Are you wondering about what happens to your child at school? You cannot be there to see how your child is doing and you want to make sure that the school is delivering its services as promised – that is very understandable, and because we want to be honest with you, we will tell you what is going on at Choo Choo Train.

Sometimes, your child is taken care of by different staff. We hate when this happens, but we cannot control a staff’s health condition and her emergency situation. Sometimes our staff falls sick and she has to rest at home. Some other times, problems arise in our staff’s life and she has to tackle them, and while she is out to deal with her adversity, we follow a contingency plan: we send one person from our training and development team to cover her place. This is not always told to parents, especially if it is unplanned, but if a teacher has applied for leave beforehand, you will be informed about the change of person. And sometimes, when we have a new student intake, we have to switch teachers for your child to balance out the ratio. The arrangements at Choo Choo Train are flexible as long as it is doable.

Your child might not eat the food we prepare, so we need your help. We stay true to our promised food menu, which means we use the healthiest (read: natural, less-processed) ingredients we could with minimal salt and sugar, and although they taste good for most children, some others might not think the same. When this happens, we cannot force your child to keep eating. Instead, we humbly request you to bring a replacement meal for your child while we keep trying to give our food. It is the same case with food allergies. We cannot prepare a special meal for your child due to the time constraint, but we can help to serve or feed the special meal from home.

Choo Choo Train is as inclusive as we can be. Our customers are culturally, religiously, and racially diverse, and we strive to be sensitive to everybody’s background. We avoid using exclusive language, we celebrate all kinds of festivities, and we use educational materials that are gender-neutral. We understand there may be some issues at home that might affect your child and we want you to feel comfortable talking to us about any concerns you have.

Your child is encouraged to be independent at school. Honestly, it feels uncomfortable to let the children do things on their own like taking off and putting on shoes, scooping food from a container to their bowl, etc. (they are just children!) but as much as we want to help, we hold the urges to lend our hands until we see it is necessary. It takes years to build a good habit, so the younger we start the better! It would be great if you can encourage your child to be independent at home too.

When two children fight, we counsel them like adults. We want to show our children the respect they deserve by talking to them like other adults. We do not yell at adults, so we do not yell at our children. We understand why one of them snatches toys and why the other is defending, but we still ask about their motives and help them verbalize what was happening to validate their feelings. It is easier said than done, but we think of it this way: we control our temper with another adult, so we must also control our temper with the children.

We let your child watch the TV. Let’s be real. This is the 21st century, it is irrelevant to avoid all sorts of gadgets and screens although we want to. But be relieved, because we only let your child watch our TV once a week for 30 minutes max as part of our lesson plan. Mostly, it is for the music and movement class. And be relieved, because other than for music and movement, what we show to your child are programs intended to help them learn critical thinking skills, foster empathy, and nurture their sense of self-worth. Everything has its good and its bad, it is upon us to use it for which purpose.

We have our staff clean the school. Actually, our staff has a cleaning roster that we observe to keep Choo Choo Train a safe and inviting place to be at. Your child’s school is his home away from home, so we go to the extent of paying an extra allowance to our staff to keep it nice. We are also using medical-grade cleaning solutions, which is why we rarely get any virus outbreaks at our school. Health and safety on your list? Checked.

Some staff might not appear to your liking. Our staff is diverse human beings with different personalities. Some of them are sweet, some are shy, and some are trying to improve themselves to present and communicate better with you. You might prefer a different approach from your child’s teacher, and if you wish so, you can just voice it out to our supervisor. We will try to make things work for both sides. All in all, our staff are just a bunch of ladies who love being around children. We are liars if we tell you we love every bit of the job. When three babies cry simultaneously, we wish they could have just told us what they need or want. When the toddlers refuse to sleep, we wish we could switch places with them and be the ones who are sleeping instead. We deal with frustrations every single day, but perhaps because this is where we belong, somehow, we are able to go back home tired but happy and do it all over again the next day. Your child might be one of our favorites, or maybe not, but he or she is still treated with love over here just by being a child.

There you go, our honest revelation of how things are at Choo Choo Train. Now, do you have a clearer picture of what is going on in your child’s life at school?