Choosing the Right Pre-School/Kindergarden for Your Children

I sent Jack to VitalYear at the age of 23 months and I am sending the twins at age of 21.5 months to the same place at the beginning of this month. It was through a friend's recommendation and also in view of the centre is just right opposite where I stay. VitalYear has done a good job with Jack. He was not able to socialise, say mummy and daddy (his language skills was only limited to word like bus, ball and bird). He was able to speak, play with other kids after going to Vitalyear, let people touch him and even read! So, I am doing the same with the twins, the twins also need to learn some discipline and social with others.

Jack left Vitalyear at the age of 31 months and I enrolled him into TotalChild. Vitalyear teaches mainly English. I wanted Jack to learn more than just English. At the age of 3, TotalChild does not introduced reading but instead teach the kids some practical skills like going to toilet, wearing clothes and others like coloring, counting, singing and art and craft. I was totally Ok with that. Some parents were worried that I may stand a chance that Jack may loose his reading capability that he has learned in Vitalyear. To me, there will be a long journey and years of reading. I want my children to be able to play and enjoy themselves at this age.

Some parents also enrol their children in other extra classes like art and craft, singing, piano,karate and etc. and the child need to stay back to learn all these after school hour. Instead, I wanted my child to come back after school, eat their lunch and go for a nap, watch TV or play thereafter. I believe a child of age 3-5 should be able to enjoy themselves and not loaded them with all these extra curriculum activities.

Recently, I have joined some of friends and has visited some other pre-school and kindergardens. There is this particular new outlet, they have very impressive and amazing facilities and teaching tools and the fee is cheaper. My friends have decided to transfer their kids over there and I was struggling with the idea to go or not to go. I have gone through some of the books, they are mainly academic driven and I find the syllabus is harder in comparison to my son's current school.

The questions are :-

1. If I do not enrol him in this new school (with the harder syllabus), can he cope when going to Primary School.

2. Is it important to push our children so hard academically?

However, I decided to stay on after giving thoughts to the following:-

1. If we are staying at the outskirt, there is limited choices of pre-schools anyway. We will usually enrol our children to the school nearest to our home. Some of the children still can perform well in school.

2. I find the new pre-school is pushing too hard on certain things and I do not agreed with them on the following:-

• saying prayer before having meal. what if my child can't tell what is their religious/belief
• special play room only for the top 10 students. This not fair, only high achiever got the privilege.
• teaching partly with ipad 2. I agreed this is a modern technology world but i still prefer my children to be able to make their own cupcake and not the virtual cupcake. Fixing puzzle from scratch and etc.
• location : shoplots and distance away. Not a fan of shops area, traffic situation, children came down with teachers while awaiting parents for pickup.

Notwithstanding the above, I have also spoken to Jack's current school to improve their facilities and teaching equipments and tools. I am quite happy with what Jack can do and learned from this school. Time and time again, he will come out with some amazing things like tidy up his own toys, say his 'Thank you' and 'Please', helping the brother and sister with their drinks or food, trying to pat his siblings to sleep,  things that he must do and things that he can't do and etc.

So, something you need to think of when your child/children is/are ready to go to school!