Anyone out there have children who are learning guzheng or pipa? Care to share some of the frequent complaints about learning these chinese musical instruments?


And if they had previously learnt piano do they find these chinese musical instrument much easier or difficult to learn?

The school term has just started on 2 January. If you are thinking of admission immediately you may want to call the schools directly to enquire.


You can do an advanced search under School Information Service at moe.gov.sg. Select ‘Primary’ and the appropriate Development Guide Plan. The schools within your vicinity are under ‘Bukit Timah’, ‘Novena’ and ‘Clementi’. Get into the school’s website for the telphone numbers. If none of the schools have any vacancies then you might want to cast your net wider to include those in ‘Bukit Batok’ or Bukit Merah’.

An easier way would be to leave it to the Ministry to find a school for you by sitting for a centralised exam. However, this exam is only conducted at year end.

Good luck.

If you are considering a pre-school with heavy emphasis on Chinese you may want to check out Newton K. It is church-based and has a very long history and it started has a pure Chinese kindy. Each class has both an English and Chinese teacher and the latter being the form teacher. I noticed that the teachers hired speak exceptionally good English and Chinese. The staff turnover has been low. Infact my kids had the same teachers through out their 3-4 years there with only one change of teacher. The principal is probably extra careful of the selection of staff partly due because quite a number of minister’s grand kids are studying there.

For those who are using foster parent’s address please read my earlier post below:


Posted: 05 Dec 2008 11:00 Post subject: P1 Registratin - All about home addresses

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If you are letting your child take school bus to school please take note that your pick up point must tally with the registration address. Most people do not know this but SLA requires all bus companies ferrying school children to submit a list of names and pick-up addresses to SLA yearly. This list must be endorsed by the school prior to submission. So you should know what this means!

Lizawa thanks for the tips.

Hi lizawa


Thanks for asking micko07 that qeustion. It was so kind of her to share with us her study strategies. Lizawa what about you? Gathered from past posts that your child did very well at PSLE. Care to also share with us where you sent your child for enrichment or tuition?

Hi Clare


You may want to read posts under the headings 'Barker Road Kindergarten, Nanyang Kindergarten and St James Kindergarten'. The url link is here:

http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?t=835&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

You can read about what I and some otehr parents have commented about this kindy and others.

aidenquek


One of my kids was from Nanyang K. During her time, we had to physically Q up (overnight) for a place. I believe those who did not get a place were probably placed on wait-list. After 1-2 semesters there were some withdrawals from my daughter’s class. I also withdrew her after 1.5 yrs.

If you could share your reasons for giving Nanyang K priority, I would be able to share some first-hand insights which will help you to decide if you should give priority to this kindy.

This is how I explain to my kids and it has worked.


I’ve explained to my kids that listening to songs/music using headsets will cause hearing problems when they are older and I’ve also pointed out to them near-accidents as a result of teenagers who cross roads while using ipod cause they could not hear approaching traffic. Hence they understand the reason why they should not have it.

As for Gameboy etc, I explained to them that such close proximity to the screen for long period of time will spoil their eye sight. I have shown them how they will not be able to do many things or participate in many sports if they wear glasses. I also prefer my kids to play with each other for bonding. They often play pretend and this helps to polish up their speech (I don’t have to send them to drama class) and creativity.

If you are letting your child take school bus to school please take note that your pick up point must tally with the registration address. Most people do not know this but SLA requires all bus companies ferrying school children to submit a list of names and pick-up addresses to SLA yearly. This list must be endorsed by the school prior to submission. So you should know what this means!