Chiltern House is the One!

The 5 months of frantically searching for Zacch's preschool has finally came to an end this Monday. Indeed, I am proud and ecastic that Daddy Seng and I have come to an unanimous decision that Chiltern House is the preschool for Zacch.
Eversince Zacch left Kinderland after a week, he was traumatised by the word "school". To him, school has became a place where Mummy and Daddy left him alone with a bunch of strangers. School has became a room where he will in from 8-6pm. School was just a place to eat, sleep and did everything there...
I was in the "school" for two days and I felt restricted and bored myself. "School" was not fun as it seemed that there was alot of waiting for "actions" to happen. Waiting to queue to wash hands, waiting to have food to be served, waiting to play toys, waiting to bath, waiting to go into the classroom to sleep and lastly, waiting to be picked up by Daddy and Mummy. So after one week of school in Kinderland, we had enough and decided to withdraw Zacch out from the school.

From that day onwards, I decided that the next school for Zacch will be a half day curriculum instead. I was determined to search for another school; a school Zacch will love and look forward to. As such, I became fussy and particular each time I went to visit the school. My checklist when I am looking out for Zacch's school are below:
- The principle vision and beliefs
- Quality, appearance and personality of teachers
- Decoration of classroom
- Class venue (whether in a partition area or in a class)
- The type of outdoor or freeplay for the kids
- The timetable program
- The school environment (whether under HDB or a building)
- Lastly, my gut feelings for the school

And the list of schools I have visited are:
- Sunny Bunny Montessori (Sim Lim Ave)
- Cambridge Development Centre (Mei Hwan Dr and YCK)
- Learning Vision (YCK)
- Character Montessori (AMK)
- School House by the Garden (Philips Ave)
- School House by the Bay (Serangoon)
- Little Skool House (AMK)
- Pat's Schoolhouse (Whitley Rd)
- Learning Centre (AMK Hub)
- Call up Kinderland YCK
- Call up Mind Champs (Toa Payoh)
- Call up United Montessori (Bishan)
- Call up Hampton House (Bishan)
- Call up St. James Kindergarten

So far, the school that impressed DS and I most is Chiltern House at Halifax road. Reasons being:
- The school changes their theme every term and the classroom decoration follows the theme and is done very elaborately. Upon entering the classroom, I liked it immediately as it gave me a warm feeling.
- The program for N1 includes speech and drama (very Julia Gabriel), music, crockery and maths. And the impressive thing is the speech and drama and music lessons are conducted by the JG teachers themselves. WOW!
- The lights are dim and classical music are play to calm the students during the snacks time. Interesting!
- The food are being catered from a Brazil restaurant in Six Avenue. haha
- The school is located in a terrace house building, as such, they have the luxury of space for outdoor activities including a playground of their own.
- I was told that the Chiltern House teachers go for courses during every holidays.
- The school has a different set of program during June and December holidays.
- The pupils go for field trip every term in accordance to the theme for the term.
- The songs that the teachers sing are very similar to the songs in Zacch's billingual playclub. For eg, the teacher will sing song to have the students to sit down instead of shouting. Very catchy.

But two criterias before the student can be enrolled; they must be toilet trained and have to go through the interview with the principle.

Based on the above analysis and experience of having visiting so many schools, I am sure that I have chosen the best school for Zacch, knowing that he will be looking forward to go to school everyday. And to tell me that he loves school one day! However, being the best comes at a heavy price as the school fees and the bus service per month are not cheap. Guess we cannot have the best of both world; cheap and good education. Having say that, DS and I will never compromise on having good education for Zacch.