I wanted Elijah to have full immersion in Mandarin for half a day, so that he will not struggle with Mandarin in primary school… to be exposed to technology, robotics and coding, so that he is cognizant that IT can be used meaningfully…

Dear ChildFirst,

This is Elijah and Ellie-Jeane Loy’s mother. Elijah graduated from ChildFirst in 2018, while Ellie has recently switched child care centre to be at the same centre as her baby sister, for ease of fetching and dropping off. Looking back at the past six years, I am deeply grateful to ChildFirst for the support so that I can put my mind at ease while I focus on my full-time work.

ChildFirst, my first choice
Before enrolling Elijah to ChildFirst, I visited at least five other child care centres but I was most impressed with ChildFirst’s pedagogy. I visited centres that were chaotic and where it appeared that the teachers were struggling with classroom control. I also visited centres where I see mostly craft work on display.

At ChildFirst, I saw a conducive environment for learning and for personal growth. The children were engaged in the lessons and the assignments. There was a good balance of excellent classroom management, fun and laughter. The children were not stifled in an overly controlled environment. I also noticed that both craftwork and good writing pieces were on display.

ChildFirst was therefore my first choice. I wanted Elijah to have full immersion in Mandarin for half a day, so that he will not struggle with Mandarin in primary school. I also wanted him to be exposed to technology, robotics and coding, so that he is cognizant that IT can be used meaningfully, and be familiar with it.

Stellar team of teachers
I am also deeply appreciative of ChildFirst’s stellar team of teachers, especially Ms Li Juan Juan, Ms Viki and Ms Sara. I thank the teachers for their dedicated effort in building Ellie’s confidence. They kept reaching out to her, believing in her and encouraging her. They love all of their students, the outspoken ones, the quiet ones, the smiley ones and the ones who cry more.

Ellie’s teachers were there for her when she was down. When the going gets tough, true love shone. Once when Ellie was hospitalised, Ms Viki made a card together with some of Ellie’s friends to encourage Ellie. Knowing that Ellie is slow to warm up, Ms Sara and Ms Viki chose farewell gifts of Ellie’s favourite characters, to accompany her at her new school.

Ellie loves to dance and I tried bringing her to a dance class but she insisted that she only wants to learn dancing from Ms Li who inspired her to build confidence through dance. Ms Li had also taught Elijah. She laid a very strong foundation for Elijah’s Chinese even though we don’t speak Mandarin at all. He had a head start in primary school.

Ms Sara was also the pre-nursery teacher for both Ellie and Elijah. I felt very assured leaving my children with her. She took great care of the little ones and knew them well. Her classroom management skills were superb too.

ChildFirst maintained high standards
Having placed both my children in ChildFirst for the past six years, I witnessed how ChildFirst has maintained and further improved the quality of child care. For instance, one of the largest scale event is the annual graduation concert. Every year, I am impressed at how ChildFirst groomed confident children. I noticed that the emcees of the concert are not only the same pair, but a number of children were given the opportunity to emcee the concert and they did it with finesse. Confident children are the result of conscious effort to expose them to speak in front of others, such as through the regular “show and tell” and “little announcer”.

During the circuit breaker, I also witnessed the quality lessons conducted via Zoom, recorded videos and power point presentations. When my colleagues and I discussed about their home-based learning experience with other preschools, I was thankful that Ellie had high quality education at ChildFirst.

Having been under administrative and operating systems of other infant care centres that my children were placed at, before transiting to ChildFirst, I must say that ChildFirst has an impressive curriculum and a very neat administrative system that keeps the operations smooth.

I extend my heartfelt appreciation to Principal Ms Noora for leading a stellar team of teachers, for welcoming and cheering the children daily with her sunshine personality, for taking initiatives and for her clear communications to parents.

Thanks for all the dedicated hard work!

From Elijah and Ellie-Jeane’s mother