My children are happy and thriving in the ChildFirst educational environment.

My husband and I have always valued raising our five children bilingually. As we both speak only English, it has been a bit more difficult for us to pull off. However, when we were given the opportunity to move from New York to Singapore, we jumped at the chance, as we believed there were more options for learning Mandarin and we wanted a little adventure.

Once we arrived in Singapore and settled in an apartment, I started looking around for schools that taught Mandarin. I saw a large, colourful banner by Marine Parade and I took note of the phone number. Later that day I called and made plans to visit the school during its next open house. When we arrived at the school, I was very impressed with the facilities. Everything was very new and clean and the walls were a nice friendly yellow. My children immediately started playing in the main playroom and had so much fun discovering the food market, the costumes, and the dolls. We enrolled our then 4 year old and 3 year old in the Mandarin half-day programme. They are now 5 and 4 years old and have since moved into the full day programme.

In the past year, Isaac (K2) has started speaking conversational Mandarin and can even converse with our oldest child’s Mandarin home teacher. He can also read simple stories in Mandarin and can write some Chinese characters. He is even beginning to read and write in English. Anna (N2) is learning so much Mandarin and is able to talk to her teachers and sing songs to me in Mandarin. This past January, their younger brother Patrick joined them by starting half day Mandarin. He loves going to school and talks all about riding on the bus and eating lunch. He really enjoys his teachers and his first school experience has been a positive one.

In my interactions with the staff at ChildFirst, I have found that they are very attentive to any problems or issues at the school. The safety of the children is paramount and they are fastidious about keeping the facility free from infectious disease. They clean and sanitize the toys and facilities regularly and there are never any bad odours. To keep in communication with parents, each child has a book that the teachers or parents can write notes in. We also receive monthly emails for each class that detail the curriculum for that month. Between the inviting facilities and the attentive staff, I have never seen a better school. My children are happy and thriving in the ChildFirst educational environment.

Mary Ellen Lewis
Caroline, Isaac & Anna’s mum