preschool AGAIN
Just when I thought I had made a decision to keep ari at his current preschool, everything is up in the air again because I visited the other school and really liked it much better.
Currently he is at a small private and expensive preschool where we have had some issues, mainly with Ari being unsettled/acting out and me being unhappy with how they have handled it and spoken with me about. But right now Ari is very settled there again and through it all, has always insisted he loves it there and loves his friends. Though on friday I got another phone call in which ari had had diarrhoea in his pants and the phone call was “Ari has had diarrhoea and it is EVERYWHERE!!!!! can you come pick him up right away? how close are you?’ I feel like this is a pretty good example of the tone there. Like if something happens it’s all a bit frantic, and subtly made to sound like it’s a problem the kid has caused instead of just a normal part of kid life and working with children.
Despite that, I was still sure we would keep him there because he likes it, and only has a year and a bit left anyway until he goes to school. But today I visited the other school which is public and ended up liking it very much. The thing that stood out to me was how competent and professional the teachers were. When I asked about their education philosophy, she didn’t skip a beat and it was all very progressive and research based. When I asked about conflict management and how they dealt with issues between kids or noncompliance with boundaries/teachers, I just loved her answer which was very holistic. All about understanding why the child was behaving a certain way and then helping the child develop better problem solving skills, and teaching them to care for each other and their environment. Where he is now, they just give a time out without dealing with the issue IMO. She was very surprised when I told her that Ari sometimes gets time outs/sitting on the step at his current preschool for behaviour issues. (In general I am okay with certain kinds of time outs at home if I remain calm and have a follow up time in after, but think they aren’t appropriate for school). She said the most they would do is a ‘time in’ with a teacher and removing a child from an area if they were struggling to follow the boundary. A+ answer and how it should be, and this is a very big deal to me.
The other thing that was quite reassuring was just how nonplussed she was when I mentioned Ari being strong willed and prone to testing boundaries, “oh we have all kinds of kids here, many are strong willed, that’s not an issue.” This was quite clarifying for me as in terms of professionalism and competency, because this is def not the tone where he is now. It just made me feel like I could 100% trust that he would be safe and in good hands, which is not really how I feel where he is now. It’s more like, “he’ll probably be okay”
Other PROS to the new school is the fees are less than one quarter of what we pay now (which is a huge deal to us financially, $100 a term instead of 400-$500), the building is newer with nicer facilities and materials for the kids, they have some areas of play that our current school doesn’t (carpentry, a nice building corner, a rock pit), it’s very well organised, with loads of space and light. There are more double the children there, which was a big downside to me, but despite that it felt very settled. Also they have the absolute highest ERO (dept of education) rating and their kids seem to transition to primary school extremely well.
THE CONS it is not technically in our school zone (our zone doesn’t have a public preschool aka “kindy’), so its further away (10-15 minutes instead of 3) and it means that those kids will not being going to Ari’s primary school. I thought there would be a few, but there are actually NONE! I worry that will make the transition to school harder when he won’t have any friends going with him. Another HUGE CON is taking him out of a preschool that he is settled at and has extremely close friends and really he is not asking for a change. And this might make me a reverse snob but the new kindy is in a swanky new suburban development, and there are not many farm kids there. Our current is very rural, so farm kid (though rich farm kid), and I like all the lambs and grit and character and country charm.
what to do! what to do!!!!!! what would you do and why? seriously I would love to hear your thoughts.
Also I realise that this is one of those good problems to have. I have two pretty decent options and i know that makes us very fortunate. Forgive me if this makes you want to poke my eyeballs out, I know!!!!!!
Aroha just started at public kindy after being at playcentre for three years (with drop offs). I was nervous as I imagined it would be a busy and hyped up environment where a kid like Aroha would be looked over. But the reality is that I find the teachers to be confident and beyond competent. They are not phased by kids behaviour. What worries me in your situation is how the teachers at your current preschool are reacting to ordinary kids stuff. Sounds like they are nervous in regards to strong willed kids which can't be good. I personally feel that more kids will be good to help prepare for school- that was one of my biggest worries about kindy but with good teachers it's not a problem. On another note- how come you have to pay for public kindy? Is it the termly donation?
