Soka Kindergarten

[yukiel]

Mummy122010:

Mummy122010 wrote:

Hi! We r interested in puting our 2 n 1/2 year old daughter for N1 in Soka and the interview is coming up on the 20th of June. Can anyone please help on how the interview is like. What do we expect? Thank you!


The interview is just a chat to understand about your child. To find out any unique/special needs or the development status of the child. It is not for screening to sleeve out the better children.

So no worries... just go and have a good chat. The people there are very nice
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Hi Daddy2007,
Thanks so much for your prompt reply and advice earlier. I am a newbie and had login issues and couldn't login after that, and hence couldn't reply to you.
My daughter got admission into Soka, the interview process was exactly as what you said, getting to understand the child. Now really looking forward to Jan when the school starts.
Thanks once again!

Hi there,

Can I just confirm that your daughter is there for N1? I called up and was told that the earliest I can get my daughter in was for N2, that they do not have N1 classes. Can someone confirm this for me?

Also, can anyone share with me what kind of extra classes will you send your child to in order to prepare them for P1? I an very interested in Soka's focus on non academic aspects, but at the same time want to be sure my child is well prepared for P1.

Thanks all!

[daddy2007]

yukiel:

Hi there,

Can I just confirm that your daughter is there for N1? I called up and was told that the earliest I can get my daughter in was for N2, that they do not have N1 classes. Can someone confirm this for me?

Also, can anyone share with me what kind of extra classes will you send your child to in order to prepare them for P1? I an very interested in Soka's focus on non academic aspects, but at the same time want to be sure my child is well prepared for P1.

Thanks all!

They only have N2, K1 and K2.

They do a lot of projects and all the views are taken. Even for their K2 graduation, the story line was brainstormed together with the students. The teacher will ask them what they want to put into the graduation show. Then the teacher will take their inputs and come out with the story. All students will have their own role, narrator, singer, animals etc etc. They even have a gmynastic performance. One of the groups even built a 3-layer human tower...cool

Now my girl goes to P1 with a better social skill (she was very timid when she was young) and group work skill

They have some basic English, Chinese and Maths. But unfortunately their spelling is quite lacking. No weekly ting xie or spelling

To prep my gal for P1, we sent her to Chinese classes (berries). We will read to her everyday to improve her English. I just teach her basic addition and subtraction. That should be enough for start of P1. Key is to spend time to teach your child consistently. Thereafter the pace in P1 will pick up fast

My gal now still feedback that she misses her sk school life as the pace of P1 is indeed fast. Every week got spelling and ting xie. So now we are working with her to adjust to P1. At least we feel that she did enjoy her pre-school life where the school taught them the love of learning

[fernvale]

registered my boy for K1 next year. Fingers crossed it will be a good match for him. :xedfingers:

[daddy2007]

fernvale:

registered my boy for K1 next year. Fingers crossed it will be a good match for him. :xedfingers:

Their open house was on that Friday?

[fernvale]

daddy2007:

fernvale:

registered my boy for K1 next year. Fingers crossed it will be a good match for him. :xedfingers:

Their open house was on that Friday?

It was held on 15th Mar (Sat)

[rhyolite]

My child has got a place at Soka for next year. He went for the interview, which was actually more like a ‘get-to-know-you’ session for the child. The VP was patient and waited for him to warm-up before asking him questions. Looking forward to starting school!

[lchunleo]

can ask, for those parents who are or have sent their children to the kindergarten, how do you manage? are parents stay at home or working part-time/freelance? given that the school is for a few hours and do not operate in jun and dec. or child can’t go to school when sick or no helper (no family help), how do you all manage? thanks

[daddy2007]

lchunleo:

can ask, for those parents who are or have sent their children to the kindergarten, how do you manage? are parents stay at home or working part-time/freelance? given that the school is for a few hours and do not operate in jun and dec. or child can't go to school when sick or no helper (no family help), how do you all manage? thanks

For my case, my spouse is stays at home. Thus it is easier for us. My girl takes school bus from 10.30am and reach back home around 4.30pm. It is sort of a half-day childcare to my spouse in time of free time for her.

Typically for kindergarten approach, you will need someone (e.g. parents or parent-in-law) to help to fetch the child since it is only a 3 hours study

[lchunleo]

daddy2007:

lchunleo:

can ask, for those parents who are or have sent their children to the kindergarten, how do you manage? are parents stay at home or working part-time/freelance? given that the school is for a few hours and do not operate in jun and dec. or child can't go to school when sick or no helper (no family help), how do you all manage? thanks

For my case, my spouse is stays at home. Thus it is easier for us. My girl takes school bus from 10.30am and reach back home around 4.30pm. It is sort of a half-day childcare to my spouse in time of free time for her.

Typically for kindergarten approach, you will need someone (e.g. parents or parent-in-law) to help to fetch the child since it is only a 3 hours study

thank you for your response. We will be enrolling our children into despite the higher price tag and logistic challenges as we believe in the importance of moulding the right character. Do you see changes in your child since attended the school? Understand that there is no spelling test, HYPY, am concerned how they can cope with the expectation that these will be the regular staples in pri school...

[daddy2007]

lchunleo:

We will be enrolling our children into despite the higher price tag and logistic challenges as we believe in the importance of moulding the right character. Do you see changes in your child since attended the school? Understand that there is no spelling test, HYPY, am concerned how they can cope with the expectation that these will be the regular staples in pri school...

Personally I enroll my child to SK due to social interaction skill and values that the school imparts on the children. Not so concern about academic like heavy homework & drilling to do each weekend. This is something we can teach during evenings and weekends. I like SK project-based approach (esp in K1 and K2).

Each term they will have a project. Through the projects, the teacher will conduct observation on response, social interaction & behaviour at learning centres & in classroom activities. When we visit our child's class during the open house, we can see the charts for the project discussion outcome. Each chart is sort of mind-map type where the teacher will list down (like a tree with various \"branches\") of what are the answers the children has voiced out for the topic and sub-topics and each answer listed the child name. So we can see that the children really participated in all these discussion.

For Chinese programme, they will learn chinese strokes, numbers, chinese qantifier, A radical on one side of character, writing simple words. But no \"Ting Xie\" and not alot on Han Yu Pin Ying. What they explain that we should leave something new for P1 to learn or else the child will get bored in P1. Likewise the children will be given graded reader books. In addition, they will do role play, show & tell, discussion & sharing. To prep my gal for P1, we sent her to Chinese classes (berries).

My girl mentioned that she liked her nursery class the best due to the types of activities then. When came to K1, there were more serious stuff to learn which I think is good as the school slowly prep them the life in primary school. One consistent observation I had was that every year she likes her teachers in the class which I think it say something about the teachers/staff there.

My gal now still talking about that she misses her sk school life as the pace of primary school life is indeed fast. Every week got spelling and ting xie. But thankfully, she is coping well with her weekly Ting Xie and I am surprised that her chinese language picked up exponentially fast. So the worry that I had during her pre-school days of not knowing chinese much is unfound.

With her studied in SK, at least we feel that she did enjoy her pre-school life where the school taught them the love of learning and she is now carrying this skill to her primary school.

I can only share based on my experience as each child is different and will respond ans adapt differently

Cheer!