Parents Dialogue Session

Yesterday, Bob and I attended the Parents Dialogue Session at Tara's school. The session is meant for the teachers to address any concerns of the parents, as well as for the parents to know more about what their little one is doing in school.

We were told that there will be a new Chinese teacher joining the playgroup (PG) class in March, that makes a ratio of 1 teacher to 5 children for the expanded class of 26. Teacher Yiang commented the 2007 class has really wonderful parents cos after the 3rd day of school, we never appear in school at unusual times to peep at our little ones.

After all the teachers have spoke to us, we were shown video clips of the class proceedings. The school understand that parents are anxious to know what their little ones do in class, how they behave etc.

We saw a total change in Tara. In the video, she was sitting down quietly listening to the teacher reading stories. She has never sat quietly to listen to stories before. And she was sitting by herself. Her favourite Auntie Chen, whom she held on for dear life during the first few days of classes without me around, was sitting some distance away. We were amazed! And she was really interested to volunteer herself during a particular activity in class. Singing and dancing was her favourite. She took a while to warm herself up to the actions though, prefering to watch more than to follow the actions. And I finally know why she did some funny actions when we were at home. She learnt them in school. That day, I taught her how to do "Gong Xi" while singing to the "Gong Xi ni" song. A few days later, she started going "Hey!" once I finished singing a line.

We got to see some pictures taken during dressing up corner play, Teacher Ming Chue told me Tara loved to dress up! Quite a few pictures was taken of her wearing different outfits. Bob wanted to buy the photos and I arranged with Teacher Ming Chue to develop all photos that has her in it.

There were photos of outdoor play too. And a few photos was taken when Tara was still clingy to Auntie Chen. She was standing on one side, holding Auntie Chen's hand and hugging her little monkey, watching the rest of the class play. She was crying on one photo, taken during the same session.

After the dialogue session, Bob and I were assured that Tara has finally adjusted to school life. I'm grateful to the school for holding this session, if not I would have thought Tara has yet to get used to school. Every morning and evening when Bob fetched her, she would cry a little and each time, Bob would feel a little guilty for leaving her there. Now that we know she actually enjoyed the classes, we believed the crying might just be a little habit that she has yet to grow out of.

Before yesterday, when I'm at work, I used to think of her a lot, whether she's crying again, or whether she's enjoying the classes, ate enough etc. But today, I know better.