Singapore Genius School Krabi and Singapore Nursery and Preschool organises Parent Teacher Conference twice a year. For this school year this will be our 2nd and final meeting. The next PTC is scheduled for October 2020, in the next school year. It is important for parents to participate in these kind of meetings as stake holders in their child’s progress. Here at this meeting we will share and update parents of the academic progress of the school and also to hear from them how this can be a better place for their child to pursue their academic excellence.
Also at this meeting we will share all incidents that happen here so that they will know what happens around their children and how our policies are formulated with these incidents. As with the 3 other PTCs we share so that parents can be more aware. Open meetings like this, will make Singapore Genius School Krabi and Singapore Nursery and Preschool a better place for students.
4th PTC
The Parent Teacher Conference started at about 9.10am on the 25th February 2020. We had a good turn up of parents from both Singapore Nursery and Preschool Krabi and Singapore Genius School Krabi. This is the first time we have had a combined schools conference. This is good as we also showed parents from Nursery how the Primary school entails. This should be an eye opener as soon their kids will be in Primary. As part of the welcome speech we encouraged parents to ask questions and share any ideas they had as we went along.
Covid 19
The Coronavirus has reached pandemic proportions. As for our school we will avoid swimming for the moment. We will stick to badminton and other sports. In Phuket, the Education Ministry has implemented a cut off at 37.5 Degrees temperature. Our usual cut off is 38 degrees before students are refused entry to school but because of the corona virus we will now be implementing the 37.5 degrees. These will be relaxed to the normal cut at 38 degrees when the Corona virus is no longer a threat. And if a student has been overseas then he should be placed on a 14 day voluntary quarantine. These measures are already implemented in Phuket.
Nursery
Nursery students have settled into their new school. They seem to have been doing well. We welcome our new nursery teacher, Teacher Danae and the students are getting closer to her with each passing day. There are a remarkable improvements in the conversational and writing skills of the students. We have seen tremendous improvement in all 6 areas of their development. Namely the Aesthetics/Numeracy/Motor Skills/Literacy/Social and Emotional Development and Discovery of the World.
Nursery is the crucial time for kids, as during this period is when children will inquire , explore and discover the world. So its important that we have a solid program that can help each child to progress. We must help every child to build confidence as preschool education lays the foundation for children to become life long learners. Quality nursery education lays the foundation for young children.
Primary Education
Here we discussed changes in lesson for Primary. We will remove History and Geography. and replace it with Humanities which is more in line with Primary schools. In replacement we will do an additional art class/ maths work book time/ handwriting classes.
Up next, we discussed about “For students by Students” projects undertaken and how it works. This program is not so easy as the kids will have to prepare all programs with the guidance of their teacher in charge. The school felt that projects like these help the children to take responsibility and ownership of the school events. There is a huge learning curve for the students when we do these kind of projects.
Active Discussions
There is a small problem of noisy class rooms during lesson time. This is very disruptive to other students. At this age, the class room are teacher centered lessons and not groups. Parents were encourage to help the school achieve this with regular reminders to their kids.
As previously announced that the school wanted to start a charity program with Rotary Club Krabi as discussed in our last PTC. This is not feasible as Interact Club requires students to be at least 12 years old. Since this cannot work, we will look out for other opportunities and share them when we come across them.
New school construction is moving along well. The architecture designs are complete and we are now moving into our next phrase which is the physical construction. The architecture drawings were finally received by the school on the 24th Feb. We have had active discussions with 3 contractors and we should receive quotes soon. We have submitted these plans to the government already.
4 Meetings Per Year
We mentioned at our last PTC in October last year that we will have 4 reporting periods per year. There will be 2 exams then we will provide a report of your child ’s progress, mid and end year and another 2 as in PTC like this. Any other report that parents wanted will be by either e mail or Line messages. As this a small school our reporting manner will be like this. Unless if its urgent, please proceed to contact the school and we will entertain your request. With this combination, our reporting procedures offer clear, focused, structured and plentiful insights into your child’s learning, achievements and potential. However, we are still getting parents requesting meetings with teachers outside of the preset meetings.
In Primary, there was 1 incident where a child was pushed and in Nursery there were 2 incidents where a child was pushed and and other was scratched with a toy. Fortunately these were small injuries.
Policies
The school has a right to decline insurance coverage for any student that the school feels that can become a liability. The school will take steps to save guard other students in the event of any mishap from this student. Parents will be given forms to sign to this effect. Parents are always welcome to appeal. If the appeal is unsuccessful, parents will be urged to sign the indemnity form or the child will not be able to attend school here.
We did have an issue with our Christmas party. One of the parents did not receive the invitation. As this was a “For students by Students” and the students choose that they will make their own cards for their parents. The students wanted to personally give their parents the invitation. We cannot understand why the student did not invite the parent and the parent did not ask their child why the invitation was not delivered. Moving forward we will in future write in the journal about these kind of invitations.
Conclusion
The meeting ended at 10.15am. It was a robust meeting with parents asking many questions. A parents wanted a change in the schedule of the class time tables where Maths is the first lesson. While another wanted more options for sports other than just badminton. The parents had some questions for the teachers and the teachers were on hand to answer all their questions. We are fortunate that Singapore Genius School Krabi and Singapore Nursery and Preschool has meetings like these. Clearly, this proves thats the school is engaging parents to make our schools, the school of choice in Krabi.
