In the eyes of a prospective Pri 1 student's parent

Before entering NIE, I taught at a Secondary School in the area, and earlier on, I met up with some ex-colleagues from that school for dinner.

Coincidentally, we saw one of the NIE student teachers who was attached to the school (she's now teaching at another Secondary School in the area) and her colleague (Let's call her 'Mrs A'), so we invited them to join us.

Anyway, Mrs A has 2 sons - a 6 year old and a 4 year old, and her elder son is starting Primary 1 next year. She applied for Compassvale Primary School and as she is not affiliated to the school in any way, is only eligible for the last phase. Furthermore, the school has decided to reduce the intake next year, so it's making her even more nervous.

According to her, she chose the school for a number of reasons:

1. The school is near her home, so her son can just walk to school.

2. She visited the websites from the various schools in the neighbourhood, and was pleasantly surprised to see that there is a Mandarin version of the school's website. So she is impressed that even though the school is a Centre of Excellence for English, Mandarin is not neglected.

3. She 'interviewed' some of the school's pupils on their impression of their school, and the feedback was very positive.

4. She has had discussions about the various schools in the neighbourhood with the other parents from her son's kindergarden class, and they generally agree that the school is ranked quite highly in their school of choice for their children.

However, some parents told her that quite a lot of the 'good' teachers in the school have left, and most of the teachers there are quite young, mostly in their mid 20s to 30s. But I reassured her that different people have different criteria of what a 'good' teacher is, and being young does not mean that the teacher is unable to teach the pupils well. Besides, from my observations about the school, the teachers are all professionals, and thus, she need not worry about this.

Overall, I think she's quite happy about her decision, and hopes that her son will be able to enter the school next year.