It's back to school for kindergarten kids
A teacher says hello to a student at the gate of Shanghai Hehuachi Kindergarten in Huangpu District on Tuesday, first day of the new semester.
The new semester started in kindergartens on Tuesday.
It was the first time children from the bottom classes in kindergartens had come to school after the novel coronavirus outbreak.
“All the children have been to the school today except for two in foreign countries,” said Song Qing, head of Shanghai Hehuachi Kindergarten in Huangpu District. “And there is no one with suspected symptoms of the coronavirus today.”
Although children from the middle and top classes were allowed to return to school in June, there were only a third of students (around eight children) in a class due to parents’ concerns about the virus, Song said.
Parents are not allowed to enter the kindergarten to avoid the risk of cross-infection.
Different classes are asked to enter and leave the school at different periods starting from 8am to 9am and from 3:30pm to 4pm.
Parents need to send health QR codes and children’s temperatures and the codes of family members to teachers every day on WeChat before 8am. Those who have green QR codes are allowed to enter.
Due to the pandemic, parents can only send their children to the school gate rather than outside classrooms.
An infrared temperature sensing device has been installed at the gate of the school. If a child has a temperature of 37.3 degrees Celsius or above, they should sit in a specific tent for medical observation and wait for their parents to take them to the hospital.
An infrared temperature sensing device at the school gate indicates people's temperatures.
Teachers wear masks to meet their students at the entrance. Teachers of the bottom class wear masks with animal and fruit images and cute headwear such as antlers, frogs’ eyes and cats’ ears.
Song said teachers wearing masks, one of the anti-coronavirus measures, might frighten the younger children but the cute masks and decorations would put them at ease.
Many children from the bottom class said goodbye to their parents easily without crying but several couldn’t bear to be separated from their families.
“I am so surprised that the majority of kids feel happy and peaceful,” Song said. “Because many kids haven’t been to nurseries because of the virus so are not used to being together.”
A kindergarten teacher comforts a boy crying after leaving his parents.
To avoid rejection, school authorities pay more attention to the psychology of the children, she said.
One new measure is that younger children can be picked up and go home after lunch during the first few days of the semester, Song said.
“It is a good way for children to adapt to the new environment gradually.”
Before they began their new life in kindergarten, teachers made video calls to the children and their parents one by one. The move replaced the original regulation that teachers should physically visit their homes.
“Teachers taking public transport may increase the risk of the cross-infection of the virus,” Song said. “Communicating online is important for the kids and parents to know the teachers better during the special period.”
In the morning, when a child walked into the wrong class, teacher Zhang Wen was able to tell him he wasn’t in her class.
Zhang said that because of the video calls, teachers had got to know about the children, such their nicknames, appearance and any foods they were allergic to.
Breakfast in the kindergarten's canteen on Tuesday. Children have specific seats with their names on and transparent panels separate them to avoid cross-infection.
The kindergarten also held “online interactions” with different themes such as sports and psychology for all children since April to improve their friendships and ease their tensions of being stuck at home.
An interaction is held every week through a video call by two teachers in charge of a class with five or six children.
“We have conducted experiments under the guidance of teachers and learned songs during the interaction,” Gu Jinyu, a 5-year-old girl from the kindergarten, told Shanghai Daily.
“Kids are excited that they can see each other through the video call," the mother of 5-year-old Yuan Xianhan said.
Song said some teachers told her that sometimes they could not get a word in edgeways during the interaction because the children missed their classmates so much.
The children were looking forward to the opening of the kindergarten to meet their friends face to face, the mother of Shen Tian, a classmate of Yuan, said.
She said there was no need to worry about the children because of the efforts of the school authorities to control the pandemic.
Children are taught about now wasting food during the first day of the new semester on Tuesday.
Several parents were nervous, however. Song said it was reasonable that some mothers, especially whose children were in the bottom class, always sent long messages to their teachers to talk about their worries.
To ease their fears, parents can make an appointment with teachers to communicate with each other face to face after school, Song said.
During the first day of school, a variety of activities and classes were held by the kindergarten such as learning how to wear masks and saving food.
