Searching for a preschool
Little boy in the family has just turned nine months and in another nine months time, he will be eligible to join a playgroup at a preschool.
Searching for a preschool is no easy task. Shortlisting preschools that is nearest to your home, the curriculum the school offers, the teachers’ profile, the teacher to preschooler ratio, the environment and not forgetting the cost and financial schemes available.
First, if you are like me who have no idea which preschool to send my little boy to, you would need some help to find the nearest ones from your home. Luckily, there is now a centralised portal that parents can use to search for a preschool. It is called the LifeSG app.
Besides using it to search for a preschool, it is also use to register a newborn. For Singaporean men who are a reservist or still serving NS, it is also where we can find the NS HOME and NS Excellence Award credits - these are monies awarded for meeting the performance during in-camp training (ICT) - additional perks for us to spend money.
Screenshot of Your benefit section in the LifeSG app.
Going back to the topic, just above the Services section, you can see ‘Search for a preschool’. Once you have tapped on it, the app will bring you to the page below,
Preschool search is found just above the Services section in the LifeSG app.
There are two options to search - by location or centre name. This is also where you need to select the preschool level. In this case, I will need to select playgroup.
Screenshot from the LifeSG app.
It gives you the option to search either by postal code or by centre name. Let’s assume we search by postal code. Since I am looking for playgroup, I chose that to narrow my search for preschools that have vacancies for this level. The screenshot below shows you a list of preschools that are within 2 km from my chosen postal code - it’s much like searching for a primary school.
A list of preschools will be shown.
Screenshot from the LifeSG app.
You will probably be like me and feel a little overwhelmed with so many choices of preschool (in my case there are 55 preschools!). But don’t panic, if your priority is to find a preschool that is near your home, then I would suggest using the map tab to narrow down your search. Alternatively, go to the filters tab and adjust the search radius. There are also other filter options available such as, vacancy availability, fee range and service type (half-day or full-day).
Using the filter option helps you to narrow down your search further. (Screenshot from JB)
Let say you have shortlisted a few preschools (bookmarking them helps), and one of it is the Little Footprints Preschool Group located at 255 Serangoon Central Drive, tap on View details and it will bring you to another page with the preschool’s contact information. Here is something I find it is a little inconvenient, it does not give you the option to submit an application or at least submit an interest to the preschool. Instead, it will request you to contact the centre directly and check the availability. It is worthwhile to note here is, the search function did not offer the option to select the month and year you would like to enroll your child to a preschool. Even though it says it has availability for playgroups, it does not mean it is available in your preferred month of enrollment. Hence, you will have to email the preschool individually or go to their respective websites to check further.
Contact the preschool to enquire about availability for the month you would like to enrol your child.
Screenshot from the LifeSG app.
Second, after you have chosen a preschool, you can find out the estimated cost under the Fees section. At first, it will tell you the range of fees the preschool charges per month before GST and any financial schemes.
Select the answers to the three fields and it will estimate the actual cost of childcare.
Screenshot from LifeSG app.
After I selected the responses for the three fields, it will tell you the cost per month before GST and any financial schemes. In my case, sending my little boy to the Little Footprints would cost an estimated $720 per month for a full-day care option. Depending on which preschools you have chosen, the estimated cost could be different.
Third, you will need to check if you can qualify for any financial schemes, which could help lower down the cost of preschool. Tap on the Learn more about your eligible subsidy. In general, there are two types of subsidy - Basic and Additional. The quantum of subsidy depends on mummy’s working status and gross monthly household income.
Assuming mummy is working and works at least 56 hours a month, her child is enrolled in an ECDA (Early Childhood Development Agency)-licensed infant/child care centre in Singapore, and the total monthly household income is $12,000 and below, she will qualify for both basic and additional subsidies. The basic subsidy will be $300 for working mummies ($150 for non-working mummies) and for additional subsidies, it is differentiated by eight income brackets - infant care and child care have different amounts of subsidies. There is also another subsidy called Kindergarten Fee Assistance Scheme (KiFAS).
Back to the scenario at the beginning of previous paragraph, besides the $300 basic subsidy, assuming the gross monthly household income is $9500. She will also qualify for $130 Additional subsidy. Thus, the preschool fees net off the subsidies will come down to $290 per month before GST AND any other administrative fees that the individual preschool will charge. In addition, there is a calculator that you can use to estimate the cost of preschool. I highly recommend to use it as it auto populates the eligible subsidies and give you the net fees for preschool.
Fourth, all child care centre operators has to be licensed by Early Childhood Development Agency(ECDA). Some of the operators come under one of the two types of ECDA-licensed centres - Anchor Operator Scheme (AOS) and Partner Operator Scheme (POS). The emphasis here is some as not all licensed operators come under the two schemes.
AOS operators are guided by the above.
Preschools under AOS provide good quality and affordable early childhood care and education, especially for children from lower income or disadvantaged backgrounds. Besides providing quality childcare and continuous development of early childhood professionals, there are fee caps for the different categories of services. Currently, there are five operators under the AOS.
There are five child care operators under the AOS scheme.
Preschools under POS aims to improve accessibility, affordability, and quality of childcare and infant care services. Similar to AOS, centres appointed under POS have fee caps of $720 for full day child care and $1,290 for full day infant care before GST and subsidies. Besides fee caps, appointed centres follows a set of requirements through the Singapore Pre-school Accreditation Framework (SPARK), as well as continuous development of early childhood leaders and educators. The list of appointed centres under POS can be found here. It is important to note that not all branches of the same operator are appointed under the POS scheme. Thus, always remember to check first if that is one of your considerations when deciding the preschool to send your little one.
Finally, what I have covered here are the general stuff about searching for a preschool and finding out the fees. Knowing these two things are just the beginning of the whole preschool journey for both parents and the little one. The next steps are to schedule a visit to the preschool (usually they would contact you by phone or email if there is a spot available for your desired start month), which will allow you to see and feel the environment, talk to the teachers to find out more about the teacher to preschoolers ratio, their passion and the curriculum.