Had wanted to change Renee in the school and head straight to the United Square but the weather was sooo hot that I decided to bring her home for a short rest first.
Daddy's appointment didn't materialise and I got him to go with us, so he can be my route guide on standby(and at the same time, evaluate the class for himself), heee.
Went for the trial lesson with confidence that Renee would like it but it turned out that although she did, she wasn't as enthusiastic and we, the parents were the ones who were utterly disappointed. With only one instructress, a class of 12 - max 15 as per the instructress(but their web says class size of 10?) is definitely not manageable, though she's got the helpers of the more active ones to sit in.
Renee, along with only a couple of other girls, were ready for instructions and were able to sit down quietly when required but the rest were just walking around, making noises, crying, etc etc(even Renee turned back to tell us "too many friends already..."). The instructress even 'marked' their 'homework' during the session - we don't feel that this is appropriate, both for the quality of the lesson and attention to the work done by the children even though the workbook is to be brought back on the same day. This and the distraction of the other children had wasted alot of time in the class and I think only 20mins were spent in 'actual lesson' and this 20mins of trial had cost us S$53.50(oh ya, petrol and carpark fees leh?)!
The whole session just seemed too chaotic for the money's worth and to daddy, it was a total "a waste of time..."
Not willing to give up on them totally, I told daddy we could check if there were any classes for slightly older kids but unfortunately, they only have the group piano or violin classes. Good thing they have one at 7:15pm and I told daddy that I wanted to have a peek at the class and we went for our dinner.
With some time available still, we went to Kindergolf to check out their courses but daddy wasn't impressed with its facility and said he could do the job too(hahaha, ya, that's if he has the time). Anyway, no conclusion in this department, will just see how later, :).
At the group violin class, I met the instructress at the door and she sounded/looked like a Mexican? Anyway, she's pretty nice and when she went out, I took the opportunity to speak to the only mother and child in the class. She told me that the class used to be bigger, with a group size of 6-7 children(as what the staff hv informed me at the counter earlier) but the class now has only 2 students - her child and another girl, as the parents of the others had pulled their children out(sadly, without any refund) due to some changes of instructor and not-so-agreeable handling of the situation by the centre. The mommy told me that they didn't know how else to find another school so last minute and since this replacement instructress seems nice to the girls, they decided to stay on...
I sat in to watch for awhile and found the girls playing their violins so looovely..... Daddy & Renee joined-in later('cos theyhad gone to the toy shop) and Renee looked sooo mesmerised and didn't want to leave the class when we left, lolz.
3 comments:
O dear, that bad? I guess with younger kids, it's always chaotic. So what is your plan? Maybe you should just wait till next year Jan and start on a violin class instead since she's more keen in it.
This class' supposed to be for the 3-4 yrs old, wonder how did the younger kids got in, esp. when they're obviously not ready even for any type of class.
Ya, gotta put this on hold and will do some more researches in the meantime. I had actually wanted to sign her up for this class as I wanted her to have some fun music classes during the school holidays(and I would have to get 'out' of our home-shelves' by 'force' haha) and by the time she finishes at least the 1st module of this course, she would be almost 4.5yrs and should be ready for individual classes. Not sure if her interest in violin is steadfast or just a momentary one(u know kids just want anything they caught sight on), hahaha. Anyway, will see how things go :)
sounds so messy
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