After a while, I found out that the food was ordered from our cafeteria operator, and interestingly it was foods for adult, hot and spicy. The kids were given very limited access to the food coz the staffs would reserve some for them to take home (fringe benefit i guess...). There were not many activities and teh supervisor was not very friendly (at least to my expectation) and was in control of the whole situation. In fact she was the stmbling block for me to improve the situation.
The number of kids were reduced coz parents were not happy at all with the whole situation. I kept the situation for a month and close the classromm for a while. These situations had supported me with strong reason to let go the supervisor and her good friend cum follower and the rest remained.
What did i do to improve teh situation after a month? I appointed new supervisor from my existing office staff and changed the menu immediately to child-friendly menu, with some extra foods for adult (enough for them to have lunch and definitely not to take home). I splitted the childcare into two units as per guidelines by teh welfare department, for kids below 2 years, and kids between 2-6 years. There were dedicated staffs to handle these groups and it was based on their preferences/choices. I also hire one staff as housekeeper, to do the cleaning and stuff, so the childtakers were specilised in their jobs without having to do the cleaning and other house chores. My focus at that time was to improve teh situation especially for below 2 yrs old category and between 2-4 yrs old category. There were no preschool due to lack of manpower and expertise to handle.
The new supervisor handled the situation well and the childcare staffs were given a timetable. All kids need to follow the timetable with activities suitable for kids. We made it fun by having a 'swimming' session in a small moveable pool, sing a song time and video time after bathed in the afternoon and play outside when waited for their parents to pick them up (prior to that kids were not allowed to play outside because parents were complaining their children were not tidy up and clean when they picked them up...what?? Yo parents, kids need to play ok? If you don't like my way, take the hiway!! Haha...
All their work were then posted in a simple gallery outside of the place where parents normally came to fetch their kids. Before this all their works were palced nicely in a folder and to be handed over to their parents at end of year....what the hack? The parents would not appreciate those when they were ready to for holiday at end of year and then to prepare their kids for new school. So we capture the parents there and then. They were then allowed to bring home their work daily. So parents could then see their kids progress daily. Every month we even invited our panel doctor to visit us and provide medicine to teh children if necessary. I didn't allow teh childcare staffs to give teh kids medicine themselves without teh supervisor around and with the parents permission.
Kids were happy and parents talked to other parents, there were a lot of request to enroll their kids. I needed to expand. I then decided for the childcare to move to a bigger place. there were a bungalow for teh Office Complex Manager but nobody wanted to stay there. So we moved to the bungalow after it was renovated and fire escape staricase was built for safety.
There were parents who sent their kids as early as 630am in the morning and picked their kids after 730pm. I issued a circular for parenst to pay to the childcare staffs thru supervisor overtime claim. They needed to compensate the staffs tehmselves. Some parents were not happy but wh wanted to work for FREE?? Later the parents stopped sending his kids early at 630am and instead took his kids for brakfast and sent them around 8am (actually the mother worked in Ipoh so to make his (the father) life easy, he sent his kids straight to the childcare after sending his wife to the bus station to take express bus to Ipoh...).
After much discussion, wedecided to open preschool and later appointed 2 teachers for 5 yrs old preschool and later 6 yeras old preschool after we had enough kids enrolled. We also hired part time english teacher, mandarine teacher, ustaz to teach AlQuran and computer teacher to teach the kids computer, all were scheduled in the afternoon. So in the morning the went for normal cyllibus. I also sent the teachers to attend fast learning technique in Ipoh to learn about the new technique. The preschool was also a success.
Overall, based on the respond, I would consider my effort a huge success and in fact, we had to reject some kids due insufficient space. What a great experience indeed... :D
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