Hi, my name is Kim Stacey, I work for Major Minors Dorking which is part of the Busy Bees group. I have been working for the company for over 6 years with a break in between where I experienced nannying. I have recently qualified in Level 3 Management and was promoted to Assistant Manager which I have been working towards the last couple of years.

It has been an amazing experience being part of this TEP being able to revisit Singapore and Malaysia. Let’s start with placement where I was assigned to Learning Vision Changi Airport. Travelling to work has been very different having to get the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit, Singapore’s train system) as I don’t have a good sense of direction and can’t even follow a sat nav (GPS). I’m glad Kat has got me to work otherwise I would have been very lost and late! Being at Learning Vision has been a very interesting experience; being part of the day-to-day practice and comparing it to how we do things in our settings. I want to say a big thank you to the Principle Julie, Teacher Michelle, Teacher Izz and Teacher Diana for having us and taking me and Kat for a steamboat dinner yesterday night; the food was amazing.

I was very happy returning to Malaysia for 3 days to experience a Montessori centre as this approach is new to me. When spending time at The children’s house, the way of learning and watching children within the centre go about their day-to-day routine was very interesting. The team at the centres we visited were very friendly, passionate and welcoming. I was very lucky to visit my family while being in Malaysia during the evenings; I was able to have dinner with my grandad at his house and eat all my favourite food, for example chicken satay and beef rendang. During our free and easy time on the Sunday after coming back from Malaysia, we have been able to explore different places such as Bugis Flea Market, which meant shopping, and lots of it. We also stopped off at Little India to have a henna tattoo taking in the Indian culture around us.

During the evening, some of us went to the Night Safari which was amazing going around in a safari train seeing hippos, tigers and many more animals in their environment. As we are onto our last week in Singapore, there is one more thing I need to do before I leave….. ‘Crab Dinner’ with the girls. I am looking forward to sharing my experience and ideas with the team when I return.