Saturday, November 27, 2010

Orientation at Nafa

I had woken up early this morning, due to hunger. Renee had followed suit when I came out of the room to make breakfast, why? She's excited about the bbq/swim tonight, lol.

After our breakfast and tv programme, I urged Renee to join me for a nap but she wouldn't...

A quick lunch at home and we rushed over to Nafa for the orientation. We were early today and the prep-class students were still having their internal examinations when we arrived. When the principal presented, she again, stressed to parents(of new and existing students) that Nafa's lessons are not to be taken casually and we're not to compare them to the 'outside commercial schools) - they strived for excellency(stress...). However, we as parents are not to be overly kiasu...(errrm, with such a speech, wouldn't most be? hahaha) and we're not to engage any 'outside' teacher as 'extra help' as it'd confuse the child with different methods of teachings/curriculum.
Besides stating the obvious - their standard of expectations and requirements of their students, from the other pointers the principal has raised, it appeared that it is indeed pretty stressful to learn there, so I'm bearing in mind to monitor the situation(afterall, with the arrival of the baby, I'm not sure how much time I could devote to coaching Renee at home, plus I'd be expected to continue sit-in the practical classes).

It was when they started to segregate the piano and violin students that I realised that there were more pianists than violinists and most of the students joining Renee at Gr 1 are existing students promoted from their prep-classes. New intakes are very few, I think there are only 3 new students, including Renee, for the grade 1 level. We had to stay back for the theory class prep-talk(which starts only from grade 1) and when we went to join the other violinists at another level to arrange for our class schedule, things became abit confusing. Due to the space/room constraint as there are several internal and the ABRSM examinations going-on on the same day, we were made to change room a couple of times and lastly, joining the que(which was unnecessary at all for grade 1 or abv students) for nothing... Fortunately, 1 of the teachers came out of the room to hush the crowd and when familiarity striked the moment she caught sight of Renee & I, told us that we need not join the que at all, alamak! Then she gave me her name card so that I could contact her in private to arrange for our class schedule, phew... The que was actually for the new preparatory class students - the teachers were helping the young children to measure/gauge which size of a violin to acquire.

It was already 4pm by the time we got back and thus, I had to quickly pack up some of Renee's stuffs and head down to my BIL's for the BBQ/gathering - something which Renee had been most looking forward to, lolz... However, she didn't get to enjoy the water play for as long as she'd expected/wanted 'cos it soon started to rain, hahaha. But after shower/dinner, she had great fun with her cousins, especially Yu jie jie and in order to prolong her joy, she was even willing to stay over for the night! Of cos we wouldn't let her, heee. It's also not a very good idea for kids to get used to 'sleep-over' at friends'(although this is her cousin's we're talking about).

Nevertheless, it had been a rather joyful day for Renee and although we had came home late and she had only gone to bed at 11pm, she had fell asleep instantly(when she's had naps in between the road trips), :).

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