Things are very different now for preschoolers, from the time before their parents choose which school to enrol them in up until their graduation ceremony – all thanks to the pandemic! But despite the many restrictions and measures, things are not necessarily all bad. We speak to Christina Ong, Cluster Principal of Maplebear Mount Emily and Maplebear One Tree Hill to find out important things for parents to note about life in preschool from beginning to end.
MM: Hi Christina! Thank you for speaking to us today. We have a lot of parents of children who will be beginning preschool soon in these Covid times. But many have not even been able to visit schools before enrolment.
C: Things are very different now. Before the pandemic, usually parents are able to visit the school during school hours. They could bring their child to observe how lessons are conducted. But now due to the pandemic, we’re not allowed to have visitors until all of our children have left the school premises.
MM: So how are you conducting school visits currently?
C: Right now when parents come, what they see is pretty much the school premises with just myself, the principal. The teachers probably would have left also in order to minimise contact. We try to make the session informative by showing video clips of how the school looks like when activities are taking place on to give them an idea of what goes on.
MM: Ok so what happens when parents decide to enrol their child in your preschool after the visit? Does the child get to have an orientation?
C: Yes, they do! We still welcome parents and their child to come, but to an empty school and only for about 15 to 30 minutes. Each set of parent and child will have their own orientation session. They can come and play on our playground and familiarise themself with the grounds, walk the steps to check out their own classroom. I think this session is crucial for the child to feel comfortable and have a familiar environment. Parents too need assurances during this session to know that their child is in good hands with us!
MM: It sounds like a very different experience! How would you suggest parents create excitement for their child’s first day, despite the pandemic restrictions?
C: Of course, we also encourage parents to read to them stories pertaining to the first day of school, just to give them a run through of what our school is like. Maisie Goes To School is a good title that many parents may already know about.
It’s also good to establish some routines with the children. So set a good time to sleep, a bedtime story, decide what time they wake up, what’s breakfast going to be like and all that. If you’ve got the school uniform already, let them try it on. Go through the process of purchasing school items like bags and water bottles with them. Get them name labels to place on their belongings. And make packing what they need for school a new and exciting thing!
MM: How has a typical day at school changed since the pandemic started?
C: We used to have a lot of outdoor play, water play and going to the park with the kids. We do try to still have a little bit of outdoor time but because of the pandemic, we have stopped water play and limited visits to the park due to small group restrictions and limited manpower. We also used to have a shower time before the pandemic, but no more now, so it’s straight to lunch and then a little story time for those in childcare.
MM: Have morning health checks become more stringent as well?
C: Yes, we already have temperature and HFMD check by looking at hands and soles of the feet. Now we take temperature at least three times a day. At the school entrance, hands are sanitised, also at each juncture when the kids move from place to place. Like, if they’re moving from their classroom to the art room, all hands have to be sanitised. So basically, we sanitise hands and the students’ environment, before and after each activity!
Also, since the pandemic, there is more washing of hands, especially with the older kids; before and after meals and after being outdoors. Of course, during toileting, they will use water and soap, but if not, in between station to station, they’ll be using the hand sanitiser.
MM: I think parents would also want to know how effectively safe measures are carried out with these very young children!
C: That’s the hardest and the most difficult thing to do. From age 3 onwards, it is mandatory for them to wear a mask. Just imagine, every kid this age running around, wearing a mask when they love to talk and engage with each other. Many would find it really annoying, but we all don’t have a choice about this. These kids are all so adaptable; it’s been just so amazing to watch 3 year-olds keeping masks on!
Sometimes teachers do need to remind them to keep their mask on and will go, “Oh, is your nose getting cold?” and the kids will know that their mask has come down and will pull it back up. When it’s snack time, there is a place with their names to hang their masks. So it’s really a routine that these kids have ingrained in them ever since the pandemic measures were enforced.
MM: What about safe distancing?
C: As with anywhere else, we label the floor so that we have a spot for each child. Some of the teachers put their names; that also helped with name recognition! Some of the teachers just put a label across a circle, it all depends. That’s how we have divided our kids into groups of five. When it comes to play, we actually segregate the toys and put them into two separate areas to keep to groups of five and of course sanitise our toys, our materials and hands before doing anything together. Yeah, so it’s a very big challenge!
MM: Have you seen any children reacting negatively to having to deal with these restrictions?
C: Other than having to wear a mask and keeping to a group of their familiar five friends, I don’t see too much of an issue for the children who just carry on as normal. I have not come across any child who is actually uncooperative. All children can really be very adaptable, very cooperative.
MM: There are certain milestones in preschool that everyone looks forward to, like celebrating birthdays, having parties in school. How has this changed during COVID?
C: We used to welcome the whole family to celebrate birthdays in school! Now, it’s really very different. No family members and also no home cooked food as we didn’t want to add an element of uncertainty. The child celebrates in school without their parents there. They’d just give us a cake, some goodie bags, and say: please celebrate with my child.
MM: What about year-end and graduation concerts?
C: Graduation used to be a live on-stage concert. We would have a combined concert, featuring everyone performing from our 2 year-olds all the way to the 6 year-olds. But we can’t have that now because we can’t practice as a big group and shuttle everyone to the stage venue together. Now we focus only on the K2s and almost everything is all pre-recorded and done in school. It’s a much smaller scale with no fanfare of doing things on a stage. Instead, we do a virtual background, with prerecorded music and narration. The only thing that happens live on that day is when the graduating children put on their graduation gown and receive their scroll. And then we will play the pre-recorded musical.
MM: Do you and your teachers try to make these milestone events a little bit more special now that it’s missing that live element?
C: I think in a way the Graduation Concert is a little bit more meaningful now that we are solely focusing on the graduating cohort. Before that we’d also have to give attention to the little ones. But now we can give all our energy on the K2s and make the graduation ceremony really all about them. So it’s a blessing really!