Playgroup Comparison

Following my posting on LEAP Schoolhouse, I tabulated my experience with the following playgroups:

Criteria/ Place	Growing Up Gifted  (GUG)	LEAP Schoolhouse (LSH)	MyGym	Gymboree
1 - Environ- ment	- Small class rooms;  low student:teacher ratio	- Small class rooms; low student:teacher ratio	-Very spacious gym facility; has swings -played loud music (which doesn't go -well with yx)	-Very spacious gym facility; well-maintained  -No swings
2 - Quality of teachers	- Understand children temperament and go with the flow	- Pleased with the teachers' singing and children management abilities.	- doesn't seem to be well-trained but can still manage a class	- Understand children temperament and go with the flow
3 - Curriculum	Hello & Welcome English literacy activities Break time Bubbles Chinese Literacy Activities Singing Goodbye  - No gym time	Free play Hello song Gym time Break time Bubbles Literacy Activities Singing Goodbye - No Chinese curriculum  - No mathematical concepts injected	Hello & Welcome Songs Playing in groups Free play with parent Playing in groups  Bubbles  Goodbye	Hello & Welcome Songs Playing in groups Free play with parent Playing in groups  Bubbles  Goodbye
4 - Management/ administration	- Very systematic, answered your questions straight-away, perhaps has been quite experienced handling many questions from parents.	- One of the administrators can't answer enquiries and often has to "refer to my colleague" for advice. I have to repeat my "story" before I was given a conclusive answer.	- One boy was crying extremely loudly and was lying in the middle of the room kicking and bawling away but it took the over in charge teacher quite a while to intervene when the parents are not taking any action.	- quite pushy when it comes to enrolment

Note:
- GUG and LSH are both with literacy activities while MyGym and Gymboree are just purely action and songs, which explains the colour differences when doing comparison. Main differences are highlighted in bold.
- Activities described for all except LSH  may be not be in sequence since it is based on past few months memory.
- Impression done base on the 1st visit. (I have more than 1 visit for LSH, to compare on the common platform, I base my comparison only on the 1st visit.)

Basically, I find the activities almost similar. It's just the teachers that makes a difference. The above criteria (to me) are considered foremost during my selection process. One might also wish to consider:

• Fees
• Location
• Time slot Availability
• Flexibility of the terms and conditions