Earlier in Feb 2017, the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) announced that the minimum amount of time that children should spend engaged in physical activity every day will increase to an hour, up from 30 mins. (1)
During tonight’s National Day Rally, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong highlighted his concerns regarding preschool education and the rise in diabetes in Singapore. Both topics have been recurring themes in Singapore.
Preschool Education
The great equalizer in society is education. A good education allows a person to escape the poverty cycle and improve the lifestyle of his family. Unfortunately, by the time the child begins Primary 1, he may already be lagging behind his peers in academic ability as standards in preschools differ greatly. To this end, they will double the budget to government funded preschools in 5 years. The government will streamline training programmes, increase salaries, and make this industry a respectable one.
Sparkletots (formerly known as PAP Community Foundation) and NTUC My First Skool, two of the largest preschool operators in Singapore, is stepping up in an effort to bring their curriculum to the next level. These include roleplaying games like being traffic operators, shopping in a supermarket, and physical activities which goes beyond just a trip to the neighbourhood playground. These activities will go beyond rote-learning, which is more common when I was still a toddler.
Physical activities for children, also known as Active Play, is important for children. In a safe and stimulating environment, they can learn
• body control skills (like balance)
• locomotion skills (like crawling or jumping) and
• sending and receiving skills (like throwing, kicking or catching).
The equipment has to be modified for children to learn these basic skills for children below 7 years old. For examples of such equipment, you can see here: http://javysports.com/127-active-play
Diabetes
The other theme PM Lee went in depth on is the rise of diabetes in Singapore’s population. Diabetes is not the frequent cause of death, but it is often a leading factor to other common causes of death, like heart attack, stroke and kidney failure. The best ways to avoid diabetes are:
1. Going for regular health screenings
2. Exercise
3. Diet
To build a long term habit of regular exercise in people, it is important to start while they are young. Otherwise, they increase their risk of being overweight or obese later in life. People who are obese are more likely to develop diabetes.
How we are trying to help
At Javy Sports & First Aid, we have noted a lack of options for sports equipment for children, especially at the preschool level. We are actively expanding our range, catering for preschools, all the way till secondary schools.
We also work directly with great service providers, like Ready Steady Go Kids (https://www.readysteadygokids.com.sg/) , who use our equipment to conduct classes for preschool centres.
If you are a teacher at a childcare centre, kindergarten, primary or secondary school and would like to know how to integrate our equipment into your classes, you can get in contact with us! If there are items which you would like, but we are missing, we would be happy to hear from you.
• Email: sales@javysports.com
• Tel: +65 6481 0412
• Whatsapp: +65 9144 7346 (https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=6591447346)
PS: Our Printed Catalog for 2018 is on the way to us and will reach us in 3 weeks. If you would like to receive a copy of it, you can let us know via email, or request for the 2017 copy here: http://javysports.com/content/19-request-for-a-catalog
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