Below is a a review of all the kindergartens in Taman Desa. I'm not affiliated with any of them, just a concerned parent who searched high and low for a good place to place my daughter.
1. Tadika Lagenda Kiddie Care
One of the oldest kindergarten in Taman Desa. They follow partly Montesorri method. But it's also one of the most dirty. The compound is littered with trash. The kids wear shoes inside the classes. The owner/headmistress is well known for money-minded, talk like an insurance lady or direct selling lady, and she likes to push parents to sign up for some other money making programs.
2. Q-dees
Owned by Q-dees themselves, it's not a franchise. They are extremely academic and proud of it. Lessons are very structured, rigid and boring. This branch has promised a new stand-alone building since 2 years ago, but there's no sign of the building yet - maybe still in building stage or perhaps it is just a marketing gimmick.
3. Dbest Kids
A few years back, they used to be the biggest kindergarten in Taman Desa with over 100 students. But now it has around 40 students. Academic and rigid, trying to cover both English and Chinese but lack of depth. The biggest problem is that the owner is a snob, and hard to deal with.
4. JC Kids
The founder of JC Kids used to be the principal of Dbest Kids (employed principal). She left to set up JC Kids. Initially JC Kids did very well and managed to take a number of students from Dbest Kids. However, only after 2 years, the founder sold off JC Kids to a new shareholder and the direction of JC Kids took a big turn into Chinese based kindergarten. As a result, many students left.
5. MRC
A very chinese oriented kindergarten. Students are to cramped as much info as possible so that they can have a "head-start" and "excel" in their primary school. Generally the environment is clean but not recommended unless you want to rob your child's childhood.
6. Bright Horizon Care
An offshoot of the successful tuition centre and child care centre in Happy Garden. Bright Horizon Care is a Chinese based kindergarten. Very traditional way of teaching - flash card, memorise.
7. Tadika Terhebat
They used to be a franchise of Smart Reader Kids but the owner dropped from the franchise and is now on her own since 2011. Due to the transition, it's quite messy now, the system is not in place. Not even school uniform nor books are in place.
8. Totalchild
It's one of the more marketed kindergarten in Taman Desa. Lots of fluff but no substance. You can see a lot of good review in the internet but mostly are comments made by their own people with vested interests.
They market themselves as following "an award winning" method from Australia, but from who or which institution, nobody knows. No real facts are given except the director claimed to be educated in Australia.
They promised arts and craft but actually it's only done accumulative - one project can last weeks, so in the end throughout the whole year, you may only find 2 to 3 arts and craft projects done. To save costs, they also ask parents to contribute to bring in teaching material, in the name of "sharing". Not recommended - too much marketing, over promised and not reliable. Drama and speech is also in the schedule but only for show in the timetable, very seldom do they really have a period doing drama or speech - in fact, only reading from books.
9. Fun d mental
Run by a lady who wanted to teach her own children. Very small operation, not really structured but able to give individual attention. English based but heavy emphasis on Chinese.
10. ELC
Run by an English woman. Follows Montessorri method and is one of the better kindergarten in Taman Desa. The school hours are longer - until 3pm, but it's fees are also more expensive. They also run the fastrackid program.
11. Judith Kindergarten
An offshoot from Judith Child Care. In fact, most of the students are from their child care centre which is quite well known in Taman Desa. There are 3 teachers who are close friends and relatives to the founders. No system, easy curriculum, free play.
12. Bethany
Like Q-dees, they are proud to have a system that pushes the children academically. Small operation, marketed as Montessori based but in fact, Montessori is only one subject. They claimed to be English based, but some of the textbooks are either in Bahasa or Chinese, not English.
13. Chrisdale
The founders are former Q-dees franchisee, so it's very similar to Q-dees, but with more emphasis on Chinese. Traditional way of teaching - emphasis on flashcards, memorizing.
As you can see from the above review, even with 13 kindergartens in Taman Desa, there are no really a good kindergarten. Most are heavy on hype and marketing, over-promised of having arts and craft and learn through play when in fact they're just normal kindergartens.
