda procrastinated for a while about this topic of putting her name in for pre-nursery at some of the schools here. In fact, we've talked about this a few months ago. One thing lead to another, we did not match words with actions and thus, only found ourselves exploring and evaluating a very short list of schools for consideration now.

The number that we're talking about is... two (2) schools :)

Being a current Julia Gabriel student, she has some sort of priority preference (over normal walk-ins) for pre-nursery at any of the Chiltern House schools. That plus the fact that we are comfortable with the philosophy, curriculum and calibre of teachers, it was a no-brainer that we would consider Chiltern House for her pre-nursery.

Next on the list, through much vouched-for recommendations and word-of-mouth from various sources, was St James Church Kindergarten (SJCK).

We managed to arrange for a visit to both the Chiltern House (various locations) at Turf City & SJCK this week. Here's Louis and my sentiments on the 2 schools, based on the tour provided.

Chiltern House
Concept and philosophy wise, it came as no surprise to us that there's not much explanation or selling needed to be done for CH becos of its affiliation with JG. The admin person who took us on the tour and who explained about the school was very personable, articulate, knowledgeable about the school programmes, syllabus and approach. In short, if one is already a student with Julia Gabriel, I would think the integration or change to CH would be pretty smooth.

The school is housed in an old 2-storey bungalow. Not sure how long the premise has been in used, but while the general conditions of the school appears to be well-used, it was clean and well-maintained.

The Turf City branch is the largest of the CH schools, with 3 outdoor playgrounds for the kids.

St James' Church Kindergarten
I have to say that I was most impressed by the sprawling ground and near-to-nature concept of the school. Becos the school is located in Dempsey, there were things like fruit orchard, herb patch, fish ponds, rabbit huts within the school premises, which would provide the school students with more exposure to mother nature beyond just the normal playgrounds.

Perhaps the expectations of SJCK was higher becos we had heard from many friends and colleagues who highly recommended it. However, we came away from the tour feeling a little disappointed and not particularly impressed with the curriculum or philosophy except for the facilities.

I was told that the Principal of the school was very a dynamic and impressive lady from friends who were lead on the tour by her. Unfortunately, I can't say the same of the VP. From the tone, body language and the way she conducted the tour, one gets the impression that she was going through the motions and would have preferred to spend her time doing something else.

Neither did she seem particular enthusiastic when we asked her about how bilingual classes were conducted. Her reply to us was that there are both an English and a Mandarin teacher in each class, that there's not a lot of emphasis on "structured learning" as pre-nursery children still learn a lot through play, and that the presence of 2 teachers in 2 languages provide exposure of the languages to the students.

When we pressed for further information on the rough amount of time or activities that children were exposed to in English and Mandarin on a daily or even weekly basis, she seemed a little impatient with us, or our line of questioning. Her reply was that in each day of school, only about 20 mins would be devoted to "structured" lessons. There would be some days when the English teacher would read to the students and other days when the Mandarin teacher would do other activities with the students.

In short, it was not much of an answer to our questions. We got the sense that she's not very sure of the answer herself.

Overall
The stronger selling point for me in CH was its bilingual focus. By that, I mean going beyond just the fact that each of its class has at least an English and Chinese teacher on hand. Here, the school has a systematic and concerted approach towards exposing the children to both languages by fostering what I would term "compulsory activities" in each language.

Meaning, based on what I'd gleaned, that in a typical school day of 3 hrs (or was it 3 1/2hr?? I forgot), activities would be broken down into 30 mins intervals. While some activities would be done in English and others in Mandarin, there would be times when the class in split into 2. One half would have to do a specific activity with the English teacher, the other half with the Mandarin teacher. Then, they would swap.

SJCK appears to be less structured - there would be some lessons conducted in Chinese though the VP who brought us around the tour was a little vague as to how much.

The reason why Louis and I are placing more emphasis on exposure to Mandarin is becos we currently only speak to Faith in English. She has zero knowledge and exposure to Mandarin, save for whatever Chinese TV programmes that we watch.

At the moment, we are ranked 95th on the waiting list of SJCK for the class intake in 2010. There are only about 5-6 classes for pre-nursery per year, with a maximum of 14 students per class. Based on simple arithmetic, the school is more than 100% oversubscribed and we're only in calendar year 2008!

In all, each school has its pros and cons and judging from the web reviews, there are certainly proponents for either school. The most important thing however is what we think will benefit Faith as an individual most.

There is another option for now - which is to place Faith in Julia Gabriels' pre-nursery when she turns 3. The benefit of this third option is not only that she gets the Julia Gabriel learning method which we like, but also that she only needs to go there 3 times a week instead of 5.

This gives us the flexibility for us to do things with her on the other days if we want to, without over-tiring her out - she is still a child after all and we have the benefit of me being a SAHM to guide, teach and play with Faith. Hopefully.