North Vista Primary

[polarbear]

Why do you say that NVPS is not organised?

[polarbear]

puppy80:

Does anyone know Mrs June Lim of North Vista Pri Sch?


Any comments abt her?

Very experienced teacher. Used to teach @ St Andrews Junior

[eddiehing]

Pappy:

hi tingtb, melloh88, jccmum, parents,


I am attracted to the school approach in teaching children via a fun approach.

However, I find the school's management not efficient, organised and responsive.

Will like to hear from existing parents of NVPS, is the above comments valid?

In addition, how do you find the school management, teachers and your child's progress so far. Is your child's academic comparable with child his/her age?

Thanks.

Why not you go to the school and check out.

So far my son are progressing and teacher did inform us what actually happen with my son.

BTW, sooner or later all school will move on to new education system like Aus & US.

[e3nity]

eddiehing:

Pappy:

hi tingtb, melloh88, jccmum, parents,


I am attracted to the school approach in teaching children via a fun approach.

However, I find the school's management not efficient, organised and responsive.

Will like to hear from existing parents of NVPS, is the above comments valid?

In addition, how do you find the school management, teachers and your child's progress so far. Is your child's academic comparable with child his/her age?

Thanks.

Why not you go to the school and check out.

So far my son are progressing and teacher did inform us what actually happen with my son.

BTW, sooner or later all school will move on to new education system like Aus & US.

You mean all schools will b adopting reggio inspired system in the near future? I've called the school and the person in charged told me that they may consider about an open house if there are sufficient parents interested to learn more about the school. However i would seriously appreciate if parents are willing to share about the your experience with this new system (at least new to me). This is a famous method for pre school but i duno about primary school..

I've a few doubt. Since kids are allow to learn what they are interested, will they be learning things which are out of the syllabus? (eg: if they are suppose to learn about animals, the kids say they wana learn about sea creatures or plants won't it be not sufficient for them?) With no clear boundaries set will the kids be well discipline? I don't mean kids in this school are not well discipline. I also heard from a student care that the principal cane the child. Is that the way of disciplining after allowing the kid to decide wat they want to do and learn? please enlighten me. I'm kinda lost about these. Thank you.

[onyva]

My girl is in P1 at NVPS. Have enrolled her in NVPS, our first choice, after almost 2 years of checking out the school via this forum and going for open house and seeing the school for ourselves.


She's only into her 2nd mth in the school so I can't claim to speak for the school, or that I know enough about the school. My comments are based on what I know and I would like to share, as I know in the past 2 years I really wanted real-life accounts from real parents from the school.

About the point on kids being the 3rd teacher, and learning to respect the voice of the child, which is what the Reggio approach embraces - I can give one example. My girl has to write weekly journal - to train them on spelling, sentence forming, essay writing. The kids get to choose their topic, so last week's was \"My birthday celebration\". I guess this way, the kids are more motivated to write about something they chose themselves. In any case, I don't see any problem with teachers teaching out of syllabus sometimes. Gives the child an all-rounded education.

In terms of discipline, I have to say the principal is indeed pretty stern and firm. But I feel that is needed to instil some discipline in the children. The school has a system of shushing the kids down during assembly. Witnessed this during the CNY celebration where parents are invited. All the school teachers apparently practice this system, not just the principal. They don't scream at the kids to keep quiet, they will raise a finger in the air and ask, using the mike, the kids to look at them and follow them to raise their fingers as well. This is their signal to the kids that they have to look in front and keep quiet. I have to say, it worked. The kids were silenced without much fanfare and shouting from the teachers. I think they drill this into the kids since day 1 as every kid knows it, even the 2-month-old primary ones. Personally, I prefer this system to shouting at the kids to keep quiet.

I'm not aware of the principal caning the student. I don't initiate conversations with him, but through observation, I feel he is indeed stern, and firm, but not nasty. I think he has no qualms telling a kid off if he does something wrong, but I've seen the softer side of him as well. Last weekend we had a family bonding camp and he came by in the evening. Saw him holding a P1 boy's hand and leading him to the toilet, so the parents can continue with the games.

In terms of school syllabus, they do use largely the same kind of textbook and materials as other schools. I know the PAL Maths materials they use is the same as ACS (my fren's son is in there). They have no exams for P1 and P2, but there are regular assessments. Every week they have the usual spelling, ting xie and mental maths (teacher read out the sums, child has to listen and write down answer). There is a ting xie list. But there is no spelling list, coz the school believes in learning spelling through phonics, and not rote memory. So most of the words are not the normal \"apple, pear, red, blue\", but they have words like \"vicar, vivid, stung, hung, plain, waist\". They believe in teaching the kid to spell by listening and recognising the letters through phonics, so a child should be able to spell plain, rain, main, gain, chain, etc by learning about the \"ain\" sound. No spelling lists mean we cannot prepare the child in advance very much, coz they learn easily 30-50 new words per week. Which is why, the school asks parents to focus more on doing reading with the child instead.

Well, hope my comments have been useful.

[e3nity]

Thanks onyva! Your feedback is indeed helpful. How are the upper primary coping? i understand that its their 1st batch of kids taking PSLE. Most parents and tutors say that the students are not well trained enough for PSLE. As a result they will need more tuition. What is your comments on this?


Argh!! :stupid: :stupid: I wish i called the school earlier.. I've missed the last openhouse. Hope they will organise one soon.

[onyva]

My girl is in P1, so I’m not sure about the other levels. But actually, how does one define when the student is "well trained enough" for PSLE? It is really subjective. Some parents send the kids for endless tuition but still deem that’s not well trained enough.


All I can say is, every morning, most parents and children gather at the bistro (their name for the canteen), coz the school starts at 8 am to encourage parents to have breakfast and spend time with their child everyday. I can see some of the older kids (should be the upper primary) sitting together at the table to discuss their homework coz they all lay out their worksheets on the table and are talking animatedly. To me, that at least shows that the kids in the school are focused and interested in their studies.

[e3nity]

I'm a single mother myself. I know the school has this thing about daddy to bring kids to school to spend time with the child. How does it work? Is the school still operating their student care?


well prepare for PSLE as in they are ready for PSLE lor.. Erm.. how should i put it? :idea: the things the school teach is sufficient without additional tuition for a fast learner to prepare himself for PSLE. :roll: Our key worry about Primary education is PSLE. Therefore i wana be sure. Thanks in advance for answering my doubts.. :celebrate:

[onyva]

The school has a School Family Education (SFE) program, which is an intiative by MCYS. So all these daddy bring kids to school events are actually under this SFE intiative of MCYS. FYI - this daddy bring kids thingie is not an everyday affair.


During the orientation in first week of school, a parent actually raised this same concern to the principal - that she is a single mother, she feels such bond-with-daddy events makes her feel left out. The principal said there are other events for the whole family, but they feel it is important for kids to have a male figure in life as (he said) studies have shown it is important. So he suggested that single mothers ask an uncle or male friend to take the kid to such dad-bonding events.

Don't be too mindful of your single mother status. Like I said, I've just been to the SFE family bonding camp over the weekend. There were single parents on both the organisers and participants side. Everyone just still had fun together.

Yah, there's still a student care within the school but I don't know much about it as my girl goes home after school.

When I was assessing the school, I did have concerns over whether they can produce decent PSLE grades. Till now, I still have no answers - we'll only know when the first batch graduates this year. But in the end, I still chose the school coz I like that it is more focused on giving the kids an all-rounded education, and not just pure academic-focused. For now, based on the homework and materials that my girl brings home, I don't think they slack in their teaching. But coz I never go and compare what kids in other school are studying or taught, I cannot say that NVPS is the best, same with other schools, or not. But I can say my girl is happy going to school at least.

I suggest that you personally go for the openhouse and check out the school. Best way to find out about the school.

[e3nity]

onyva:

The school has a School Family Education (SFE) program, which is an intiative by MCYS. So all these daddy bring kids to school events are actually under this SFE intiative of MCYS. FYI - this daddy bring kids thingie is not an everyday affair.


During the orientation in first week of school, a parent actually raised this same concern to the principal - that she is a single mother, she feels such bond-with-daddy events makes her feel left out. The principal said there are other events for the whole family, but they feel it is important for kids to have a male figure in life as (he said) studies have shown it is important. So he suggested that single mothers ask an uncle or male friend to take the kid to such dad-bonding events.

Don't be too mindful of your single mother status. Like I said, I've just been to the SFE family bonding camp over the weekend. There were single parents on both the organisers and participants side. Everyone just still had fun together.

Yah, there's still a student care within the school but I don't know much about it as my girl goes home after school.

When I was assessing the school, I did have concerns over whether they can produce decent PSLE grades. Till now, I still have no answers - we'll only know when the first batch graduates this year. But in the end, I still chose the school coz I like that it is more focused on giving the kids an all-rounded education, and not just pure academic-focused. For now, based on the homework and materials that my girl brings home, I don't think they slack in their teaching. But coz I never go and compare what kids in other school are studying or taught, I cannot say that NVPS is the best, same with other schools, or not. But I can say my girl is happy going to school at least.

I suggest that you personally go for the openhouse and check out the school. Best way to find out about the school.

mmm.. if i'm gona enrol DS to NVPS i think i got to tie a dog chain on my ex's neck to force him bring DS to school.. Argh.. :stupid:

I'll attend the openhouse. Thanks thou.. :celebrate: