Are expensive preschools better than those in the heartland? We find out what you should look out for, and compare three centres for different budgets.
Are expensive preschools better than those in the heartland? We find out what you should look out for, and compare three centres for different budgets.
Over $2,000 a month At Chiltern House, every class has its own room and there is an indoor playground, which may not be the case at most preschools.
When we visited its Nursery 2 (N2) class recently, no noise from outside could be heard.
Principal Iris Lim says: “We allow the kids to speak up and express themselves. If the centre had an open concept, it’d be difficult to focus on what the children are talking about.”
Its N2 class was exceptionally small – there were just six children with two teachers in class.
The preschool sets a ratio of one teacher to seven children, and there are 14 places for the N2 full-day programme, but only seven are filled. One was absent on the day of the visit. Iris says parents are more keen on its half-day programme.
Chiltern House belongs to an exclusive club – only around 1 percent of centres here charge more than $2,000 a month. Most pupils at the preschool, which is on the second floor of the SLF Building in Thomson Road, are from the nearby Newton or Thomson areas.
The Chinese teachers, mostly from China, have lived here for several years, so their mainland accent is not too strong.
Iris says there is regular communication between parents and teachers. “The teachers talk to the parents, sometimes every day, so there’s rapport built.”
The preschool is under the Julia Gabriel Education group and named after Chiltern, in south central England, where the eponymous founder’s parents live.
Visiting specialist teachers from Julia Gabriel Centre conduct speech and drama and music sessions once a week with each class.
Mandarin is a big part of the school curriculum, as well. Children in the full-day programme spend half the day with English-language teachers, and the other half with Chinese-language ones.
“If children can choose to go to either the English or Mandarin teacher, they often end up going to the English teacher,” says Iris.
There were two Chinese teachers in the N2 class when we sat in.
As the theme that week was pastries, pupils learnt words such as “biscuit” and “jam”. They also read stories, did arts and crafts, and learnt about patterns when making a necklace with beads – all in Mandarin.
Teachers and children spoke to one another in Mandarin in every instance, even when talking about going to the toilet.
“In a way, the children are ‘forced’ to use the language, so it becomes more effective for the children to learn Mandarin,” she explains.
Over $1,500 a month The walls have large posters of children in Brighton Montessori uniforms, but are otherwise quite bare.
Resource materials, such as coloured beads and number boards, are neatly kept on shelves and look new. Some are kept in labelled plastic containers; others are in light brown, wooden boxes.
The materials are Montessori’s, and the bare walls are part of the Montessori approach, too, says principal Hairumbiyah Ghabi.
The Montessori education method for children was founded in 1907 by Italian early childhood pioneer Maria Montessori. It uses a tailored approach to develop a person’s unique abilities.
Part of the Montessori approach involves dividing classes into small groups for activities. There is more individualised learning when teachers guide children in using the Montessori materials.
On the somewhat sterile look of the centre, located in The Grassroots’ Club in Ang Mo Kio, Hairumbiyah says: “We want the children to be focused. If the environment is too cluttered, they get distracted.”
Generally, the younger children are in rooms, with N2 and K2 pupils in open areas. The rest of the centre has a more open concept, with classes separated by shelf partitions.
The N2 class that we visited was supposed to have 26 children, though about 10 of them were not around – some had gone overseas for holiday and others were foreigners who had returned to their home countries for a visit.
There were three teachers who taught in English and one in Mandarin, with the N2 class divided into three groups.
Senior teacher Pauline Yong, who was teaching seven children, focused on two children who each used a Montessori material called a Seguin board. This is a board with numbers on it to teach children the concept of tens and ones for two-digit numbers.
For instance, for “11”, they would count 11 beads, place them near the top of the board, and slot a piece with “1” on it in the ones’ place at the top of the board.
“They move from doing something concrete with counting beads to the abstract of recognising the numeric symbols,” explains Pauline.
The other five children were independently, quietly tracing the letter “P” on worksheets, to revise the alphabet letters they had learnt.
All through the visit, even if a nearby class was loudly reciting Chinese words or singing, the N2 group focused on the task in front of them. “They know our system.
They know I’m with the children using the Montessori materials and they’ll have their turn later. When they’re focused, they can also tune out noise from other classes,” she says.
Under $600 a month The PCF Sparkletots preschool is in an HDB void deck, but has open-concept classrooms on the second floor of the block.
The walls inside are filled with children’s artworks or posters, vastly different from the mostly bare ones at the Brighton Montessori centre.
For instance, there are 20 to 30 clear folders stuck on the walls in an area where the Nursery 2 class is held. Each holds a worksheet – or “activity sheet” as the teachers call it – of every child in the class.
Examples of activity sheets include one in which children pasted drinking straws of different lengths on paper, to learn what is considered long or short; another in which children pasted the tags found on packs of bread, and they had to count the number of tags and write the corresponding number.
“The activity sheets are meant to document their learning journey. Kids also take pride in their work and take ownership of their class environment when their work is displayed,” says principal Nyo Cheng Cheng.
Also on display are children’s artworks and a Straits Times article, put up under a “current affairs” section. It’s about how more parks are being set up to save an endangered monkey species from extinction – next to it are pointers such as “Do not scare the monkeys”.
Everyday items in the class – such as the air-conditioner, the fan and the clock – are labelled in English and Chinese. Class rules – such as a poster with a picture and words to tell children to sit cross-legged – are also pasted on the wall.
Children in the N2 class seemed to have learnt the class rules well. Many raised their hands before answering the teacher’s question of which English words start with “G”.
A Malay teacher did the English lesson with 15 children, with a Chinese teacher sitting nearby.
Later on, when some kids rushed forward for a chance to take part in an activity, a teacher praised a pupil at the back who raised her hand while waiting quietly for her turn.
“We emphasise core values, like respect and integrity, through incidental learning, and the current-affairs lessons held every two weeks,” says Cheng Cheng.
“The topics discussed are usually those in which we can impart values and good habits such as recycling.”
