bunnybluey:My #1 has been with Agape at NTU Alumni since he was abt 2yo, & the experience has been good, that's why I've also put my girl in infant care since last year.
Although teachers turnover is a bit high & P also changed a few during these 4yrs, the transition was quite ok. All the Ps listen to parents' feedback & wld try to improve the quality of their cc, not just in terms of curriculum, but also constantly upgrading their centre, at least so far all the feedback I gave was followed up & improvements made. Some of the teachers turnover is actually they had gone over to the newer branches, not that they had left Agape, so the teachers quality is ok that they can go over to assume higher responsibilities.
In terms of curriculum, at least you can assure that they hv minimally followed MOE's framework as they are SPARK certified. The current P is very hands on, whom I often see helping out in the infant area during peak hrs, which usually is not full staff strength reported for work yet, so can at least see that the P is a loving person towards little children.
They also merged the 2 K2 classes to prepare my son for P1 as it's important that the kids learn to cope with a bigger class size, so to parents who think small class ratio is gd, do think if it's gd in long term when your child needs to go pri sch whereby the ratio is a lot bigger with only 1 teacher. The cc also brought the K2 kids to a pri sch to experience pri sch life & even buy their own food at the pri sch canteen. I understand fr the cc that they wld start to intro concepts abt money handling & other aspects to prepare them for P1.
Recently, the cc was also selected to participate in a prog organised by ECDA & HPB to learn abt healthy lifestyle & balanced diet, although parents need to pay additional fees for this prog, it definitely worths the value for the activities involved. My son came back telling us that this or that is junk food, becoming more health conscious, which helps us to tell him why we need to restrict his intake of things like sweet, chips, soft drink, fries, etc.
As regards to my girl who will be going to PG soon, which they now called it Smart Toddlers, the P told us that they will likely open new ST class for current grp going to be 18mths soon as she doesn't want the children to be put through the changes come next year when current ST classes would be promoted to N1 next year so that the little ones do not experience change of teachers, friends & classroom.
Also, 1 thing that the cc impresses me is that how do they have so much manpower to activate to bring all the children safely to mtg pt when the bldg has fire drills, as even infants also participated in the drills & their drills are so frequent that I think my children did more drills than my entire life. I'm not sure if other brands of cc participate in the bldg fire drills.
Programmes for the different branches vary across them, for this branch, they have arts, music, letterland, outdoor play, gymn, water play besides the main English, Chinese, Maths lessons, not all branches have the luxury of water play in the default programme. The additional I paid for my son is English speech & drama.
These are just some plus pts that I share, so parents who are sourcing around for cc, do look at more choices instead of those popular branded ones.
I'm working in educational sector, Ps are mostly out for meetings, etc. If they sit in office everyday, think I would start wondering how come the P is so free, nothing to do?