St James Church Kindergarten

[danishapple]

Hi Isabella,


Thanks for sharing your experience with me!

My child cried for one whole term, and even till the last day of school, she was still crying badly when I dropped her off. However, she was always fine, and smiling when I picked her up. Well, I guess the teachers didn't really gain her trust, and bond with her. My girl has never looked forward to school. Anyway, we had withdrawn her already.

Well, the food menu could be a small part of the whole nursery experience. But imagine the children are going to be studying there for 4 years from Pre Nursery to K2, and they will be eating the same food every week for 4 years. I also enquired another church kindergarten, which they serve different food menu for odd week, and even week in a month, and they change the food menu every term. If a smaller scale church kindergarten is able to do it, I don't see why a larger scale, and well known church kindergarten like SJCK is not able to do it.

[danishapple]

Hi Isabella,


Thanks for sharing your experience with me!

My child cried for one whole term, and even till the last day of school, she was still crying badly when I dropped her off. However, she was always fine, and smiling when I picked her up. Well, I guess the teachers didn't really gain her trust, and bond with her. My girl has never looked forward to school. Anyway, we had withdrawn her already.

Well, the food menu could be a small part of the whole nursery experience. But imagine the children are going to be studying there for 4 years from Pre Nursery to K2, and they will be eating the same food every week for 4 years. I also enquired another church kindergarten, which they serve different food menu for odd week, and even week in a month, the same food menu for morning snack and lunch (eg pumpkin porridge, rice with spinach soup & minced chicken, etc) and they change the food menu every term. If a smaller scale church kindergarten is able to do it, I don't see why a larger scale, and well known church kindergarten like SJCK is not able to do it.

Maybe because yours is in session 1 so the morning snack is not really a big issue. For session 2, they are taking a meal (lunch) in school for the day. If they don't eat or don't eat much, we have to supplement after school.

[Isabella Seah]

Hi danishapple,


I hope your girl settles down in her new school!

[Lunalune]

Hi! Is there anyone in Bishan (around Junction who wants to share a cab to and fro Harding Campus?


My son is attending in morning session and I am sending him and picking him up by taxi since the school bus does not allow the parent/caregiver to ride with the child and I don't want to let my son take the school bus on his own.

I have been using on call taxi service and it's really hard on rainy days. So just wondering if there might be a fellow mom in Bishan area who wants to share a cab to send/pick up her child to/from Harding Campus, and we'll be able to opt for a daily taxi service which is a bit more expensive but less hassle on rainy days.

Thanks!

[dolphin87]

Hi Parents,


My child is offered a place in 2018 Pre-Nursery Session 2 and I’ll like to find out if anyone will like to make a swap from Session 1. Reason being he wakes up very early in the morning (5am) and will be very sleepy during the hours in session 2. Will appreciate if you can contact me if interested. Thank you.

[MumOfClara]

Hi anyone able to share experience ? Thanks

[silverdusk]

MumOfClara:

Hi anyone able to share experience ? Thanks

I've got a K1 child attending session 1 at Harding, and I've just registered my second child for session 1 for Nursery starting term 3.
At first I was not used to not getting daily/weekly/monthly updates from teachers which we used to get from full-day childcare center before. But now we, especially my husband love this school. So far the two sets of teachers, especially the main English teachers we had last year and this year were warm and very caring, and each time we pop by which wasn't too often, they were listening to us and giving us detailed feedback about our child. Our child also seem to like the school a lot and always runs to the school bus every morning. Unlike the very modern childcare my kids attended before, the Harding campus has a rather rustic feel to it which we sort of like as well.
The only downside, especially as full-time working parents is that the hours are short, and that there are school holidays following the MoE calendar! For working parents, I suppose the better option could be session 2 followed by enrichment classes at school which means the child will be in school 11:30~4pm. Oh, there are also enough holiday enrichment class options as well to keep the kids busy during long school holidays if that's anyone's concern.

[Han Seo]

In response to Danishapple’s concern about class size:


Smaller class size will translate into higher costs so the question is, who will bear the cost? International schools have 3 teachers to 12-16 students but then again, their school fees are 3x the rate of our local preschools. As long as there is no government subsidy, someone has to bear the higher costs that come with a lower teacher/child ratio. Are parents prepared to bear this cost?

[scorpionmum]

For kiddos attending session 2, can you share your kid’s nap schedule please? It seems to me too early to nap before school and too late to nap after school in order to maintain a bedtime of 9pm…

[lifeasglim]

My 3 year old dropped her nap completely after 3 months in session 2. So I brought her bedtime earlier by an hour. Was difficult for me to accept it initially but she was not sleepy at all in the daytime.