PTC mommy discussion
i went for shad’s PTC (parent teacher’s conference) at the beginning of the year recently. i’ve attended his PTC last year but previously i normally attended the ones in the middle of the year or end of the year where the parents will get a comprehensive update of the child’s development and also his portfolio of work.
the start of the year PTC was more of a brief intro by the school on how it is conducting its programme. we were grouped according to the level where our kid is in (nursery 1 for shad). the teacher explained the centre’s timetable, and the centre’s approach, which i think was of great importance for the parents that were in my group. maybe we started later than the other groups, but we were the last to leave the centre.
shad’s childcare centre follows a thematic playbased learning curriculum. they introduce the skills and academic stuffs (like the alphabets and numbers) through play. i think it is a common approach in a lot of childcare and preschool centres.
but it did got a few parents concerned.
one mommy would like to have more worksheets for her child. the school does not do worksheets at all at this stage for the kids. they do paper work and crafts and ‘writing’. but no homework or worksheets for the kids to ‘practice’ on or bring home to show their parents. i guess, their play-based approach means no worksheets. before i was a parent, i used to snigger and thought “why would we want to get our kids do worksheets at such a young age, when they have at least another 10 years of worksheets later on?”
but i see the mommy’s concern here. she has another kid who is currently in primary one and whom she think wasnt sufficiently prepared for it (of course she did not say that..but she did bring up that her son has to go for therapy for writing and bookwork, that is sitting down and doing worksheet. he is struggling with spelling because her son’s previous preschool never had spelling tests). and yes, i found out spelling tests are common in many other centres. she thinks play-based is great but she would like to see more structure and ‘bookwork’.
for non parents or parents whose kids are yet to be in preschool….welcome to the reality of the system.
another parent who is a teacher contributed that the school is doing great. especially with teaching her child malay. and yes, malay language teaching was also a point of discussion. arshad is attending a malay/muslim centre. the centre formally teach malay on fridays and have the children and teachers communicate in malay on fridays only (other days they try to enforce communication in english). but i guess, it is a common issue with many young families these days where parents speak in english and kids take it to be almost their first language, that even in a malay preschool centre, the parents would like to have more of malay teaching to help their kids. i was just glad that our parents are taking the initiative to push for their kids to be more conversant in malay at this age.
the same mommy also brought up that she wasnt too concern about the academics (pri school teacher can help own kid with academics in some ways. she said that, herself. to which, concerned working mom remarked, she wasnt as fortunate with three kids, and lack of time). the mommy was more concerned of how the centre was teaching her child moral values, social skills and being independent (only child) as she found some kids in primary school are severely lacking in EQ. a great point brought up there.
i think at some point of you preschool kid’s life, you will get a bit concerned about his primary school readiness. i say it’s inevitable..and i say this based on stories, and anecdotal evidences.. i have to admit i was there because i have reached a point where i would like to know how the centre will eventually help in primary school readiness for my kid..i know it’s a couple of years from now, but he’ll progress form nursery to kindergarten..and i would like to know how it was going to work out for him this year and eventually next year. so, it was pretty good for the centre to have the session for us and for parents to be honest with our concerns. i do share the same concerns about many points that was raised. the pri 1 readiness, being conversant in malay, his social skills and moral values.
i like play-based approach because i think kids learn effectively through play at this stage. make them sit and do bookwork, they will fidget and whine. given their short attention span, it is erroneous to force it to them as they would associate it with negative experience and would hate learning. but i did say, yes, i would like to have some worksheets for the kid to bring home once in awhile. i would like the things they do to match up to the expected milestones for a nursery kid. and i guess, i may be able to observe that if i have the chance to observe my kid daily…or coach him..but for some busy parents, i think worksheets or something tangible gives us some form of feedback. i would like to have things done so that i can see the development based on the milestones for a nursery kid.
the thing about preschools, they are not standardised in curriculum or their approach. the issue has been brought up as to whether MOE should regulate preschool education. the argument for this is to allow for a more equal footing when the kids reach primary one. the current stand is MOE wont regulate, because it wants to allow for a variety, so that parents can choose-montessori, playbased, drilling pre-school, church based, mosque based etc. as parents, we would chose based on our needs, our beliefs and of coz budget. i guess whichever we choose for our kids, we have to know what the kids are experiencing, be aware of how the schools are conducting the lessons, whether it is helping in their development (whichever areas we deem important-religous, billingualism etc) ..and to find out..whichever part is lacking , it would be up to us,the parents to help or make up for in whichever ways, within our means.
