Pat's Schoolhouse

[empressplace]

My suggestions are to let your daughter take cod liver oil and sambucus and not to put her back to school so soon after recovery. Take it easy initially.


For yourself, you may want to wash/disinfect hands frequently and get all caregivers to wear masks when caring for her. My kid even caught chickenpox and HFMD from school and spread the diseases to sibling. The problem was worse for us because it is just very hard to prevent spread to the younger sibling. I have tried separating the kids and rigorously disinfecting door handles etc like a mad woman. For adults, it is more possible to prevent catching the disease if you are disciplined. The steps I have mentioned do work to a certain extent.

I also went through the same struggle of whether to pull my kid out of school. Unless the doctor advises you otherwise, it may be worth persevering. However you do need to equip yourself with the surgical face masks and surface and hand disinfectants to prevent spread in the household to adults and other children.

[debpch]

My kid is currently taking colostrum & multi-vits. But, at the rate she is falling sick, looks like it is not much use...

i am also like a mad-woman now, changing bedsheets every other day cos she has puked on it again after a coughing fit. :roll:
i wash my hands more often now but my kid is not the age where she has made a habit of covering her mouth when she coughs... So, she tends to rain saliva on us everytime she coughs... and so, we catch the bug almost 100 %.

wah... i understand the challenge if you have more than 1 kid. i probably would have gone nuts...

1 question... do they get better? i.e. does the frequency of falling sick drop? If yes, how long does it take normally? (I am trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel in this case... )

[smurfy]

debpch


they will get better…
it will depends on individual child when they will to get adjusted.
mine oso like 1 month fall sick once… then…(last yr)… worse, is come home spread viruses to baby sister.
the only consolation then was that majority of his classmates who fell sick, the parents had the social responsibility to bring in the child only when they get much much better (lesser chance of transmitting virus around)

[crystalbelle08]

Usually if its fever, kids will not be allow to attend school.


But if its cough or running nose…
Its quite common to see kids with either of these, roaming in class.

Rest assured…the frequency will definately reduce.
For mine, during her toddler class year, she did fall ill v frequently. Once every fortnightly…
Now as she progress to playgroup, her immune system do get stronger.

So must perserve!

[debpch]

hi smurfy & crystalbelle,


SIGH… dun know if can tahan till she gets her castle of immunity… she has stayed at home for 2 weeks already. And, crystalbelle is right, it is quite common to see kids with cough and running nose running around…

[Koolmama]

Hi Debpch,


Is your girl at Mt Emily??

i myself am having the EXACT same problem!! My dd just started PG, the first day i went in with her i was horrified to see more than half the kids were sick... And not just \"mildly\" sick, some were coughing and coughing every 2 minutes and had mucus running down non-stop, they looked so tired and forlorn!!

i asked the teacher why didn't they stay at home and she said that alot of parents insisted to bringing their children to school even when they were sick... it was something they could not control

As i expected, within 2 days my girl caught the cold and horrible cough too... She had to miss school for a few days... Now she's better but her cough is terrible... And the worst part is, she's passed it to her daddy and me!! (i've been sick-free for the past 1 year; now am down with fever and a horrible sore throat )

Actually when i think back on those days when my elder kid was younger, this happened to him too... He was in a church kindy then. Still remember when he used to fall sick almost every week - as soon as he got better, he would catch another bug!! At that time i was maidless and every time he fell sick i would fall sick too... oh man those days when both of us were sick together were really terrible

i think the only consolation you have is that this is pretty common, and it'll take about 6 months for your kid to \"stabilise\" and catch all the resident bugs... only then will her immunity strengthen *sigh*

Cough cough... it's going to be a tough week ahead of me...

[Koolmama]

Oh yes one point to add about this discussion about Pat’s vs church kindys and also Pat’s vs other schools with lower ratios.


i think the main draw of Pat’s is that it caters for working parents, so that you can choose the option of having your child stay the full day… If this isn’t such a pressing priority for you, i’d actually recommend going for a nice, good church kindy instead and then spend money on good enrichment courses like Berries, Music for young children, MPM Maths, etc…

At least, this was what i would have done if not for the logistical problems that i had when i was expecting no. 2… My elder kid used to be in a very good church kindy and there were lots of good enrichment classes i could have sent him to… which i actually feel are better than the in-house programmes at Pat’s. For example, even after being in Pat’s for 2.5 years, his Chinese was quite bad. Spoken Chinese - okay good, since there is daily immersion but i felt that their curriculum in terms of teaching the students recognition of chinese characters and written words was not very strong… E.g. Schools like Yuquan Preschool and Berries are definitely much stronger in this area.

And as for child-teacher ratios, there are definitely schools out there with better ratios. For example, Between 2 Trees only has max 6 kids in a class!! They have SO MUCH individual attention… and their fees are cheaper than Pat’s too!! The only drawback is that their school compound isn’t very big, but that’s just a personal pref thing for me…

B2T also has a sister school called Mustard Seed - you may wanna check that out to see if their ratios are good too…

Also, when i went to visit Newton Kindy, i was impressed with the spaciousness of their classrooms and the friendliness of their staff. In fact, if i had started my girl off there in the beginning of this year, she would have been one of only 5-6 kids with 3 teachers to look after her!!! Isn’t that value for money?? Again, the reason why i didn’t go for that is 'cos firstly, i need the option of full-day care and secondly, they follow MOE holidays which means that i’d be stuck with her in June, Nov and Dec and have to think of many activities to occupy her during those times. But if these 2 reasons aren’t factors for you, by all means send your child to a church or other kindy and use the money saved to enrol him/her in good enrichment courses!!

[autumnbronze]

Hi koolmama,


Would you mind PM-ing me the fees for Between 2 Trees? Thanks much in advance.

[debpch]

Hi Koolmama,

My kid is at Tanglin... but I guess we have the same problems. SIGH.

Wah, the teacher's response sound a bit irresponsible leh... Shouldn't the teachers insist that sick kids (esp those who are visibly sick) stay at home? Otherwise, the virus would be going round and round and round...

Oh... u have gotten me a bit worried. My kid's Chinese is really bad too. So, from your experience, the curriculum @ Pat's is not really good, izzit? Has your No. 1 gone to P1 yet? How is he coping? I would be really concerned if the feedback is that Pat's does not prepare their kids for P1... Any comments? :?:

[Kabby]

my ds2 is in k2. His Chinese improved a lot after joining Pat's in Jan of K1.

Before that, he had almost no Chinese at all cos we were not in Sg.

Right now, after 1 yr, he has caught up with local kids in terms of word recognition and writing. Only his spoken language still sounds a bit \"ang moh\" and off in intonation.

So i was quite happy with the Chi std actually. Another Eurasian classmate joined 3 mths b4 him also picked it up v well. I attributed it to the immersion policy and also cos the tr is from China and ds2 is forced to speak to be understood. At home, he will reply in English even if we speak Mandarin cos he knows we understand...

I liked the Tang poetry and cultural things they intro in lessons, with the speech n drama which makes it interesting.

ds2 will go p1 nxt yr, so i can update if he can cope nxt yr, hope it helps!