St James Church Kindergarten

[Caynelle]

congratulations, Phineno!


I have children in SJCK in session 2 but they are not in K1. So far, I've had a positive experience with the kindergarten. It is a huge kindergarten, but nonetheless, the teaching staff and principal are warm and personal. So far, the teachers have largely been very approachable, warm, friendly and firm but gentle.

(The non-teaching office staff may not seem very smiley all the time though, but they're really okay).

It seems that the principal is very hands-on and very approachable, and will make time for you if you have any questions or need any help. The second time you meet her, she will probably remember your name. This is quite incredible considering the size of the kindergarten.

I think your son will love the Maths teacher for K1, auntie Anita. She is very fun.

Perhaps you could prepare your son by bringing him to school, for him to see the place and perhaps even meet his new teachers after school hours? You'll of course have to make an appointment and explain that it's his \"orientation\".

During term 4, the children also prepare for the year-end concert, although the preparations should not affect curriculum time. The concert seems to be a big thing!

The kindergarten also offers various opportunities for you to volunteer throughout the year (including painting backdrops for the concert, if you're all ready to start right away!) You can get to know the kindergarten better as well as know other mommies and daddies if you have the time to volunteer in the various activities.

May I ask why you are switching your son to SJCK from the Montessori kindergarten?

Since your son is very sociable, he should hopefully make friends fast. All the best, and I hope your son will like it from day 1

[bezzlay]

Hello,


Anyone wants to give away or sell SJCK school bag? My DS’s bag is broken and I couldn’t get a replacement cos its out of stock now.

[jean_mummy]

Phineno:

Greeting mummies!

I have just enrolled my elder boy into K1 session 2 and he will be starting in term 4. Is there any mummies with kids in this session? My boy is currently in a montessori teaching kindergarten. Small group with 99% of attention given by teachers Cross my fingers that he will be able to adapt fast. A vey sociable and active boy though. Any advice on what i can do to prepare him for the switch?

een coping well in the curer
Hi Phineno,

Welcome to the SJCK family!

I am also curious y u wld want to trf ur kid over? To be honest w u, given a choice i wld prob put my kids in a montessori env. And esp if ur kids has been coping well in the current sch and enjoys sch and love the teachers.

Overall, i think the teachers in SJCK are nice, however there are certain things i am not too happy about the school like having many \"school declared\" holidays and even field trips take up 2 days. Not sure if this is the norm in other schools but i feel that sometimes the school does not place themselves in the parents shoes, not that empathetic/ caring as they \"claimed\" to be and what they advocate to be.

I think the school is over rated and prob. that explains their \"big head\" mentality, parents do not seem to have a say in anything..we are like at their mercy.. feedbacks doesnt seem to work. Its a \"take it\" or \"leave it\" attitude. I wish i can afford to send my kids to schools with better curriculum and less stucked up attitude but i cant.

Overall if you ignore all these, i mean if your expectations do not include all those i mentioned above, the teachers are still very caring and loving and your kids will definitely enjoy the stay there. My ger is happily going to school every day, its me who is pissed off with the school but seeing my ger happy i guess thats most impt.

[Celyw]

Hi,

anybody have any idea on the school bus+ driver? Am letting my PNPG1 kid going on the school bus next year but very worried about the distance and safety....

[Phineno]

Hi Ladies,


Indeed is a decision that till now i am still having doubt over if i have made the right choice. Reason for pulling out my elder boy from his current school is because he has a brother (born in 2009) and sister (born in 2011) that needs to be enrolled. If i were to enrol little brother into his current school next year, both of their fees will add up to close $3.5k. It just so happened that when we went St James to register for the siblings and they have a vancancy for K1 and if we enrolled our elder boy, the siblings will have piority in the waiting list. That is why we have to make such a decision. No guarantee place yet for my 2nd boy next year but at least there is a pirority. All i can do is to cross my finger and hope. In our vicinity, there is no much kindergarten and im left with no much choice also.

As for the school holidays, jean_mummy, do you mean that other kindergartens are having class but St James is not? Initially, i am unhappy over my elder boy’s current school having too many holidays when is not a public holiday. But after comparing to other kindergartens, i think is quite common to have holidays apart from the public holidays.

Heard lots of comments on the admin side.Thankfully, i have not encountered any of it yet except for the strict rules they have to follow like not being able to take a look at the school as no appointment is made even though there is a tour going on.

Again, cross my fingers and hope for the best!

[Caynelle]

Hi Phineo, thanks for sharing.


It must have been tough trying to decide whether to switch or not!

Hmm, this thing about school holidays is very interesting. I too felt that there seems to be a lot of holidays. So now that you guys mention it, I looked at the school calendar for this year (I’ve got it stuck here on my office wall, so I can always check whether any holidays are coming up!)

Surprising, there aren’t that many non-standard kindergarten holidays (meaning not PHs, teachers’ day, elections etc that apply across the board). In fact, I found 6 and they are:

(a) two for excursions and one for field trip;

(b) one for concert rehearsal and one post concert holiday;

one for kindergarten anniversary.

For (a) and (b), I understand that it is because the excursions, field trip and concert rehearsal stretch through the timing of both the first and second sessions. Since the same teachers teach both sessions, when one session is on excursion/field trip/rehearsal, the other must have a holiday. So it’s unavoidable in that sense.

So that leaves just the post-concert holiday and kindergarten anniversary. I’m quite surprised. May I check what it’s like with the Montessori kindergarten, just to compare?

Yes the school fees are SJCK are definitely more affordable, compared to brand name kindergartens. My impression is that the kindergarten wants to keep it affordable for the majority of people.

Back in 2009, the kindergarten raised fees due to increased staff costs. I remember that it was still the recession, and so the kindergarten gave parents the option to choose to stagger the increase over the year. So if you are in financial difficulty, you just need to put a tick against the form, indicating you would like to pay the old fees instead of the new fees for how many terms. (No need to pay back the difference in future). No need to talk to anybody in the school and no questions asked at all. (Of course parents were expected not to abuse it).

I hope your younger son gets a place next year soon. How times have changed. I tell my parents they were very very lucky, no such thing as wait-listing for kindergartens back in those days etc etc etc!

[Phineno]

Hmmm… I’m not too sure about other school but for my boy’s current school, there is no such holidays. The only time i remember that the school declare a non official holiday was when my boy was in N1. We were having a meet the parents session on a Saturday and following Monday is an off day. However, subsequently, they changed it to a week day. By the way, does St James have meet the parents day and if they provide progress report every term? Something which I love most about the current school is that they provide termly progress report. A write up by each teacher on the progress and even pictures of my boy doing work.  

As for the excursions, although there are 2 sessions but they will have the 2 sessions combine in an excursion and sometimes the ex teachers will come back to help out if not the parents volunteer. I guess St James can’t combine as there are too many students. As for the field trip, what is that? 
And for the concert, all rehearsal is carried out during school hours. There will be a day where the school will ferry students to the concert venue for a full dress rehearsal and usually school will stretch for another hour or so. And after concert will be school holiday so absolutely no post concert holiday.
Kindergarten anniversary holiday, no such event. Hmmm… faint
One thing about St James is that it is really a school. It operates just like a primary school unlike my boy’s current school whereby anytime you can have access to the teachers to ask about progress or behavior. There are so many students and good in a way that can prepare children to be ready to join the big primary school family.Bad in a way that I doubt teacher will be able to really focus on individual learning ability.  My boy used to have problem pronoucing some letters and the literacy teacher will correct him and after using different methods for months, she suggested i bring my boy to consult therapy an even get me the numbers for the therapist. Therapist gave her a letter and with practise, he has no problem now. That’s the advantage of montessori. Our child learns base on their ability. Areas they are weaker in, they practise till mastery. Areas they are stronger, they go for higher level. 
Oh man! As i was typing all these, I started to ponder again if I have done the right choice. :s sigh… Really hope that my 2nd boy can get a place. I can’t imagine I have sacrific my elder boy to get a piority in the waiting list for his siblings! 
Oh yah! 1 more thing, is there any homework or story book to bring home weekly to do or read?

[Caynelle]

Regarding combined excursions and full dress rehearsals for the concert, ya, I guess SJCK is too big to do that.


For excursions, yes, parents volunteer to help out too, you will be assigned to your son’s class if you volunteer. It’s a great way to know other parents & children & the teachers, if you are able to join in.

As for the field trip, it is sort of like the excursion but it is part of the term 3 class project. Each year, the Nursery, K1 and K2 children have a class project. The children and teachers brainstorm together so they jointly decide what the project topic is, and thus the topic for each class is probably unique (as in every class has its own topic). It will then be decided where the field trip will be to. But the overall theme for the year for this year is Saving the Earth or something like that, so the class project themes centre on that. For field trips, parents don’t join in and there is only one field trip in the whole year, as part of the class project. At the end of the project, there is a project open house and parents are invited to the child’s class for the open house. This takes place in the third term. I can see the teachers put in a lot of effort for the project & project open house every year. They also print a class project work book at the end of the project.

Looking back, I must say there are events that go on throughout the year, but not necessarily holidays associated with them. For eg, besides the project work open house, there’s also the school carnival, at the end of term 1.

As for meet the teachers, there is one in May. Actually now that I think of it, the Friday of the meet the teachers week is a no-school day for the children. But the meetings go on in the afternoons (after school hours) throughout that week. On that no-school Friday, the meetings go on throughout the day. It is usually for parents with more than one child in school, so that there’s more flexibility to arrange meetings with your children’s teachers sort of back to back.

As for the progress report book, it is given out twice a year. But no photos on it. We see photos of our children in the class book at the end of the year for pre-nursery, and in the class project workbook for nursery, K1 and K2s.

As for homework, as far as I can recall, there is no weekly homework, only a penmanship book for both English and Chinese, and weekly spelling tests for English. However, the children have a holiday project for the June hols each year (it is part of the class project) that parents are encouraged to do together with their children.

You will also find recommended parent child activities related to the term’s themes for English, Chinese & Maths in each term’s newsletter. The newsletter will also let you know what they are covering in the term for each subject.

As for story books to bring back to read weekly, yes they have a library program every Friday.

As for tracking an individual child’s progress, hmm, I have heard during one of the talks given by the principal that they do that and if a teacher finds a child needs extra help, feedback will be given to parents and the kindergarten does have recommended programs. I have friends who have received such feedback in relation to their children for English, Chinese or Maths. The school says that they alert parents early if the teachers find any child needs extra help so I think the assessment is probably supposed to be continuous.

I think if you need to speak to the teachers, you can call at any time, they will return your call after school hours. Parents are encouraged to let the teachers know if they have any concerns.

My younger child is in pre-nursery and I remember there was one period my younger child was falling ill for a few days now and then, and most of the time I did not call the school to inform that my child wouldn’t be in school. From the second day of absence, the teacher would call me everyday to find out how my child was, after school hours. I think with a smaller class size in pre-nursery it is easier for them to do that, but I appreciated the teacher’s efforts.

Don’t worry too much, while you see complaints on this forum, there are also lots of happy parents around. SJCK is a very big kindergarten, and there will be areas that not all parents will be pleased about, but generally, it is a good kindergarten. I think your son will be happy at SJCK (just as I am sure he would be too, if you were to have him stay on at the Montessori kindergarten). What I mean is, both are probably good choices, so I think your children will be fine either way.

I know some parents who also transferred their children to SJCK from other kindergartens at some point. There is of course the initial period of getting used to the new kindergarten (as with any transfer to any other kindergartens), but these parents appear to be happy with SJCK so far and I got to know one of them because of us both volunteering.

So I think, not to worry too much, if you have concerns, I believe the school would welcome you speaking to the teachers or principal. And yes, I sure hope your second child gets a place soon.

[krispy]

Could someone advise the contact information for school buses to SJCK? My daughter will be starting Session 1 in Harding campus in January 2012. Called up the number listed on the SJCK website and was quoted S$180 for 2 ways from Redhill to Dempsey which I think is very high. It’s less than 15 minutes away by car, sometimes 10 mins if there’s no traffic. Also, we were told that we can only confirm the bus slot during orientation. Anyone has any idea when orientation will be? Any mothers living around Redhill as well? Any idea how much the school bus is per month?

[Phineno]

Just came back from an orientation @ SJCK.Met with the principle Jacqueline and feels that she is a nice lady. Very patience in answering our questions.  I feel that the school gives lots of room for creativity which I think is awesome! Have a clearer picture of what my boy will be going through when school starts. I believe he will enjoy school too! He seems pretty positive about starting school there although he keeps asking me if his best friend will be changing school too and wants to stay together with him. And only wants to go SJCK one time! Lol...


As for the PV, I'm eager to join in too as I'm also a PV in my boy's current school and has met lots of wonderful mummies! Guess I will enquire on that when school starts. Will be looking forward in meeting up with you ladies! 

Thanks Caynelle for sharing! All information that you contributed kind of put me at ease! For now, I just really hope that little brother gets a place for next year. He was so into what the little children are doing when we went to the pre-nursery buildings!