Woodlands? Repulse Bay vs Happy Valley vs Peak

[Little bird]

Hi

Advice, advice, please. My boy is 9 months old and I am researching on playgroups etc. Today I had a school tour at Woodlands RB (my first school tour ever), and cancelled the visit at HV due to an unexpected commitment. Impression is just fair for both ( experience with HV limited to phone/email which is not that great, and impression from forums not so great neither based on forums) ...

Would Woodlands Peak be better?? How about Busy Bees at Football Club?

My observations for RB is as below - Am I right in judging a school on these? Am I expecting too much??

- liked the new reno but I found that the classroom is v small for the number of students (12-24?). Felt so squashy.

- Also felt that the teacher/student ratio (10-1) for playgroup is not ideal for montesorri teaching. The class is only for 1.5 hrs, in which perhaps 15 min?? is assigned to montesorri skills, how much personal attention would a student get for montesorri training?

Feeling a bit down!!!! I had only been doing research from forums and friends and in my first school visit the key thing I find out is that even a reputatble school, which I have high expectation of based on forums, could be disappointing in such fundamental aspects ??!? Feels such a long way ahead ....

I would like for my son to eventually go to an international primary school with good mandarin training. Just don't know where to start!?

 

[carang]

as someone who runs a playgroup, i can tell you that the costs of running them are astronomical. space is a luxury and as such full use is usually made of it.

i don't know too much about montessori, so i won't even touch on that...but i can talk about teacher-child ratio. at my group, i try to limit it to a maximum of 8. for the space that i have any more is too crowded. i found out today that due to a mix up in scheduling there were 10 kids and it's just too many.

our classes are 1.25 hrs and i make a point of trying to interact with each and every child throughout the class.

as for how much time is devoted to each segment of the class, that depends on the age range of the children attending the class. as your child grows you will find that the attention span of under 2s is VERY VERY short (in most cases) so most teachers like to "keep the class moving" so as not to lose the attention of the kids.

good luck with your search!