Lifelong learning: Back to school with mum after daughter takes over a pre-school

SINGAPORE – When Ms Poh Ying Xia, 38, learnt that her son’s pre-school was shutting down in 2022, she decided to buy it to keep it open, together with another school parent.

It led to an overhaul of her life. The marketing agency boss is now taking a diploma course in early childhood education with her mother, whom Ms Poh has dragged out of retirement. 

Ms Poh’s seven-year-old son, Hsu Rui Hao, has autism. His sensory challenges meant that he had frequent meltdowns in his early years, triggered by everyday sounds like the hum of the washing machine. 

At the first childcare centre he attended when he was two, he cried daily. It was a “nightmare”, his mother recalls, from the moment she put his uniform on him, through his car ride to school. He once continued weeping for 40 minutes after drop-off.

When she switched Rui Hao to Sunny Bunny Montessori childcare in the Upper Thomson area in August 2022 at age three, his tears dried up. He seemed more at ease there.  

Just two months later in October, the then-owner announced plans to close down, leaving some parents with children there seeking alternatives.

Ms Poh readily agreed to fellow parent and finance director Ang Hui Ling’s suggestion to buy the childcare centre together.

“I didn’t know it was unusual. I just wanted my son to continue in a school he liked. There was such a big contrast compared with his first pre-school,” she says.

It was her first business venture. “I was coming from the perspective that I would just provide the funds and the school would run on its own.” 

She was working then as a regional marketing manager at a multinational specialising in medical aesthetics. 

Her husband, 37, is a senior manager in financial planning and analytics at another multinational corporation. The couple also have a four-year-old daughter.

Ms Poh and Ms Ang faced teething problems. They raced to extend the expiring rental lease on the old pre-school and scoured more than 30 properties for a new site.

In early 2023, the two mothers forked out a “low six-figure sum” from their savings to buy and renovate Sunny Bunny Montessori Preschool. The four-storey, 7,800 sq ft space in Ang Mo Kio, which has a rooftop playground, now has about 50 children enrolled, from 18 months to six years old. Fees cost $1,990 a month.

In June 2025, they expanded their business to include a 2,100 sq ft infantcare centre, Sunny Bunny Montessori Infant Care, located in the same business complex, Link@AMK. 

Getting mum on board 

Early in 2026, Ms Poh decided it was time to pursue early childhood qualifications. 

She had left her corporate job and started her own marketing agency, Geniuxity, in March 2025. She wanted the flexibility of remote work as she was driving Rui Hao, now in a special education school, to therapy sessions several times a week.

Besides handling details like meal requirements at her pre-school, she wanted to be more hands-on in designing the curriculum. She decided to enlist her retired secondary school teacher mother, Ms Ng Chooi Choo, 68, who had contributed some of her savings – an amount she declined to disclose – towards helping her daughter buy the pre-school. 

Ms Poh says: “I thought it would be interesting to have my mother join me. She has always been so supportive when it comes to educational causes, having been an educator her whole life. When I told her I wanted to take over the childcare centre, she supported me in every single way, emotionally and physically.

“As we age, we tend to spend less time with our parents. I would love to spend more time with my parents and I thought this would be a great way to create memories with her too.”

Ms Poh, a middle child, has an older sister and a younger brother, a logistics assistant who has autism like Ms Poh’s son. She recalls her mother used to share teaching tips with her, dating from the time Ms Ng, a grandmother of three, was teaching her son, now aged 34, to read.

A teacher becomes a student

Ms Ng and her husband, a 71-year-old director in a paint manufacturing company, used to travel every month after she retired in 2021. Ms Ng now conducts baking lessons at the pre-school. 

Mother and daughter started their part-time ​diploma​ course in Early Childhood Care & Education – Teaching​ at the National Institute of Early Childhood Development in February. The full-day classes, held online and in-person, are three times a week.

They will graduate in mid-2027 and be qualified to teach children from 18 months to six years old.

Looking forward to that, Ms Poh says: “With this course, I will have the parents’, operator’s and teachers’ perspective on running a pre-school.”

As for Ms Ng, there are flashbacks from her old life as well as new struggles to contend with. “There are a lot of assignments and video calls. I was out of touch and had to relearn technologies I used in school at the start of Covid-19.

“I sometimes get frustrated when I don’t quickly understand the concepts. I used to teach older children. Now, I’m learning about young kids’ behaviour and I also understand how my students felt last time.”