Blissedsher:

is the new PCF curriculum sufficient for p1 ?

Why you all so kiasu? All K2 students in any kindergarten are more than ready for P1.
It is nothing so special about P1. It is not university level.
MOE is not stupid and follows according to world education standards requirements.
It is compulsory for all schools P1 to be able to cope with all levels of children even without any kindergarten past. So even if your child has not gone to kindergarten, she/he will still able to cope in P1. Only children who required special needs school cannot cope in P1.
The real challenges in children educations start from second year of secondary school. First year of secondary is a year to let children cope with their new surroundings.
If you worried, kiasu and rich, you can consider sending your children to private tuitions and 2-3 kindergartens everyday including all holidays.

Just to add, I usually power-up the printer at least once in every 3-4 weeks to print a page and the cartridges still did not dry dry up on Canon and HP. Only problem each start-up, the printer will waste some ink and Canon seems to be wasting more than HP. I did not choose other brands like Lexmark because internet told me they are craps. At the time I shop, Epson do not have any price offer so I did not choose them.

I own a HP all in one inkjet printer 10 yrs ago and only print occasionally. The printer is quite easy to use and setting. The 2 cartridges are considered quite expensive but is quite easy to refill. It is also quite easy to reset the cartridge but only let you refill for a 4-5 times before the it spoil. The frustrating problem is no wifi and is placed in another room. I noticed refill ink even black is not as good as the original.

I recently I accidentally broke the copy glass so I urgently bought a Canon all in one. Canon printer is not user friendly and very hard to setting, even the manual is frustrating, always wasted hours to set something simple. But this printer has wifi so easier to print using wifi. Refilling 2 ink cartridges are not so user friendly and still no idea how to hard reset them because limited information on internet.
I chose Canon because its cheaper than Brother, believed in my Canon camera user-friendly settings, internet said better print result, a Japanese brand.
But I regretted now of not buying back a HP printer which is cheaper and user-friendly than Canon. When power-on Canon, it always wasted a lot of ink.
User-friendly is very important and that’s why Nokia won over Motorola and the other competitors in the 90s and 2000s.
As This Canon printer is still new, I will not know if there are more frustrations that I will face.
To me most important:
1) Printer price.
2) User-friendly settings and use.
3) Re-fill ink option and cartridges.
If you do print a lot, then you should consider 4 ink cartridges type because 2 cartridges system wasted other ink which are not fully utilized. But these printers are more expensive. If you only print black, just buy a monochrome printer to prevent headache of printer barring you to use because of a low colour ink which you do not even need.
Yes, you can get a printer at $50-60 but the ink cartridges are expensive. But if you refill, it is considered good too. The ones who do not refill ink are the too rich people who do not care of money.

The most important factors to prove the center is confident good:

1. Non close door so all parents can see through the window what was going on. This also prevent teacher misconduct on innocent children and to let parent judge center’s quality. If it is closed door, this means the center has something very wrong going on.
2. No TV because some teacher tend to short cut using tv to teach or even make herself free.
3. Security that no outsiders or parents can enter into the center unattended.
4. Teacher/assistance and student ratio so the adults can handle the children well.
5. Proper English communication.

The rest are just useless because you have to be 24/7 or worked with them to find out.

It is hard to monitor because you are not there all the time, especially these teachers know when someone is looking and so they behaved.

Old teachers are more mature and have experiences but some are attitude problems, thats why they had remained as kindergarten teachers after so many decades.
Young teachers are lack of experiences and the new generations are less tolerance to kids and patience. But some are willing to learn and go far.
It really depends how the centre recruit and how much they willing to pay. Better budget, better teachers and they less dare to play punk in their work. You also cannot blame those low budget kindergarten because they are meant for low budget and low income families. Salary in Singapore is so much higher than our neighboring countries it is very hard for business to cope.

Kidsprodigy:

My home uses singtel cos of mio TV. I still prefer singtel serviceS generally. I have a friend who recently apply for a corporate line with m1 and they took very long before they fix the line and the services from the staff is really bad.

Singtel is the same. They took 2 weeks to fix and never give a reason why it happened. I believe they changed something in their sub station and did not install properly because their technical line can reboot my system though the phone line when my internet still down. The worse, Singtel treated me like a beggar! and their senior service tech has no knowledge how to check because my hubby is a service manager for decades in other trade. A secondary school boy can do their technicians job!
Singtel had earned so much money and monopoly so they never care of the customers feelings anymore.
In order to solve all these lousy services, we should have more competing telcos like other countries.

Kiaseemum:

zbear:

[quote=\"Kiaseemum\"]

It's just sad that some parents don't make an effort to ensure their kids are literate before they enter pri 1.. There's really no time to learn to read when you're in p1, because there is so much more you have to understand like example math problems etc.

Has times changed? Is it true that you have no time to learn to read in P1?

As far as I am aware, P1 is 'honeymoon' time. Its a slow transition from kindy to Primary School. So long as they are able to read n write basic words before entering Primary School, I am sure they can stay on par unless they have a learning disability.

Nope, in p1 it's not a honeymoon time anymore..[/quote]I disagree. According to MOE syllabus, P1 must be adaptable by any kids who has no schooling experience.
In fact this is international standard.
You are too kiasee and kiasu la.

It is a matter of cost and budget.


I remembered during my primary 1, my malay teacher kept asking me to repeat a word. At that time as a 7 year old kid, I remembered that I had pronounced properly but the teacher was angry and kicked my leg. My mom only found out the swollen part when she was bathing me. She had complaint to the principal and that teacher later did not use force on me anymore. But he will always asked me to stand behind the movable board and refused to let me learn. He even make fun of me in front of the other classmates.
So even if you have complaint after a teacher’s fault, that teacher will later seek revenge. Most kids do not know how to complaint to their parents so they are always the best victims to hooligans.

silviagirl:

whitesands:

Hello Mummies

I am new here, I would like to check your feedback on CCC at jurong west. I have shortlisted a few as following:
1) Little Tree House @ westwood crescent
2) KANOOKA SCHOOL HOUSE - Blk 852
3) PCF SPARKLETOTS PIONEER (BLK 694)
4) WHIZ KIDZ MONTESSORI
5) INNATE MONTESSORI @ Corporation road

Appreciate & Thanks your help
:lovesite:

I have experience for my kids @ PCF Sparkletots pioneer (BLK 9xx, near stadium), my girl was N1, my son was K1 (I withdraw them last month due to move house)
My son was lucky as his teachers are all very good since Toddler class, they are more focus on academic, my son learnt alot from there, chinese, math, and english, he can spell 1-10 in english, he can do calculation in math very quickly, even recognize chinese words that we did not teach at all. The teachers teach all these by singing song. I love the way they teach.
But my girl is not that lucky. She doesn't like to go to school and she doesn't like the teachers, may be it is only N1, I do not see any academic thing she learnt from the child care other than everyday singing.
Not sure the Sparkletots at block 6xx is the same, for your reference only

If your girl does not like there means there is something wrong there. This was my experience in my primary school.

esimly3506:

Hi,

I understood from the PCF principal that the enrollment for N1 are for children born from Y2013 Jan-Jun (those meet the 30months age). I asked the principal again so how about those who are born in Y2013 Jul-Dec, will there be a 2nd intake of N1, but to my disappointment that her reply was subject to vacancies available in June next year. My child is born in December 2013. I called up another PCF centre and they said the same thing.

I wondered how unfair for those who are born the later part of the year. They will only be accepted based on VACANCY of the centre, instead of providing a 2nd intake somewhere in December this year. And I asked them why, they told me it is regulated by ECDA and they just merely following it.

My concern is if there is no vacancy in the PCF centre located just right below my block, I will have to source for another centre further away from my house. Worse is I have to put my child in the nearby childcare and pay a higher cost.

Does anyone encounter the same issue as me? Is this process of enrollment justified? Appreciate anyone can shed some light. Thanks.

Some pcf centres does not know the 30 month enrolment and do not care to find out. If you ask them again after 6 months, same answer do not know. When you had complaint to the hq, then these centers will start to act finding out but they are still not interested to do the 30 month enrolment. They will give you all sorts of answers but you will never able to enrol into their 30 month classes.
If you are lucky, you will get to enrol into an existing class which has empty slots, provided this center had already in 30 month enrolments processes.