Some 100 teachers and staff from all the six NurtureStars centres attended a one-day training session to equip them for the roll-out of the government’s SMART Solution for Preschool by the end of the year.
Together with some 600 EC teachers from the three other brands under the Crestar Education Group (CEG), namely ELFA, Kinderland and Skool4Kidz,
they benefited from the presentations by professional speakers specially engaged to share their expertise and workshops conducted by lecturers from KLC International Institute.
Held at the Suntec Convention Centre on 20 July 2018, the theme of the centralised training was “SMART LEARNING FOR 21ST CENTURY”, in line with Singapore’s Smart Nation initiative. The purpose was to deepen the teachers’ skills and help them to more effectively leverage technology, as part of their continuing professional development.
The keynote on “Coding for Children: Why, what and how?” was presented by Professor Looi Chee Kit, Learning Sciences & Technologies Academic Group Founding Head, Learning Sciences Lab, National Institute of Education. The Mandarin Co-Speaker was Dr Chen Wenli, Associate Professor with the Learning Sciences and Technology Academic Group, National Institute of Education.
The second professional presentation on “Motivating Early Childhood Teachers”
was given by Mr. Christian Chua, an international master-class motivator and author of 7 books, and his Mandarin Co-Speaker Dr Nick Sim, Vision Builder & Motivational Coach.
For the subsequent concurrent workshop sessions, the teachers and staff had the option to attend 7 different subjects to support their professional development. The workshop subjects include “WSQ Apply Emotional Competence to Manage self and Team at the Workplace”, “Task in a box – Creating Resources for Learning Corners”, “Managing Children’s Behaviour Through Positive Guidance”, “How to Use Resources Effectively for Chinese Language Education”
and “WSQ Apply Emotional Competence to Manage Self at the Workplace”.
The various workshops were designed to further more knowledge and insights to further empower the teachers to raise the standards of our care and education for the young charges in our centres.