Pat's Schoolhouse
-
Quite a few kids in my son’s class in Claymore were affected. They have only used this caterer for about a year. They should have stuck with their inhouse central kitchens for better control.
-
i have already communicated to the principal about our wish to change caterers… Can all other parents do the same? That way, they will know our concerns.
-
Hi all Pat’s Schoolhouse Parents,
My son has joined Pat’s since 2008. He is in the Jubilee Center. I sat in with my son for a week, n tasted aunty’s cooking. She was great! She even baked the cake for the national day celelbration. The teachers n programme were so great that we decided to let my girl joined early this year.
So when they ‘centralised’ the kitchen late last year, I was immediately aware of the change becoz my son complained abt the food on the 1st day of the change. Since then, I started to moniter and gave the school feedback. I observed that the quality of the food is not consistent, n that greens was not served everyday. But that seems to change after several feedback.
However my hubby n I still prefer ‘homecook’ food, so I email Pat Koh herself directly. We met early this year. I told her abt my concern n perference, while she told me abt their difficulties in managing the kitchen. She felt that the school mgt team could better use the time to manage the school programme n children, than to moniter the kitchen. To me, she seem rather firm abt ‘centralising’ the kitchen. But she did reassure me that regular checks are done to moniter the ‘centralised’ kitchen. Now that the food poisoning case, I can see how much is done to moniter the kitchen.
I understand her problems n points, but the well-being of my children should not be at the expense of adcademic programme. I am not pulling out my children yet for the lack of better choices. If anyone has chance upon any good choice, pls do let me know. Thank you. -
I don’t think they’ll be using the same caterer after this incident. But i think we should ask just in case.
Another thing is that I wasn’t even aware of this incident until i saw the article yesterday, but it seems that the food poisoning cases actually started before yesterday. Shouldn’t they have informed all of their parents about what’s happening? It’s really a rude shock to have to read of this from the news.
I’m quite suaku, how do we actually contact Pat directly? -
centralising the kitchen does not have to compromise on food safety
look at how the airlines industry cope using centralised kitchen -
I think the information provided is not timely enough. According to newspaper reports, the suspected food poisoning occurred on Tues but it was only on Thursday afternoon that the teacher messaged me about the investigations on food poisoning. By Tuesday, NEA was already inspecting the caterer according to the article. If this is the case, surely we should be informed about it by Tuesday and an alternative caterer should be found by Wed. If not, we need to know so that we can decide whether to let our kids eat the food by the same caterer on Wed.
Based on my interaction with the class teacher on Wed, I don’t think she knew about the true extent of this food poisoning incident.
As of now, I have received more information about this food poisoning from the newspaper than directly from the school and I do not know how they replaced the food service and whether this is more reliable than the previous caterer.
Most parents are just coping with the kids right now. However I think PSH owes the parents a proper explanation including why information was not provided in a more timely manner. -
Just discovered they have been posting on their websites on the food poisoning. Latest is that they have terminated Mum's Kitchen and salmonella was detected in some of the hospitalised children.
http://www.patschoolhouse.com/resources/latest-news
I was thinking more on this issue and about the need to free up management time for the kitchen. This is more a business friendly decision than a child centric decision. If I do not consider tingkat meals (much less from a less well known caterer as Mum's Kitchen) good enough for my children, why would I be sending my kids to a premium preschool to eat such tingkat meals? I was OK with it initially because I thought there was a lot more involvement from management on this choice. If the whole idea is to save management time, this is not a good reason because it is just a matter of saving salary costs for the business. All the parents of PSH children need to run their households on top of their careers. We may not personally prepare our children's food but surely we spend significant amount of time selecting and supervising the preparation of foods. Taking the same reasoning, we should all be eating tingkat meals so that we can save time to teach our kids to be geniuses.
Nutrition is a very important aspect for preschools. In PRC preschools, I hear that health and nutritional aspects are treated much more importantly. I have not seen any progress in terms of preschool meals even in the supposed premium preschools. Personally I would have included many more organic/ antibiotic free food items or fresh milk instead of UHT milk in the menu but this is clearly still too premium for the local premium preschools.
And there are more well known and bigger caterers out there. Surely it would be better to choose a caterer (if one must) that is of the same standing in the catering world as PSH in the preschool universe. This is even more so from a business risk management perspective. -
Pat’s Schoolhouse has become too commercialised ever since it was sold to Knowledge Universe. A few moms and I were talking about this and realised we all felt the same way (we are all from different branches btw)… For example:
(1) Registration fee was increased to $321
(2) School fees were increased recently (with NO corresponding increase in teacher quality)
(3) Meals for children, which used to be prepared by in-house chefs, became outsourced to a ‘dubious’ caterer which then mass produces its meals and cooks them many hours before consumption
(4) Expanded too many outlets within a short period of time - hence drop in quality of teachers…
I put my second child at Mt Emily (first child was from another branch) and am not very happy with the quality of the teachers in her class, esp the PRC teacher. They are not friendly or engaging… When my daughter and I arrive in the morning, they treat us like we are invisible!! They talk AT the children instead of TO the children. The PRC teacher is stuck up and makes no effort to connect meaningfully with the children or parents. I am NOT IMPRESSED and am looking to change schools, esp now with this food poisoning incident…!! -
My message to Knowledge Universe:
1. Don’t be cheap. Mum’s Kitchen is obviously not the best caterer out there.
2. Watch your class size. Your published class ratio is not strictly adhered to.
3. Improve your parents’ communication and administrative process. A chain with 13 centres can afford to invest in some admin personnel and getting organised is imperative. It is ridiculous that PSH could send me invoicing emails but cannot send me email updates on a mass food poisoning incident.
4. Don’t expand too aggressively. Make sure you get quality teachers and principals.
I think the above is critical to Pat’s Schoolhouse’s business. Calling a spade a spade and cutting out all the warm fuzzy rhetoric. PSH is a business and all of the above issues indicate a tendency to move more mass market than premium. Please have a look at the current profile and background of families. Are these parents likely to want an increasingly mass market preschool solution? -
empressplace:
My message to Knowledge Universe:
1. Don't be cheap. Mum's Kitchen is obviously not the best caterer out there.
2. Watch your class size. Your published class ratio is not strictly adhered to.
3. Improve your parents' communication and administrative process. A chain with 13 centres can afford to invest in some admin personnel and getting organised is imperative. It is ridiculous that PSH could send me invoicing emails but cannot send me email updates on a mass food poisoning incident.
4. Don't expand too aggressively. Make sure you get quality teachers and principals.
I think the above is critical to Pat's Schoolhouse's business. Calling a spade a spade and cutting out all the warm fuzzy rhetoric. PSH is a business and all of the above issues indicate a tendency to move more mass market than premium. Please have a look at the current profile and background of families. Are these parents likely to want an increasingly mass market preschool solution?
have you forwarded this message to the relevant parties? they might/might not be reading this thread
Hello! It looks like you're interested in this conversation, but you don't have an account yet.
Getting fed up of having to scroll through the same posts each visit? When you register for an account, you'll always come back to exactly where you were before, and choose to be notified of new replies (either via email, or push notification). You'll also be able to save bookmarks and upvote posts to show your appreciation to other community members.
With your input, this post could be even better 💗
Register Login