35 parents jointly signed a letter to speak out against the allegations made against Sam’s Early Learning Centre, a childcare centre in River Valley, following the completion of investigations launched by Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA).
ECDA carried out investigations into allegations of undesirable practices at a childcare centre in River Valley and stated that it has found the centre to comply its “regulatory requirements for safety, health and hygiene”.
ECDA’s investigations included conducting unannounced visits to the premises, verification of documents, as well as interviewing children, parents and staff at the centre.
“Our findings are thus far consistent with the explanation put out by the centre earlier today, and the photographs appear to have been taken out of context … We have also not received adverse feedback about the centre from parents of children currently enrolled at the centre,” an ECDA spokesperson said.
Sam’s Early Learning Centre had earlier issued its own statement to the media the day before to address the allegations relating to photos taken from the centre that had been circulating online recently.
In their signed letter, the parents write that they did not believe the allegations were true as their children have always been happy and healthy and that there had never been any complaints from their children about abuse and mistreatment for many years.
They further state that they are glad that ECDA’s report has cleared the name of the school and that their trust in the school and its teachers, has not been misplaced.
The parents also ask that the media will do the right thing by reporting the truth of the matter so as to restore the reputation of the childcare centre.
Below is the letter in entirety.
We are parents of children who attend Sam’s Early Learning Centre at Jalan Mutiara. Recently there have been pictures circulating with allegations of child abuse and neglect at Sam’s, which ECA has investigated and found to be untrue.
From the beginning, we did not believe these allegations were true as our children have always been happy and healthy, and there have never been any complaints from our children about abuse or mistreatment in the many years out children have been attending Sam’s.
Sam’s has been very forthcoming and have explained the context behind the pictures, and we are satisfied with their explanations. We are glad that the ECDA report has cleared the name of the school and that our trust in the school and its teachers, has not been misplaced.
We believe that the pictures were deliberately and maliciously taken out of context and captioned with defamatory statements by someone intending to harm Sam’s reputation. The media has reproduced and distributed these pictures of our children with the defamatory captions, pictures that were taken without our consent. This has caused our children’s images to be further associated with this defamation. We stand with Sam’s and trust that the media will do the right thing by reporting the truth of the matter to restore the reputation of Sam’s.
Signed, parents of Sam’s Early Learning Centre @ Jalan Mutiara
Scanned letter with signatures sent to TOC.
