I was indeed very impress with your blog and shared it with my daughter too. I must agree that true happiness comes from within and one must be happy with himself or herself b4 anything else. Though my daughter is going through some tough time in school with some of her friends humilating and insulting her, I still believe she is a strong person and the best gift GOD has sent to us. I must say that parents should educate their child to respect other children and not teach them to bad-mouth others. Like my daughter believes, LET THEM TALK MUM. It is only for a while. Sooner or later, it will stop. She is indeed a champ in sports and education and a great sunday school child.

From Ghita: Dear Kiran, I am glad you like my blog, thank you. I haven’t been active for a while, because of too much work, but I intend to write whenever I can. I think your daughter sounds very strong, but I have taken it one step further with my daughter, as I have bought a good book that teachers children to stand up for themselves and their friends in an assertive way that don’t keep the fighting going but to be respectful while still feeling empowered by being able to say something back to the bully(ies), so it can stop. Ignoring and waiting it out don’t always work. I know this because I was bullied in school all my life and I never learned to stand up for myself during my school days, tried to ignore it and the bullying continued. Only by speaking up assertively will you get the respect you deserve, and I intend to teach this to my daughter until she can do it. I agree with you that parents have a responsibility to teach their children to treat other people nicely and what’s right and what’s wrong to say and do. Parents can’t just leave that up to children to figure out, as values and manners need to be talked about and passed down the generations to ensure that children behave properly and treat others with respect and kindness.

I came from the local government secondary school, I remembered during our PE lesson, me and other classmates either changed our clothes in the class or used the washroom, but we are in the girl school. Not sure about the co-ed school.

during the primary school, we usually have our PE lesson in the morning, so most of us will wearing our PE shirt and pants first, then wear the school uniform, which is easier to removed.

From Ghita: Dear Emmon, thanks for sharing. Tenby students also wear their PE kit to school if they have PE in the morning and then change afterwards to their school uniform, as it makes sense and doesn’t waste any time.

Unfortunately this is the situation in many schools I’ve visited. Sri Cahaya, Beacon house was so too, not to mention of national schools where the stinking smell reaches out of the washroom. I’ve even seen a kindy where a child was sitting on the toilet bowl crying for help to be washed when the teachers were busy with all other stuff. I lose all hopes on regular schooling when I see these kind of things. But Tenby is quite a good school. My daughter loves the school.

In India most private schools have a cleaner stationed in the primary washrooms just as in the shopping mall wash rooms here in Malaysia. I suppose here it would cost rm750 extra to have one so.

Hopefully the school will take care of these small things as it is a really nice school.

From Ghita: Thank you for sharing and I am glad to hear your daughter loves the school. I am not aware of the gym arrangements, as my children do other sports, and about the toilets, yes, it’s important to have clean toilets, as especially girls won’t use the toilets the whole day, which is not healthy for them, if they think it’s dirty and smelly, but as you mention, you have addressed it to the school, which is the right way to go about it.

However you may want to write a friendly email to the school regarding your concerns and suggestions, as it would be easier for the school to address the issues, when in writing, as I can imagine that the Principal receives many such comments throughout the day, but won’t be able to remember everything, as she has so many other obligations and things to do on a daily basis. How about you write to the Operations department rather than the Principal, as I would think the toilet issue is an operation and maintenance issue, hence the Principal is not the right person to approach regarding this.

Perhaps you could call the school and ask for Mr Lim’s email address, as I think he is the first entry point before Mr Chua, who is the Chief Operating Officer in charge of the operations and maintenance of the school among other things.

Thank you!

From Ghita: Thank you very much for your comment and I am glad to hear of another happy child in Tenby Regarding the changing rooms, I haven’t heard about this issue before, so I checked with my children, and they say there are changing rooms in the Gymnasium building, one for girls and one for boys as well as changing rooms by the swimming pool, so I don’t know why changing in the washrooms or in other places is necessary, which I agree with you is not a good solution. Perhaps you could clarify it with the school or visit the changing rooms yourself?

http://www.sunreadingsystem.blogspot.com

Best,
Sun Sun

From Ghita: Many thanks for visiting my blog and telling me about yours. I would gladly post your comment for others to know about your blog as well. I believe in sharing information for the benefit of all, especially if it can help others, and I think that you have a lot to offer, but as I don’t know you personally, I have to inform my readers that this is not an endorsement, but merely information to be shared, which is done in good faith, and therefore I kindly request the readers to make their own informed decision and kindly exempt me of any responsibility for issues that may arise in future as a result of sharing this information. You may also be interested in visiting the following website about dyslexia at http://www.dyslexiaglobalsupport.com.