Childfirst Preschool

[Maverick]

Hi Parents,


Anyone has any feedback of Childfirst Preschool at dunearn road? Contemplating between this versus other establishment along the same road. Price wise they are all the same, though Childfirst is newer while the other centers have been around longer.

Childfirst is having a open house this sat (30th June) and understand that they would have a open play area by year end (which is a plus).

Thanks in advance.

[Jazzie]

Maverick:

Hi Parents,


Anyone has any feedback of Childfirst Preschool at dunearn road? Contemplating between this versus other establishment along the same road. Price wise they are all the same, though Childfirst is newer while the other centers have been around longer.

Childfirst is having a open house this sat (30th June) and understand that they would have a open play area by year end (which is a plus).

Thanks in advance.

Hi Maverick,

I'm also keen to put my child there. Went to their open house last month. But sadly that .... till now no feedback of how is this pre school.
I want to put my child there but need to know how is the school performance and care for the child.

Let hope someone have the experience with this centre to share with us.

[MamaVon]

Hi Parents~


Just to share my opinion of the school after I visited them last morning.
It was actually a pop-in kinda visit when I visited LSH which was situated just above ChildFirst.
Do pardon my lengthy story of how I got to know of the school and also my take of the school visit.

Some 9 months ago, when I came back to Singapore from US for a short visit, my MIL gave me a brochure of ChildFirst which she received and I was totally attracted by the pictures of this big and colourful room the school had. Tried calling a few times but prolly because it was weekend, I couldn’t reach someone to talk to on enrolment stuff and visits whatsoever. So I returned to US with the brochure but just somehow I didn’t manage to be able to get to talk to someone from ChildFirst despite trying to call a few times. Erm… my bad for not attempting to email them though. should have emailed! =P

In the end, I gave up and called LSH @ mountbatten, which was also another recommendation from a relative, to fix a school visit. We arrived in Singapore two days ago and went down to LSH yesterday as scheduled. When we walked into Mountbatten Square, passed by ChildFirst and the colourful wall laminations they had reminded me of the brochure that i had! Well but since we did make an appointment with LSH, we went ahead with it first.

After the visit, we came back down and decided to just try our luck to see if the school is ok with us doing a pop-in visit. Just to mention that being a very inexperienced Singapore mum, I rely alot on kiasuparents.com and I have read cases of some schools rejecting pop-ins and are very strict on appointments… (for some reasons?) So but what really surprised us was that we were greeted by a very nice lady, who introduced herself as Lilian, and confidently took us off on a walk around the school.

School has a bilingual approach so the kids do half a day of Chinese and half a day of English. was told that they are left with two spots in the N1 and it’s gonna be the afternoon Chinese session. I’m ok with that coz i’m more for DS doing Chinese and get motivated early in that language at school since English is kinda like what we do with him for the past two years in US. And as his teachers told us back in the US, they will do English naturally in a normal classroom (which i agree… look at all our sg kids nowadays.) so, i’ll be happy to let him kick off Chinese for now…

Of course, the big, spacious and colourful room was the first thing that totally impressed me. It looked exactly like the photos on the brochure that my MIL showed me and my DS literally left me to explore the room on his own. Got to know that the room is actually their classroom for Speech and drama teaching. Awesome room! Had to literally drag DS out of the room to move on with the tour.
DS doesn’t reject the environment - checked.
Fun place to be in - checked.

She then showed us to the N1 classroom in which my DS would be in if he gets enrolled. The kids were in the midst of preparing for their nap and they were totally independent enough to be like getting the beddings out and laying on them. Being independent is something I want DS to possess and the American education system trained him well for the pass one year to be so. So this is definitely what I want. Furthermore, I was told that every kid will sleep on a individual "trampoline-like" bed (didn’t quite catch the term that was used) which was supposedly a better kinda bed compared to mats when it comes to hygiene. it’s like a mini rectangular trampoline where the kids lay in the netted area. Well, I’m not sure about that since i havent come across something like that. but it does make sense though. Coz you can tell that it can be cleaned and dried very easily so bacteria don’t have time to attach and multiply. =D Another thing would be the drinking of milk before nap. Since DS has been off bottle and he’s on cow’s milk since the age of 1, I wanted to know if there would be any issues on that and Lilian told us that we could just bring in the cow’s milk which they will store in their fridge and would pour it for DS in his cup so he could do his usual routine. NICE! btw, the we do not have to pay extra for the "trampoline-like" beds.
Learning to be independent - checked.
Clean, hygiene and organised environment - checked.

Computer room is impressive too. Apparently they started off designing softwares and that other schools actually buy their softwares from them. so the educational softwares are like their own productions. nice room, nice flatscreen computers. very neat and tidy. and it’s really cute to know that passwords to login for the kids are made up of shapes/pictures. LOL! password: Triangle, duck, star
Fun place to be in - checked.
Clean, hygiene and organised environment - checked.

Tour continues and the next WOW came in. the big indoor playground. Was told that it’s a totally new room with new equipment. Prior to writing this, I read in this thread that there were no playground but guess what? They have it now and it’s big and nice! totally. it’s like a "mini-mini Fun Dazzle". If ya all remember fun dazzle which we had when we were young. =P but well, new playground that would be ready in September. So they are in the midst of some final touchups. DS was ready to run right into the room. LOL!
Fun place to be in - checked.

Kitchen was like the ultimate WOW already! Lillian said that they prepare everything from their own kitchen and when she say everything, it really meant EVERYTHING! The cake mixer was at work and the oven was in the midst of baking a cake as she was talking about everything being made from their kitchen. So, no joke. everything comes out from their own kitchen - barley drink to lunch to cakes! well, maybe other schools does that too but because this was the second school i ever visited, THIS IS TOTALLY IMPRESSIVE. My DH was like WOW! NICE. I mean, we totally dun care if DS eats catered food coz we feel that we don’t want catered food to be a push factor and let us not take up a school which has a program that we want. so but if he gets to eat healthy, clean and great food plus he gets a good program. WHY NOT?
Clean, hygiene and organised environment - checked.
**Additional lookouts: Food? - checked! checked! checked!

So the tour ended with my DS refusing to leave the school. i mean, he loves school… ever since our time in US, he never rejects school so but I can tell that he genuinely wants to be in this school and that the place is definitely not intimidating.

Final verdict: we are making our payments tomorrow to get him enrolled. =D

[Mylittlegirl]

Went to visit this place and frankly not very impressed with them. Seems like thy are trying to provide what parents want without clearly knowing what branch of early childhood teaching. Also read in some research that early introduction of IT ( use of computers) actually stuns the growth potential of preschoolers as they should be learning through other modes like motorskills, interaction with peers and adults etc… Nice place but got a sense of no soul after going through the place… For $1300, there are probably better options…

[MamaVon]

Hmmm… They are not solely doing IT for their programmes and there is definitely more to what you see (which is prolly just IT). They do MI in this school so with that, I believe motor skills etc would definitely be in. They also have learning groups n individual presentations that encourages interactions. Maybe we have to be more careful with our comments so that other parents don’t get mislead into thinking otherwise.

Also, I dun feel "soulless" during my time there… In fact the kids were all happy and bubbly compared to one other preschool I went into just before this visit.
Just my observations…

[MamaVon]

Hmmm… They are not solely doing IT for their programmes and there is definitely more to what you see (which is prolly just IT). They do MI in this school so with that, I believe motor skills etc would definitely be in. They also have learning groups n individual presentations that encourages interactions. Maybe we have to be more careful with our comments so that other parents don’t get mislead into thinking otherwise.

Also, I dun feel "soulless" during my time there… In fact the kids were all happy and bubbly compared to one other preschool I went into just before this visit.
Just my observations…

[cheapsale]

Mamavon, check out caterpillar cove round the corner. Very good too with no computers!

[Notksmum]

Any feedback on Childfirst at Mountbatten?

[orangecarrot]

Hi, anyone has any feedback about Childfirst at Dunearn road? I intend to put my girl next year for N2, but not sure the school is it as good as their open house introduction, website facilities? Appreciate sharing if any parents has their kids there? Thank you

[sweetberrie]

hi mummies,


my girl currently in nursery 2 is in childfirst @ mountbatten since 18 months. really glad to have send her there. from a toddler who refuse to talk to now at 41 months she talks and sing non stop in both english and mandarin. very amazing that my girl can even recognize some simple chinese character while watching the chinese nursery song dvd. so far the teachers that i know are all very caring towards my girl.

my 16mths son gonna be starting the pre-nursery in a few months time at childfirst @ mountbatten as well.

just to share, there is currently a referal programme for mummies interested in childfirst @ dunearn. for example if you enrolled your child in childfirst @ dunearn for at least one month under the referral of an existing childfirst student, both mummies get to choose a gift (just to name a few gifts… ipad mini, galaxy note, air purifier…) any mummies interested can pm me… i can send you more regarding the referral programme