New Measures at Playschool

Took nearly 10min to get Sam into the playschool today, and he was only the 5th in queue. All because of the new measures the playgroup adopted against outbreak of Hand, Foot & Mouth Disease.

Apparently there's been an outbreak of such cases in the area recently, and the principal of Talent Plus group came to inspect the branch here yesterday, and was astonished our branch washed the toddlers' hands with water instead of the anti-bacterial lotion used in other branches.

So today all parents were not allowed into the main room of the RC. Each child was supposed to be seated just inside the entrance of the doorway, where the teacher would inspect the mouth, hands & feet of the toddler with gloved hands, before squirting some anti-bacterial lotion on the hands for cleaning purposes.

Well, after 1.5 mths of the old routine parents/grandparents/maids accompanying the toddlers all the way into the small classroom & taking their shoes off & washing their hands, most of the toddlers were appalled at having someone else trying to do it for them. The 3rd girl in the queue started crying & refused to sit down on the chair for inspection, clinging on to her grandfather. That started the rest of the children in the queue, including my Sam, crying too.

The assistant teacher resorted to letting the adults into the doorway of the main room to help take of the children's shoes, and the poor teacher had to peer into the screaming toddlers' mouth for the inspection, raising the soles of feet dangling in the air while hands were tightly clasped around the parents' necks.

Really, starting a new routine at this time is like starting a new school term all over again. Good luck to the teachers! And I'm expecting an unsettled Sam over the next few days to school again........