WEST VALLEY CHINESE SCHOOL

This review is specific to the «Parent and Me» class for toddlers aged 3 to 5.
I attended the 2014 – 2015 session in full except for the last month and a few weekends where we were out on vacation. The school was having this class for the first time (or did not have such a class in recent history), and the teacher appeared new to the school. The majority of the students in the class were aged 3 – 4.
Initially, classes were held in traditional Chinese school format with kids seated around the teacher, and instruction provided by the teacher utilizing a board and exercises using crayons and paper. The ratio was one teacher to a class of about 20 students, each with parent present. There was alot of waiting when the teacher switched to addressing each child individually. Despite having assistants, they did not help much except to hand out stickers. Students were expected to stay seated, repeat after the teacher, circle objects in the exercises. Each session was ~50 minutes long with a short break between.
Attendance was high initially but rapidly waned after the first 2 months. The classroom is lined with toys that the children are not allowed to play with. The children have a hard time being seated and following directions for the duration expected. Parents try their best to re-​direct and keep their kid involved in the lesson, but the kids picked up that there is no consequence from acting out in that room (expect if the parents remove the child on their own accord).
I keep attending and kept trying different things such as getting there very early to let my child release energy and watch the upper level classrooms at work. At one point I wrote an email to the school to suggest more age appropriate teaching, and even helped organize a few lessons to include more small group activities. It resulted in the teacher taking a lesser role while an assistant stepped up to lead. While the assistant was more energetic, he was clearly even less experienced at handling this age group.
I finally stopped attending when the assistant opened candy 2 minutes into class to be used as bribe even after I specifically asked him to not hand out candy until the end. They (assistant and teacher) also brought in peanut butter crackers to be used in class without checking with parents or the facility. We had a parent pipe up that their child was allergic, and the classroom had a sign that said peanut-​free facility.
As far as I could tell, children in the higher level classes were learning and content. For myself, this class was a waste of time and I found my child learned more from listening to a Mandarin CD during the car ride than the actual class itself. I truly hope the school will change their view about age appropriate teaching, and pay more attention to what goes on in their classes.