Tadika Diyana

After much thought and headache over whether or not we should prepare Sean for chinese primary school, we have decided to register Sean in a Kindergarten which has both streams, i.e. Tadika Diyana.

I went again this time with Sam to see the place. Today, we had a better impression. The children were lively and were having a good time at school. I checked the play area and it was bigger than Peter and Jane's. They also have a big hall where they do PE and we saw children having a good time during PE, which I feel is important at this age.

We were both quite happy with the school and Sean seems happy there. So we registered there and then.

http://www.tadikadiyana.com.my/

Why are we even talking about chinese school?

Obviously, we are rather concerned about the standard of the Kebangsaan school. If we decide to send Sean to a chinese primary school in 3 years time, we have to make sure that we prepare him for it, which is why I've been having a tough time deciding which school to send Sean to. I didn't even consider chinese school when we started the kindergarten search. We've only thought about it last week. All the ratings I did was based on my observation of the teacher's ability to speak english and the general feel of the place.

I've talked to many other mothers about their opinions on chinese schools and what their thoughts on how to proceed for us since we can't speak mandarin or even any dialects. Most of them suggest that we send Sean to a chinese kindergarten even from now so he gets a good exposure to the language first.

Since we are still undecided, we decided that we'll let Sean try to do his kindergarten in mandarin. I'm hoping that he's not going to object too much being put into the chinese stream next year. If we see that he really dislikes it, then we'll take him out and put him into the english stream, and later on to a Kebangsaan primary school.

I can't believe that we have to think of primary school even from now. But if we don't prepare Sean for the possibility of going to a chinese primary school from now, the possibility that he'll adapt later on is very slim.

We were set to put Sean in Fairfield because we felt it has the best english teachers out of all the schools. But I brought Sam to see Diyana because it was the only school he hadn't seen. He liked it and Sean seemed quite happy with the place, happily running around and playing at the playground. We had discussed the night before, ok, no chinese school because the cultural difference between an english speaking home and a chinese school is very different. But when we went to Diyana, we saw the possibility that it may work.

Diyana seems to attract many parents who don't speak chinese to put their children in the chinese stream. So I'm hoping that Sean won't feel out of place when he starts school next year. I'm also hoping that the teachers know how to handle children who come from non-chinese speaking family gently and introduce mandarin in a non-threatening way.

So here is to us hoping that we made the right choice.