I was a working mum when Big J started pre-school in 2004. Being a first time mum, I did not have any experience in sourcing a good pre-school for him. So the “best” school was the one located just opposite our house. I enrolled him in that school which claimed that they used Montessouri method and he studied for 3 years. I noticed during his final years in the school in 2006, he would have tons of homework and he would have spelling test for BM, English and Mandarin every day. I thought that it was good as a preparatory step to Primary 1 in a Chinese school which normally gives tons of homework. (Eventually the Chinese Primary School he went to did not give as much homework as the Pre-school!). Big J was just an average student then. He wasn’t independent and needed to be supervised daily to complete his homework. School didn’t sound fun to him then.

For convenience sake as well, I enrolled Little J in the same school in 2007. In June 2007, I left the corporate world to become a stay-at-home mum to my 2 heroes when Big J was struggling with his Primary 1 school work. The day I quit my job to stay at home, I got a shock of my life! I was in the bathroom when I heard shoutings from the pre-school. The supervisor and teachers were screaming and shouting at the students. Apparently a child wanted to pee and the teacher scolded her for not going to the toilet earlier. The shoutings went on almost daily and the worse was on the day where the kids were practising for their concert song. The teachers were screaming and shouting all the time. Goodness, the children were from age 4-6 years! What amazed me was that the teachers will be so friendly early in the morning when parents drop off the kids and when parents pick them up after school.

Wasting no time, I scouted around my neighborhood to look for an option pre-school. I chanced upon Sri Johan which is using the Fungates systems. I called up the Principal and she invited me to take a look at the school. It was located at a shop lot and I must admit that by first impression, I didn’t like the idea of a pre-school in a shop lot. However, when I stepped inside, I was greeted by a friendly principal Florence. She explained to me the concept and what’s make the school different is that it is operated on a open-classromm concept. Hmmm.. I was thinking, how would the children concentrate? Without any second thoughts, I registered Little J.

What impress me is that the school emphasis a lot on character building. Children are taught to be independent. Everyday, Little J would take out his homework from the homework pouch and keeps the homework in the homework pouch after he completes. The homework pouch systems work excellently and I implement the system to Big J’s too. I dropped by the school unannounced one day just to “spy” and was impressed with how the teachers handled the kids. The school practises positive reinforcement through recognition, encouragement and rewards. On numerous occasions, Little J was awarded the Star Student of the school. There and then I know that my Little J is in good hands! Oh yes, the open classroom concept is excellent. There was one day when Little J was doing his homework, my friend came with her 3 children. The children were playing and they were so noisy. And the noise DID NOT distract Little J and he continued to finish his homework before joining them!

Little J loves his school so much to the extend that he would do more homework than those allocated by his teachers. He would even insist on going to school on days when he was sick! When a child is happy and having fun in school, automatically his academic results excel!

Choosing a RIGHT kindergarden is not easy. You would never know what happen in school unless you spot check. I would have continue to send Little J to the school opposite my house had I didn’t quit my job and had a first hand experience at the shoutings! Oh yes, till today, there are still regular shoutings at that school….