Questions parents ask

I believe personal approach is important, the parents know who to look for, and immediate remedies are actually rendered almost immediately. When you raise a problem or a concern, it is addressed immediately or as soon as possible. So I believe my school actually provides this, because I'm the one who handles all this.

And I know every single child, every single one of them, their backgrounds, their family, their habits and their development milestones. So I believe this, more or less, will be able to let them decide which one is the best for them.

The one question parents should ask every centre they visit is, how do your teachers respond when a child is overwhelmed or having an emotional meltdown? And the answer that should worry them is any response that focuses on negative reinforcement, punishment, isolation or even ignoring the child's feelings altogether.

If a centre says they put crying children in time-out or expect them to just quiet down, that's a major red flag. You'll want to hear that educators practise co-regulation, kneeling to eye level, listening, comforting and helping the child work through their emotion constructively.

Strictly no visitors during school hours. So even if the parent is outside the gate, I assume without appointments that the parent has to... We will give the parent my number. They will call me for appointment.

When a parent comes to me and says their child cries every single morning, what I tell them first is to take a deep breath. Morning tears are a completely normal and healthy sign of strong attachment to you. Separation anxiety does not mean your child isn't happy at school. In fact, most children settle down within minutes or even seconds of entering the classroom once they're engaged with their peers and activities.

We work closely with parents to establish a consistent morning drop-off routine, ensuring parents that their child is secure, happy and truly engaged throughout the day.

The biggest mistake I see parents make during the first week at drop-offs is drawn-out goodbyes or showing visible anxiety at the gate. Children are like emotional sponges. If they sense hesitation, worry or guilt in your voice, they immediately conclude that the centre might not be a safe place. Another common mistake is sneaking away without saying goodbye, which breaks trust.

The best approach is a quick, loving and confident ritual. Give them a warm hug. Reassure them that you will return at pick-up time. Pass them to the teacher, smile and leave confidently.

First of all, no visitations during school hours at all, except for the authorities, for example, Bomba, the Kesihatan people and all that. There will be a book for them to sign in and sign out for sure. But the gates, the main gate and the inner gate are locked all the time. Even during sending off and picking up, we will lock the gate. With every parent, we will open it.

No visitors during school time strictly, so for all enquiries are only done through appointments and off school hours, especially for the first time. For parents who really wish to see how the class is being carried out and all that, only from second visits onwards and 30 minutes visit only. That's how we keep our children safe. Even delivery man, the gardener, the electrician, if we can, never during school hours.

Reason we put so much weight on play, even when most parents expect to see worksheets, is that active, purposeful play is how young minds naturally construct deep understanding. Worksheets often train passive repetition, whereas play engages critical thinking, spatial reasoning, problem-solving and social collaboration.

When children explore scientific concepts, role-play real-life scenarios, or engage in sensory outdoor play, they are building complex neural connections. Play doesn't replace learning. Play is the highest form of learning, and it prepares children for primary school rigour far more effectively than memorisation.

When I explain our EQuip programme and emotional intelligence to a parent who has never heard of it, I tell them that while traditional education teaches children what to learn, EQuip teaches them how to navigate their feelings, build resilience and connect with others. Emotional intelligence is about helping a child identify when they feel frustrated, learn how to self-regulate and develop empathy for their peers.

Through EQuip alongside specialised modules in arts, science and literacy, we give children the social and emotional anchor they need so that they can thrive both in school and in life.

I remember a child who arrived at RightStart struggling with severe separation anxiety and communication barriers. Barely willing to leave his parents' sight or interact with us at all. What changed was our team's consistent, patient approach.

Our teachers met the child at eye level every single morning, gave him small, low-pressure roles in the classroom and used hands-on activities that built confidence step by step. Over time, this quiet boy transformed into an expressive, confident group leader who hosted my three-hour concert and graduated ready for primary school, fully capable of making friends and advocating for themselves.

Recently, I discovered there's this amazing research about emotion. Emotions actually will dissipate by itself within 90 seconds. So usually for people with very major emotional breakdown, depression, anxiety, because they do not let go of their emotions. They feed it too much, keep on telling people how they feel, thinking to themselves what makes them so anxious and all that.

And growing up, most of us are actually lack of emotional exposure. And there's this thing called emotional awareness whereby I find it's very important in children. So children who are not reacting to whatever is happening around them, actually it's lack of emotional awareness, And we have to really take this seriously.

And for children, parents would come to tell us, oh, my child cries, anxious, worried about spelling next day, scared of the teacher because teacher is too loud and all that. To me, research has shown we should actually allow the children to feel the emotions. We do not run to the rescue straight away in the first place.

Immediately, okay, you don't cry, and soothe the child because what they need to know now is they need to learn how to self-soothe. So if I'm sad from young, my daddy will come to me, oh, come, I'll bring you, Audrey, or you are my darling. Don't cry, settle everything for me and avoid me from feeling those negative emotions, then I will never be able to learn why I'm feeling this way.

And this will actually lead to a lot of social issues now, like for example, committing suicide at a very young age because they are missing of this thing called self-soothe. They can't soothe themselves, they can't talk themselves out of the emotions. So, for me, for us, just to share with you an experience that I have with this child. He would whine every morning, for sure.

He would cry and it happens, but he came to school very early in the morning. So it happens that one morning I was there before him. So he walked in and he wanted to start his whining. The teacher gave him his bottle, said, you go in and calm down. After you are calm, you come up. So usually, he will go into my office and face the wall, drink water, thinking, don't know what, then he'll go out.

The minute he saw me in the office, stop. Turn around, I'm ready to go to the class. So, this is what I want to see in the children. What is important right now? Is it your emotions or something else? But if we do not allow them to feel this, we try to solve problems for them. Don't worry, don't cry. I'll tell your teacher to give you a hundred marks, to give you three stars.

I'll tell your teacher to scold your friend or that. They should be the one telling the teacher, not us. They should be the one. And there's another thing that I feel which is very important to me now is my style is I don't update parents, even for the young ones. Why? Because I want the parents to see and feel for themselves the child's improvement, not from my mouth.

Because when we tell them, oh mommy, I'm doing this, I take photo while my child can write, but there's a video or a photo only at that point of time. But the child really knows enough. So when parents are fed with all this information, they will actually mistakenly think that the children can do, because the school is already teaching this. So I don't do that.

I want parents to feel for themselves, whether how much your child has improved. So even the young babies in my school, the first two weeks I'll update them, then they'll come and tell me, Audrey, I want daily updates. And no, my teacher will not bring the phone to the classroom because they will engage with the child 100%. Then how am I going to know whether my child is improving? I say, you ask them.

But she's a baby, she's a baby, she cannot talk. Make her talk. So eventually, most of the time, like 90% of the time, within a month or two, the parents tell me, amazing, my daughter can tell me what she's doing in school. I can literally see her improvement. This is what I feel is really very important, that it's an old school method.

Those days we go to school, the teacher don't come and tell our parents what we do in school. But a lot of young parents now feel that they need to know what they do in school. My advice is get the information from the child, not from the teachers.

I started a daycare centre in the first place because, back then, what was missing in Penang was a true balance between emotional development and academic readiness. At the time, early education was dominated by rigid, traditional academic drilling, where children are expected to sit still with worksheets for hours.

There wasn't a place that truly prioritised emotional intelligence, character and individual child development alongside learning. I wanted to build a sanctuary in Penang where children could feel secure, express themselves and discover a genuine love for learning.

One timing phrase is left out. Two decades is Audrey's time in early childhood, since 2005. RightStart has run since 2009, which is 17 years.

RightStart opened its doors over 17 years ago. The centre was a modest, intimate space, but it was filled with so much heart and energy. It started with just a handful of children, a small team of dedicated educators, and classrooms designed from top to bottom with warmth in mind.

I remember looking at those clean, bright spaces on day one, knowing that every corner had to feel safe, welcoming and inspiring for a young child. While we have expanded across five centres, that foundational feeling of a close-knit family environment has never changed.

When we say 'Inspiring greatness, one child at a time', what that actually means in practice is that we do not believe in one-size-fits-all approach to education. Greatness isn't about fitting every child into the same mould or expecting uniform performance. It's about identifying each child's unique strengths, personality and pace, and nurturing their individual confidence.

In our classrooms, our teachers take time to observe every student, celebrating their individual micro wins daily, whether that's mastering a new vocabulary word, regulating a big emotion, or leading a group activity.

Two stretches are left out of this transcript. One names a programme we could not confirm. The other stops on an unfinished term.

All our centres open at 7.30 from Monday to Friday in the morning. But actual lessons start at 8.30. So from 7.30 to 8.30, the children will arrive. We greet them, get them to the classroom, and settle them down for lessons. For the 18 months to 3 years old, daily outdoor play is crucial. They need to have at least 120 minutes of sunlight in a week.

So, 8.30 is the time for them to enjoy natural vitamin D outdoor for 30 minutes, expending their energy and get ready to come into the classroom, settle down and start their table work. They will have a circle time, the teacher will sit down with them and go through literacy, rhymes, singing, exercises and the day lesson. At 9.30, they'll each go back to their classroom and go through the first quiet learning.

Snack breaks at 10, 10 to 10.30, some of them will have their milk break at this time, but most of them we encourage them to take solid food. 10.30 onwards to 12, the lesson goes on. They will have role play, they'll have drama lessons, story time, and all those messy play, quiet play, imaginative play and all that within the next one and a half hours.

Lessons ends at 12 and that's when the first batch of half-day care goes home. Lunch hour begins at 12 as well. Some children will take lunch and go home at this point but a small fraction of them will go home without lunch and the rest of them, majority of them actually stay for full day. Lunchtime starts at 12, and finish off at around 1. They'll take a short break from 1 to 1.15.

This is the only time that we'll switch on the TV for them. with some cartoons and children's programmes while we get them ready for shower. Shower starts at 1.15 and ends at 2. 1.35 to 2. And the children will be given their before nap milk, and go back up to the classroom for a nap.

Nap time is from 2 to 4, they're woken up at 4, put away their sleeping bags and visit the toilet, clean themselves out, change the diaper if there's a need to, and get ready for their milk and snack time at around 4.30. 4.30 to 5 would be their nap time. Some children will request for dinner. At 5, we will serve our dinner for those who needs dinner.

5 to 6.30 would be the pick-up time for parents and that almost ends our day for the 18 months to 3 years old. During waiting time, the teachers will go through the day's lesson with them. They will be given age-appropriate activities and educational toys until the parents fetch them home. As for the four-year-old, academic starts, official academic drilling starts at four, roughly there.

They will have a lot of readings, more written work and books. The lessons again starts at 8.30. 7.30 is our opening time, but 7.30 to 8.30 is the time when the children get ready for school. Some will come at 8.30, as long as you come before 8.30, you are on time. 8.30 will be our daily circle time. At 4, we start to teach them our programme named EQuip for Life.

This programme actually teaches the children about affirmations. They need to know the affirmations of the day. Every single day there's a different one, and they will have to actually share with us how they apply this into their daily life. Start from age 4, and in the circle time, whereby all the classes of age 4 gather together, which is a huge group.

We are also, by doing this, we are actually encouraging public speaking as well, because they need to present in a group of 48, let's say. And then they have a literacy, which is rhymes, they have small talk, because at 4 they are able to talk, so we have topics for them to discuss, they need to learn to listen, which is important because children nowadays, once they talk, they usually won't listen.

They just want to talk all the time, they need to listen to their friends, they need to learn to remember what they need to tell for later. They need to discuss about the topic that we give them within the topic and not things that they want to say on their own. And all this during circle time.

They sing, they have some coordination activities whereby we want to sharpen their gross and fine motor skills so that they can show off to their friends and stuff like that. So during that time, it's the time for them to build confidence, it's the time for them to show off what they've got in the big group.

And we also have games during the circle time for half an hour to 45 minutes depending on what activities we have that day. We have games, because I believe our children nowadays, they do not really know how to listen or talk. They will talk, they will tell you what they want to say, but two-way traffic is usually very, very rare at four years old. And this is where we first started.

We want them to really listen and respond to what we tell them and not what they want to say. And we will also want them to recall information of what their friends said earlier, so that the actual communication should be this way, both sides. Both ways, you listen, you respond and not listen all the time, So that's our circle time. When circle time ends at 9 or 9.15, there are 4 classes.

So each will take turns on different days to go for their outdoors. Outdoors for four years old will reduce by about 25% because to make way for academic lessons and they will go back to the classroom for the lessons of Cambridge English. They start their three languages at this age. They will have their Bahasa, Mandarin and English now for four years old and science, maths and moral value as well.

Lessons will end at, no, will stop at 10 for snack, 10 to 10.30 for snack time, a short break for them. And at 4, we started individual reading one to one at a time for English. So while the children are actually having lessons throughout the day, the teacher, the reading teacher will take them out from the class one by one to read with them.

So every child reads at a different pace but it's important for me because I feel they must learn how to read independently. So if we practise this at four, they actually will be able to read at six, which most of them do now. And actually this year, I started the reading programme at three. A little bit challenging, but I find, yeah, they are doing pretty well as well.

10.30 to 12, they continue their lessons in the classrooms. And from 12 onwards, the routine will be the same as the 4 years old just now. Some of them will go home, some will eat lunch and the rest will be lunch, TV for a short time. And because we can't shower after lunch straight away and strip and off to shower, they should nap at around 2pm to 3.30pm.

We cut half an hour of their nap time for homework, for the daily homework so that they can complete it in school and the rest will be the same at the four years old. When it comes to five and six, academics is becoming heavier now, We actually have criterias for every age group. For two and three, they can actually do whatever they want. It's like a bonus if what we teach, they know.

If we teach, they don't know, we teach again. That's it. But at four, there is a time limit for them to really learn what we teach. If I teach a child alphabets within three months at four years old, if the child can't get it, really cannot recognise, then it's time for me to actually speak to the parents and find out if there's anything wrong.

So for four years old, the teaching, whatever the children learn actually falls heavily hundred percent on the teacher, but if they don't get what we teach, it's a major red flag for us. For five years old, responsibility now goes to the children. They start to take notes on their own, they should keep their things away, they are capable of taking care of their own stuff.

If they write something wrongly and the teacher miss it, it's not the teacher's fault anymore, it's their fault. They didn't double check. They start to take notes, their spellings, their tingxie in Mandarin, their ejaan and all that should, they should copy them correctly because if they read the wrong thing, it's not the teacher's fault anymore. So the responsibility goes to them.

For six, they start to write sentences, They construct sentences, they write passages and stuff like that, and the teacher no longer pen in red, even the writing, the exercise book, they will copy what they need to write like paragraph by paragraph. You need to repeat this many times, teachers need not do that anymore.

They have to write in dates spelled in full, Bahasa, English, different, and they learn to take down loads of what they need to do for that day as well. So that is at 6. But 6 years old, a crucial criteria that I want them to hit is speed. They no longer take forever to write that date. There's timeline and deadline.

So every day, for example, if they need to copy a passage, I'll give them like five minutes or the dates within 5 seconds, you can't procrastinate and drag your work. Even food like snack, lunch and all that, they have a maximum of 20 minutes to finish their lunch and not more than that. Yeah, that's for the 6 years old.

So for the 5, they start off again, everything's the same but the lessons will be outdoor again, will be down to twice to three times a week and the rest of the day will be circle time. Circle time will be more intense now. They will be given home assignments, and come back to school and tell us what they have done with the assignment that we give them and describe to friends. Affirmation again would be the same.

Every single day new information and they will start to learn poems in Mandarin and Bahasa and stuff like that. Small talk, small talk will be more intense already because actually the small talk will have more intense as in like they will have more points to add on. For example, we talked about Merdeka. They have to give us, like, tell me about our Jalur Gemilang. What is Jalur Gemilang?

They have to describe the colours and what each colour represents for five and six years old. And 10 o'clock, 10 to 10.30 again is the snack time, 12 onwards, the same thing. So morning will be the main core subjects for the five and six years old. Afternoon, they will have their literacy programme whereby suku kata, they need to recognise the characters in the afternoon. For five, they nap for one hour.

Three to five is lesson time. And for the six, they don't nap at all. But we actually teach them how to power nap, close their eyes and rest for 10 to 20 minutes, which is really useful when they go to primary school.

Because usually nowadays, primary school children will start their day in the morning, go to a daycare and finish off at the end of the day, which is a full 12 hours in fact, so I teach them how to power nap at six years old. So usually if the six years old don't have any rest time, lessons will start two to five for the afternoon sessions. That's about all.