Reflections

Ang Yu Keng Megan

The topic I chose to work on is Holistic Development. I believe in the importance to develop the whole child and equip them with the skills and competencies that will prepare them for opportunities and challenges in the future. With strong emphasis placed on academic performance in Singapore, I wanted to find out the possibility of implementing a holistic curriculum in preschools. I learnt that implementing a holistic development requires teachers to have a variety of skills to conduct lessons of the different domains. It is also reliant on external factors such as parents’ expectations.

Ong Xin Yi

The reason I had chosen the topic of holistic development in the preschool is because I would like to find out more about how it is being achieved in preschools today. We have been taught in our diploma that holistic development involves integrating the six domains of learning for children (Numeracy; Language and Literacy; Discovery of the world; Motor Skills Development; Aesthetics and Creative Expression). However, in terms of practicality, I feel that Singapore as a society, is actually very academically-driven. As such, I would like to find out how the preschools in Singapore are finding the balancing between these two expectations.

Based on the interview with the principal and the teachers of the school, I found out that most of the staff do believe in holistic development. However, factors such as the lack of time and classroom management are preventing them from trying to include holistic development into the children’s curriculum.

After some analysis of the interview transcript, my initial assessment was that the main need of the school was to have more skilled teachers. When the teachers are more knowledgeable, they would be able to implement a more holistic the lesson.

However, after collecting the surveys done by the teachers and further discussion with my groupmates, I realised that while the teachers lacked skills in teaching, the main need is that the teachers are not able to incorporate inquiry-based teaching into the lesson.

Shirin Banu

The chosen early childhood topic is holistic development. Holistic development focus on developing a child academically and non-academically. It is widely believed Singapore emphases significantly in academics and merit. Hence, during the initial stages of brainstorming on the challenges a centre could face in implementing holistic development. I had concluded it could be the lack of support from parents and a lack of resources itself. As parents’ expectations of a successful or ideal education would be one where it prepares their child to excel academically, this would pose a challenge to the crux of what holistic development itself is.

Furthermore, as Singapore's main resource is people, it is important we are prepared to excel in worldly and practical manners. Therefore, I had presumed the government may not necessarily provide the appropriate resources centres might need to implement holistic education.

Once we had interviewed the centre’s principal, I concluded, just from the principal’s responses that the challenge the centre was facing was the lack of manpower. I had not understood the actual need of the centre until I had categorised and sifted through the interview responses. From there, many challenged were discovered, however, the main need the centre was facing was the lack of skilled teachers. This lack of skilled teachers had been derived from two other challenges the centre faced – misaligned beliefs and the lack of knowledge in the school’s approach.

Through this process, I had understood that I had easily make presumptions on the challenges the centre may had faced. Due to my own personal perspectives on early childhood education and the Singaporean government. The interview had enlightened on the challenges faced by them were far more complicated and significant. Only through the sorting of the interview responses was I able to break down the complexity of the challenge faced by the centre. It had taught me again once more that the root challenge may not be a surface-level reason. Thorough analysis and understanding is needed to discover deep-rooted challenges.

Tan Jia Xin

Preschools in Singapore have been placing more emphasis on holistic development for children while there seems to be a shift in Singapore’s education system to develop the non-academic subjects as well. However, I am aware that this may not be easy to accomplish in Singapore due to many external factors, such as the society’s emphasis on academics from a young age and parents’ expectations on the education system. Hence, I wanted to find out more about how holistic development is really implemented in Singapore’s context.

Since teachers are the one imparting knowledge to the children, I was interested in finding out how the quality of teachers would affect the implementation of holistic development in preschools. However, through the interview with the Centre Principal, I realized that there are many other factors that would affect the implementation of holistic development, such as time, manpower and parent’s expectations. Also, a teacher that is educated and equipped with the skills may not necessarily carry out the appropriate teaching practices. As such, it might be more meaningful to find the root cause of teachers not implementing holistic lessons, which could be the lack of skills and knowledge in Inquiry-based learning, which is the method adopted by our chosen Centre.

Wong Xing Yi, Rie

At the start of the assignment, I wanted to focus on how mother tounge language, art and music have been thought in school. After talking about it to my peers, we then derive that we should focus on holistic development.

Developing the child as a whole has been taught to us since year 1, though ITEACH. When working on the assignment I found out more about holistic development, like what is it define as and how much the govermnent put emphasis on importance.

I have also learn that there are many ways to deliver holistic development like for the centre which we interview, they use guided inquiry.