Kindergarteners excited to be back at school despite new procedures
KUCHING: Children arriving at several kindergartens here yesterday were excited to return to school despite having to follow new procedures.
Pupils were seen lining up at a distance from one another, ge ing their temperatures checked, and hands cleaned before being guided to their respective classes by staff.
Kindergartens, which had been closed since March 18, were allowed to reopen yesterday under strict Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) standard operating procedures (SOP).
“My daughter is excited to be back in school as she has not seen her friends for over 90 days,” said Baughman Henry Punan.
Baughman said he was not worried about his daughter as he trusted the school.
Hafiz Jamahari said prior to this he and his wife had been taking turns at work as they did not have anyone to take care of their two children.
“I feel relieved that we can send our daughter to school, but at the same time I do feel a bit nervous as this Covid-19 is still around. We’ll just have to adapt to the new normal,” he said.
Teacher Nancy Kelibai she said some parents preferred not to have their children back in kindergarten as they were still working from home.
“It is up to parents if they want to send their children to school or not. Some parents are happy that we can reopen as they want their children to learn instead of staying at home.
“This morning we saw many of the children arriving in a good mood, not crying, compared to when they first started studying here,” she said.
Kindergarten operations and business development manager Norma John said centres have been prepared according to government SOP and premises sanitised by the Fire and Rescue Department prior to reopening.
“We have briefed our stakeholders, parents, teachers, staff before reopening on how to train kids about social distancing. This will prepare the children so that they understand the new normal. We also prepared the centres according to the government SOP and our own SOP,” she said.
She said although the centres were closed physically, the children had been attending online classes and could communicate with their teachers.
On the attendance yesterday, she said a small percentage were not in school yesterday as their parents preferred for them to start next Monday.