Frequently Asked Questions

The EtonHouse schools offer a rich extra-curricular programme and a wide range of after-school activities, depending on the interests of our learning communities. This may range from soccer to ceramics, from dance to speech and drama and varies across the centres.

Importantly, during the course of regular academic hours and depending on the centres, our students enjoy physical education, art and/or music and movement classes taught by full-time EtonHouse specialists too.

On top of Mandarin, EtonHouse Newton and Robertson Walk offer Japanese while Mountbatten 223 offers Hindi, Japanese, Malay and Tamil. 

At every EtonHouse pre-school, children are immersed in an integrated bilingual environment where all our classrooms have an English and a Mandarin speaking teacher at all times interacting with the children in their respective languages. We have over the years adapted our second language programme to follow an inquiry based philosophy in line with our mainstream programme. Chinese language learning is therefore child responsive and derived from children’s interests which allows it to be spontaneous and enjoyable. Children are involved in the learning process and feel a sense of ownership. We also believe that a multi-cultural foundation is as important as a multi-lingual one. Cultural immersion is therefore a critical part of our Chinese programme and includes elements such as calligraphy and chinese performing arts to name a few.

EtonHouse Zhong Hua, our Chinese immersion childcare centre located in Hwa Chong International School, offers a programme entirely conducted in Mandarin for children as young as 18 months old. This Chinese immersion programme is also offered in our Mountbatten 718 pre-school and Vanda pre-school.  

Some of our larger campuses such as Thomson, Newton and 718 Mountbatten are IB authorised schools. These schools follow the IB curriculum framework. The other pre-schools follow an inquiry based approach.

All schools are unified in their curriculum approach and are inspired by the Reggio Emilia Educational Project of Northern Italy. We believe that young children should be respected as competent thinkers and communicators who are offered many opportunities to engage with a range of materials and resources that extend and challenge their thinking. We believe in delivering a programme that is relevant and meaningful to our families-an international perspective with Asian roots.

EtonHouse Newton and Thomson are the first stand-alone IB authorised pre-schools in Singapore.

Apart from our International Schools, our standalone Pre-Schools at Mountbatten 718 and Newton are also IB authorised schools that follow the IB curriculum framework for the pre-school levels. The other pre-schools follow EtonHouse's Inquire.Think.Learn curriculum.

Our Inquire.Think.Learn curriculum (inspired by the Educational Project of Reggio Emilia) has been designed to integrate content/learning across all areas of the curriculum i.e. children develop mathematical understanding as they cook (measure and count); work outdoors (use spatial language as they climb up, over, through) or access blocks (height, measurement and geometry).

Teachers are supported in developing observation skills i.e. to observe children’s learning as they are engaged in play and work experiences. Teachers access these observations of children’s ideas and interests to determine the next step in curriculum design. As such, the curriculum is individualized and highly in tune with children’s ideas, interests and motivations.

In EtonHouse, children are active participants in their own learning. We value and support children’s curiosity and skills of observation as the basis of a curriculum which aims to build skills of exploration and discovery; investigation and research; collaboration and team membership abilities. Working with an established set of goals, teachers shape curriculum experiences to extend and complicate children’s initial thinking.

Documentation of children’s learning is also a very vital component of our curriculum, ensuring that children’s learning and our teaching is made visible to others.

Mandarin is a critical component of an EtonHouse education and at every EtonHouse pre-school, children are immersed in an integrated bilingual environment where all our classrooms have an English and a Mandarin-speaking teacher at all times interacting with the children in their respective languages.

We are especially proud of our unique learning environments. Apart from classroom environments that seamlessly integrate with the common areas, our schools have beautifully designed studios to encourage the ‘100 languages of children’-storytelling studio, light studio, tinkering studio, art studios to name a few. We also have specialist teachers in PE, Music and Art. Our visual and performing arts specialists offer a very unique programme that empowers children to express themselves confidently and creatively.

In Nursery 2 and Kindergarten 1, the children will have access to specialist classes that include Art, Music, Library, Drama and PE.

In Year 1, the children will receive the same as well as ICT.