Getting an early Rafflesian start

Last Saturday, Ray and I attended a charity gala dinner organised by the Singapore Children's Society where they featured the "Dim Sum Dollies" (yes, Emma was there in her full glory fraternising with the crowd in true "dollie" fashion).

Ray's boss had purchased tickets for two tables and invited us along. So in a bid to check out Singapore's "high society" and to show "face" to Ray's boss, we got all "dolled" (pun totally intended :) up and went along.

I ended up sitting next to his boss' wife who at some point in the conversation commented on how people with kids ALWAYS end up chatting about kids and maids. Sigh....that's so true....

Anyway, I'm digressing...

One of the BIG discussion topics for parents with kids around Alicia's age is which school to put them in. It starts off innocuously with which nursery, then which kindie and progresses up to whether to send them to local or international primary schools! All this planning for someone who can barely string a sentence together!

So as Alicia gets closer to starting Nursery 1 (in 2.5 months), I've been exploring several options to find a school that she likes and that we're comfortable with.

She was in Julia Gabriel for a long time and I must just reiterate how wonderful that school is, especially for the Chinese playgroup. Only problem is, we are now looking for a drop-off program where we can drop her off at 9am and have my parents pick her up at 12pm.

A neighbour recommended MMI ( Modern Montessori) on Claymore Road. It's a huge school, overpopulated and understaffed. We enrolled Alicia for a two week trial and at the end of it, decided against continuing with them. I just felt that they spent so much time trying to organise the kids and getting them to move from the playground to the classrooms and so little time on actually teaching them anything.

The little area they made into a gym was SO crowded it was like an accident waiting to happen. Guess we were too spoilt by Julia Gabriel where everything ran like clockwork.

Next....

I drive past this school all the time but never really gave it much thought till I saw them advertise in "Young Parents" magazine. By this time, I was just trying to find something that had immediate vacancies, was not so overwhelming and had a drop-off programme. The fact that it's called Raffles House Pre-school and the founders are all from Raffles was just a cool coincidence.

So far, Alicia seems to be enjoying herself and I'll probably continue with them after her trial period.

What I thought was a pretty interesting nugget of marketing info was how they justified their choice of name:

"We have chosen to call our school Raffles House Preschool, not only because the founders were all from Raffles Girls' Secondary or Raffles Institution. More importantly, because our vision is to build a premier preschool, in line with the accomplishments and strong heritage that the name has come to be associated with, in the education services"

Auspicium Melioris Aevi!