End of Primary School Search

Faythe will start Primary 1 in 2012. I seriously can’t imagine that it’s my turn to hunt for Primary School. Just like yesterday she was born!!

From day 1 (right when she was born!!), we’ve decided that we will send her to Chinese School. No question about it for sure. Very funny, that my parents used to work so hard to ensure I get into a good English/BM School, now it’s the other way round. Parents work hard to make sure they get into Chinese School. How time changes.

I actually planned to go check a few schools and do some comparison before I decide. Look, it’s planned, but didn’t happen :P. Due to shortage of time & CNY School Closure.

So there are actually 5 Schools to pick from based on where we are staying. I only manage to visit 1 of the school.

Out of all these schools, only the one I visited has morning session for Std 1. Though it’s not my criteria, but morning session will make my life easier since I have to take care of 2 kids and I’m not a SAHM.

Out of all these schools, the one I visited seems to have the least student/class. Teacher:Student ratio of 1:30.

Out of all these schools, 4 of them are famous and well known, plenty of students, heard alot feedbacks regarding school homework, teachers, etc, etc…

I also spoke to parents in School when I visited the school. Some of them have children in the other schools, so they compared and mentioned to me this school has so much lesser homework compared to the rest of the 4 schools.

I also took a peek at the School Canteen. They were selling noodles, rice, and some snacks like cakes, kuih-muih. Nothing *devillish* like Twisties and junks like that.

My rational of deciding the school:

1. I’m a banana (I read very little Chinese, but speaks Mandarin quite fluent – especially ever since I started my existing job) so it will not be easy for me to assist my child in Mandarin subjects. So I need to choose 1 with less homework to manage.
2. I figure that if my child is weak in Mandarin (I expect that she’s not strong since we don’t speak Mandarin at home), she’d require more attention from her class teacher. And having a smaller class to manage (teacher:student ratio), it will be easier for teacher to give attention to the student.
3. A place that is not super jam and I don’t need to spend 30mins on the road to send her and go back to house to pick Vyktore (at least for the 1st year, when Vyktore is still 6yo).

Hence, I decided to enrol at the school I’ve visited. And I went to the school today and completed the enrollment :). Yes, they are open for enrollment since Feb, no need to wait March :P.

Yes, the school is pretty small, they only have 1 class/age, only 160 students as of this year. Probably when Faythe starts her class, there’ll be more classes, but I doubt it’d double the amount by then, since this is rather low profile school.

I also like the way school handles parents. I understand that most school will not allow parents to hang around the school after 2 days in school, but being a worried parent, I’d like to go there sometimes for more than 2 days to ensure my child is OK. And this school allows that. They even have an area for parents to sit and wait. That was where I manage to interact with the parents and find out more.

So parents with 2005 babies, have you deciced? 1st March is d-Date :). I’ve done my duty. Now I can concentrate for my weight loss products as I’m been gaining pounds recently O.o.

Note: Sorry, unable to disclose the name of school due to privacy issue, but if you’d like to know, drop me an email or leave a comment. I’ll share with you 🙂.