Playschool · 6 months to 3 years · Parent-accompanied
The goodbye can wait.
Playschool is a session you attend with your child. You sit on the floor beside her for the whole of it, and you keep doing that for as many weeks as she needs it. Drop-off is optional. When she is ready to go a little further from you, she goes, a little at a time.
That is the whole arrangement. Not a settling-in policy with an end date printed on it.
A discovery visit, at no cost. Bring your child.
Fragrance Empire Building, beside ARC.
The part you are worried about
The first goodbye.
Here is what parents say to us before they say anything else.
“She will cry all morning.”
Some children do cry, on the first morning and sometimes on the fifth. The difference here is that she cries into your shoulder rather than a stranger’s, because you are already in the room. Nobody moves her back into the circle to prove a point, and nobody suggests it would go better if you slipped out.
“She will be one of many, and nobody will really see her.”
You are in the room. So you are not taking our word for how often somebody looks at your child, or how long they keep looking. You are sitting three feet away, counting.
“Is she safe here?”
We have Child First Aiders on site at all times as required by regulations. Anyone who collects a child has to be named on the registration form and introduced to the Head of Early Years and teachers first.
Here, care is not a separate thing from the learning. It is what the learning stands on. Thinking begins with security.
What a session is
Most of it happens on the floor.
- Coming in
You take your shoes off and sit down
You are in the room, on the floor, for the whole session. That is the arrangement on the first morning, and it does not change until you want it to.
- The materials
Things that can be used more than one way
One basket, and nothing in it with a single right use. A scarf is a scarf, and then it is weather, and then it is a hiding place.
- The snack
Healthy, and eaten together
There is no kitchen on this floor, so it is a snack and not a cooked meal. We would rather say that here than let you find it out on the day.
- The letting go
She goes further than she did last week
You will notice it before we do, which is the point of you being there. Drop-off, if you ever want it, happens at her pace: a little at a time, and never on a date we picked.
Which one is my child in?
Five ways in, and how each one runs.
Our youngest programmes are attended together. A grown-up stays in the room for the whole session, every session.
Who is in the room
You are one of the adults in it.
Our teachers run the session. Most of the other adults on the floor are parents, grandparents and helpers who came in with a child and stayed. That is not us being generous with the furniture. It is the reason the room stays steady when one child does not.
It also means the first time your child chooses to walk away from you, she does it somewhere that walking back takes four seconds.
We do not print an adult-to-child ratio on this page. In a room the parents are sitting in, the honest number is the one in front of you, and it changes with who came that morning.
So do the thing that settles it. Come on an ordinary morning and count.
What families say
Written by parents who were in the room.
We appreciated the flexibility of the programme as other schools are usually unaccompanied or did not give us the option to enter the premises.
I can be flexible as a parent, and either stay with her or leave her in the hands of experienced, always friendly, and open to engage with educators.
As soon as we walk in my son gets the biggest smile and high-fives the whole staff.
He has thrived in their care, growing more confident and engaged through their perfectly tailored activities.
4.9★ from 139 Google reviews. These are the parents' own words. Shortened where they ran long, edited nowhere.
The practical bits
Things worth knowing before you come.
In short
- Fragrance Empire Building
beside ARC, by Labrador Park MRT - We have just moved in
same Agora, renovated top to bottom - Healthy snacks
no kitchen on this floor, so nothing is cooked here - Drop-off is optional
and it is not a milestone we track - +65 6252 5585
weekdays
Questions parents ask
Straight answers.
Do I have to leave her?
No. Some families never take drop-off up at all, and that is a complete way to do Playschool rather than an unfinished one.
Why do you call it Playschool?
Because that is what it is. Your child attends a school session with you in the room, rather than being dropped at a class. Our Preschool has its own entry cohort under a different name, with a different arrangement.
My child has additional needs. Can you take her?
We can accommodate certain mild or moderate disabilities. Tell us what you are working with when you book, and you will get a straight answer before you come rather than after.
How old does she need to be?
Playschool runs from six months to three years, with a grown-up in the room throughout. Within that band, readiness is not an age. It is whether she will settle on the floor near other children with you beside her, and you already know that better than we do. Bring her to the visit and we will say so plainly either way.
What does it cost?
We go through fees with you at the visit and put them in writing. Nothing is due on the day.
Book a trial
Book a trial session at our HarbourFront Centre to fully understand the programme and how it works. Please fill the form in and one of our staff will contact you to arrange it.
Centre address
HarbourFront Centre, 1 Maritime Square
#04-01 Lobby C, 099253