Nadiah's First Day Of Kindergaten

It’s Nadiah’s first day at Superkids Kindergarten today. She is in a special class for kids with Down Syndrome, learning disabilities and autism.


Class starts at 1.30pm and ends at 3.30pm, three days a week. But as this is the first week for the special class, classes will dismiss a half an hour early. Altogether there were 20 some kids in 4 different classes. The class that Nadiah was in have 2 other kids. We were worried but at the same time hopeful that Nadiah would like the school.


At first when we arrived at the school, she refused to get down from the car and Shukri had to carry her in. But as soon as she saw the playground, she insisted to be put down and immediately ran to the swings. There were other kids running around with their parents looking on and teachers in their special pink coats zooming in and out of the picture, expertly handling the kids with ease. I looked at the scene and though: well, Nadiah might just be alright at this place. For the moment, Nadiah will just be wearing her normal clothes as school uniforms have yet to be issued.

At 2 o’clock, the bell rang and everyone had to line up according to the color of their name tags. Nadiah’s was green and we took her to stand in front of the teacher who was also wearing the same coloured name tag. I must admit that I was busy settling Nadiah down that I didn’t get a chance to look at the teacher’s name. Will do that tomorrow. Everyone had to sing a 'Good Afternoon' song with the teachers and waving their hands all over. It was a bit unsettling for Nadiah and she tried to get away. Thank God the song was short and sweet!! Shukri decided to carry Nadiah into the classroom and we worried again that she won’t sit still at the table. But the teachers had already thoughtfully lined up some toys over everyone’s place. With no time to waste, Nadiah slide into her chair and proceeded to play. She seemed fine and couldn’t care less about us so we left her to the care of her yet unnamed teacher and went to the auditorium for a welcoming talk from the principal (whom I know her name is Miss Yeoh).

Nadiah happily playing with her blocks in class

We were shown slides of the activities that goes on in the special classes which includes water play, messy play, colouring, numbers, alphabets and so on. The activities are somewhat the same as any kindergarten but the techniques are better suited for special children. They concentrate on making the children independent and able to follow instruction and in the hope that the children are able to join other kids in the regular classes. I am happy to see that the activities revolve around stuff that Nadiah really likes. They have water play which they would teach the children how to bathe, soap themselves then dry themselves and put on their own clothes. In one of the pictures, they had the children washing a car (lucky whichever teacher that went home with a squeaky clean car that day!). Basically just having fun with friends.

There’s also messy play where they get to play with icky, gooey flour and water mixture and just slide their hands in the paste and stamping all over a paper (clothes, hair and God knows where else). Now I know why they require every child to have an extra clean set of clothes in their bags.

The school also organizes parents’ class every fortnight. It’s when parents get to meet other parents and discuss with the teachers about their child’s progress or lack of them. It’s also the time where they will be given training on how to deal with their child. I thought that is a good and valuable opportunity. After all, it’s the parents who would be spending most of the times with their child. We can’t just drop our children at the school expecting the teachers to do all the work.

3 o'clock, talk finished, we all rushed out to see how our children was doing. I was apprehensive, thinking Nadiah might have given the teacher a hard time or something. But she was fine, albeit walking around into other people's class (checking out their toys, I suppose) and by the time they were let out of the class, she was still sitting down at one of the tables not wanting to go home. I had to go to the door and call her name a few times before she got up from the chair.

All in all, Nadiah had a good start. I think she had a fun day and hopefully, she'll willingly go into the classroom tomorrow and the next day and the next week and on and on.