Organised Chaos

Organised chaos is how I would describe the early morning situation at school. Everyone enters by the side door that leads to the gym and cafeteria. Those who do not wish to eat breakfast or already had theirs at home head to the gym and those who are having breakfast will head to the cafeteria. The gym and cafeteria is just side by side and the entrance is nearest to the gym. The queue for breakfast is long and will continue pass the gym and through the door to the outside. At least, there is no flag-raising ceremony or anthem singing. Those in the gym had to sit quietly according to grade level and when they have enough students I suppose (because some of the teachers of the class have other duty to do and they don't take attendance at the gym), the staff in charge in the gym will get the students in line and one teacher or staff will lead the students to their grade classes crossing paths with the breakfast queue and that's when a lot of 'chaos' occurs. The 5 kindergarten classes are clustered together, so one teacher will bring all the kindergarten kids to their classes. And if their class teacher is there, they will go to their classroom. If not, they either wait outside their classroom and for those students who seemed clueless, they were all put into one class. The weird thing is the teachers do not make the students wear name tags. If the kids have name tags, at least, whoever is with them is able to identify their names or the class that they are supposed to be in. If the child is unsure, the staff brings him to each classroom and asked, "Is he yours?" So teacher will say "Oh yes" or "Ah, ah, no" and move on to the next class. So that's totally inefficient I thought. What if the teacher forgets the face? Especially when it was only like the second day of school. Sometimes a kid gets out of his line and gets lost, that's when there's more chaos. Once he or she starts crying, you don't get anything out from the child and he or she probably wants only his mommy and daddy. And there's no name tag to know which class the child is in.

The going home time...what I like which I think is great and Singapore can adopt. Walkers leave at 3.10 pm and go out through the front door. Aftercare and school bus will leave to the left exit of the school building and car pick up is on the right side. There are two lanes for the car pick up and when the car moves in, they will pass through a roundabout and wait by the side in two lanes. Each car will put the name of their child on a paperplate (they should also put the grade level) and put it on their windscreen. If it's a young child, the teacher herself will escort the child to the car. Parents are not allowed to leave their car (unless it's a rainy day and they need to bring the umbrella for their child). Once the child is loaded, the car moves off and the next car waits. The reason for the two lanes so that there is no bottle neck in case a child is not out yet. So at least one line can still keep moving. I think this is great because so often in Singapore, there are no car lanes and inconsiderate parents simply jammed up the roads and it can be very dangerous, not only for the children but for other road users.

For those leaving by bus, my son's teacher stick a yellow post-it with the bus no and paste a clear cellophane across the post-it on his t-shirt. One teacher will take all the kids who are going home by school bus and move to the exit for the bus. There are three buses, so there would be someone to ensure these kids take the right bus. The only thing is the number on the bus is too long...like 2000-83, 2004-35 etc. Thank goodness, there are only three schoolbuses and hopefully Afzal will not hop onto the wrong one.