Notice the white patch on K's face? Its a sticker!
Other kids like to paste stickers on their hands/legs,
mine likes to paste them on her face! Hahahah!!!
Little pianist in the making?!
Why Mandeville when there are other schools out there? I guess some things just can't be explained...its just a gut feeling.....or you can take me for being plain shallow as I cannot deny that I have taken a liking to Mandeville the minute I saw the school on one of my shopping trips at United Square. I mean the school looks impressive from the outside and they even boast of a year end concert performed by their little musicians. I did several checks online but was not able to gather much reviews from the other parents who already have kids in the school.
Warning for those who wants to sign up for Mandeville: the admin. staff sucks BIG time!!! I'm not joking! All of my friends who have signed up for Mandeville have the same negative feedbacks! They do not have a proper administration system in place. With the same question, you get different replies from different staff e.g. my friend, who had made a trip personally, to enrol her girl had also very kindly helped register K. However, when I called the school on payment, schedule etc, the staff who took my call said K's name was not on the list! After a day or two, another staff called me and confirmed that my friend had indeed registered K but her colleague did not know because she was on leave on the day I called and the registration list was in her drawer! I would take it that every staff had a list of their own and if the staff whom you had registered with was not at work, do not expect correct answers from her colleagues! They seem to still live in ice age! In this era, I thought computerisation was the way to go? Hence, instead of paying for a full term, I only paid for 1 trial lesson. The way the admin staff/system work projects a very negative image and one wonders how good the teachers can be when they have this kind of admin system in place!
Ok, enough of the admin staff/system....now on the positive comments: Both Teacher Ping, who happens to be the Vice-Principal of Mandeville, and Teacher Susan are good! The kids get to enjoy "live" music played by Teacher Ping on the piano while Teacher Susan sang or acted out the actions for the little ones to follow. In fact, now K likes the piano so much that she has been requesting almost every other night to "play" on my piano. Erm, though we have a piano at home, I did not touch it for ages and did not introduce to K too:( Alright, back to Mandeville; I like for the fact that musical notes are presented to the kids in a lively manner e.g. Teacher Ping will tell a story about the note-of-the-day, show the said note to the children and get them to pick out the correct note , afterwhich the children will paste the note in their workbook. Apart from having the piano, children are also encouraged to join in using percussion instruments e.g. bells, maracas etc. Krissa definitely enjoys Mandeville because if she is not sitting down with her percussion instruments, she will be swaying/dancing to the music. I'm so glad she enjoys her lesson:)
Note: K doesn't like to walk when required during Kindermusik and music time at Kids' Loft, she would want Daddy to carry her while all her other classmates walked round the room with their parents. However, she surprised me by willing to cooperate at Mandeville. I don't know if it was because I told her I will not carry her during lesson and she has to do what she is told. Perhaps she understood and knew that only fierce fierce Mummy will be in the classroom with her, so she has no choice but to obey. Whatever the reason, I take it as an improvement and am very glad:)
Krissa on a kiddy ride before we enter the mall,
In the tunnel of main obstacle station
Loading her ammunition in one of the shorter guns
