Mariekx:

Hi, my first post. anyone has their children at Pat Schoolhouse Raffles or Prinsep.

How is the playgroup curriculum? Reviews from posts and friends for Prinsep seem very negative, is that so true?
appreciate any current parents feedback.

Hi Mariekx,

My kids attend Pat's Prinsep. I do not know what is the negative feedback that you have received about Pat's but I thought I will just share some pros and cons of Pat's Prinsep with you (from my perspective).

Pros:
- The Pat's curriculum is more of an all-round curriculum. For example, I was pleasantly surprised that my 5 year old learnt about the solar system in school and could tell me that \"Pluto is no longer classified as a planet. It is a star instead and that shooting stars are actually comets\".
- They also teach in rather innovative ways. For instance, the math enrichment classes (they call it i-math) are conducted in Chinese.
- From K1 onwards, the kids also have weekly show and tell sessions in English and Chinese (alternate weeks) and this preps them well for the same in primary school. Note however that Pat's is NOT the most academic of schools. They believe in age-appropriate system of learning so if you are the sort who freaks out because the school is not insisting that the 4 year olds must be able to read and write perfectly then this is probably not the right school for you.
- The different Pat's branches all have slightly different cultures. At Prinsep, they have traditionally been strong and known for the kids' performances. So you can expect that your child will put up a CNY and National Day performance with his/her classmates every year. Apart from these performances, they will also perform at the school's curriculum tea and the school's huayi festival (which is a Chinese culture appreciation day). What all these means is that your kid may be spending quite alot of curriculum time rehearsing for these performances. We believe these performances are great for boosting the child's confidence and teaches important lessons in discipline and team work etc. But I know some parents may disagree and think the time may be better spent on academic learning instead.

Cons:
- The fully air-conditioned environment which I believe accounts for more kids falling sick and more often
- The lack of a big playground. They do have a small playground on the roof of the building but it is a far cry from what they used to offer at Halifax
- Unusually for Prinsep, a number of the old guard teachers have left the school for various reasons. Up till last year, I believe that the majority of the teachers know the name of every child in the school. However, in light of the departures, I am not sure if that is still the case. Having said that, there are still a number of very good and experienced teachers who are still with the school.

I hope this helps. Do schedule a visit to the school to get a feel for the place for yourself.

Hi Mummy_excited,

the craft work gets returned in a big folio at the end of the year along with the progress report/summary of the child’s time in school. Come to think of it, the report/summary was end of year and not end of term so you should be getting a nice thick report at the end of the year. Although we didn’t get monthly reports, I found that the teachers were always willing to share about the child’s day every time we pick up our daughter and that was how we got our frequent updates.

Hi! Am new to this forum but thought I will chip in with some feedback on Pat’s . My daughter attends Pat’s Halifax. She was in Baby Haven for half the year last year and despite only attending school only 2 or 3 times a week (sometimes only once a week), her teachers in BH tried their best to put together a nice presentation at the end of term on what she did in school during the term. I was pleasantly surprised by their efforts. They also gave us a report of sorts setting out their observations of her, how she learns, how she fares in fine motor skills etc and I must say their observations were pretty spot on despite her being in school so infrequently and only attending 2 hours each time.

This Jan, she moved up to Pat’s Halifax. While we do not get any weekly updates, we do frequently get pictures via Whatsapp from her teacher on what activities they did in school that day. Going for the parent teacher conference in 2 weeks time and will wait to see how comprehensive an update we will get but I must say that so far we are pretty happy with the school.

I am however thinking of switching her from Pat’s to a kindy simply because I don’t require the childcare services that Pat’s provides. Because they need to shower, feed the children etc in Pat’s, I feel that daughter wastes quite alot of time while all these activities are going on. Because she is only there for half a day, they leave her in the music room to "free play" while her classmates are being bathed etc. But part of me is very reluctant to pull her out 'cos she has settled down quite nicely. Any thoughts from the parents here?