Kindergarten Selection in Penang area

I started visiting some kindergarten around my area for my boy during September and October 2012. So far, there are only a few kindergarten in my selection, which fulfill my requirement.

After chit chatting with some parents and friends, I realized that most of them select the kindergarten according to the reputation / advertisement. Therefore, I would like to share more about how I did the selection.

First of all, I will visit those "famous" kindergarten website to know more about their background / origin before visiting. Yet, I will not make any judgement merely on the website. As they will do the BEST in website, no matter how, I will spend my time to visit personally. MOST IMPORTANT, I will not go along with my boy, as he will distract by those teacher and the playground outside!

During the visit, I will ask below questions:

1. School fees? (mainly to compare with other kindergarten)
2. Methodology?
3. Timetable? (is there any music session, gym, IQ game etc.) 
4. Play based or academic driven? (will not prefer purely academic)
5. Language used? (I will choose trilingual - English, Mandarin & Malay)
6. Ratio - Teacher : Student (will prefer 1: 10 or below)
7. Teaching method? (some kindergarten will use TV, which I definitely will blacklist)
8. Syllabus? Text book? (go through to know my boy level)
9. How often the parent can check out their kids progress / performance in school? (It'll be great if anytime ^_^)
10. Does the teacher identified the person who pick up the kids when the school over? (parents need to aware on this, as I saw some kindergarten just let those kids to go along whoever arrived the school and called the kids' name ONLY)

Besides all these questions to ask, I will observe the kindergarten as well. Below are the priority condition I will check out during the visit:-

1. Does the kindergarten locked the gate? (If the kindergarten simply open the gate/door, without asking me, who am I / the purpose I was there will be rejected)
2. Hygiene in the kindergarten? (This is quite subjective on every personal, I will check on the toilet and pantry, toys)
3. Child safety / proofing? (there MUST be safety gate at staircase)
4. Any child friendly facilities? (child toilet bowl & basin?)
5. Handle for kids on the staircase?

Herewith all the conditions I will check base on my own judgement and standard. Parents may take these as a referral but not a standard.

YET......

After visiting a few kindergartens, I made my decision to enroll my boy when he is 5 years old in 2014. 

WHY???

I will disclose on my coming post ^_^