Classes for 4 Year Olds in Singapore: 10 Activities, 181 Schools (2026)

16 October 2026 · 17 min read

Four is when classes in Singapore start turning into a syllabus. Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) Pre-Primary ballet begins at 4 at Yan, M.A Ballet, The Dance Place, Swan and Le Grand. Yamaha's group keyboard course starts at 4. Prime Gymnastics picks 4-year-olds for its first girls' squad, and Bianka Panova starts rhythmic gymnastics in the year a girl turns 4.

It is also when the choice widens. Twenty-eight of the 39 martial arts schools in our guide take a 4-year-old, seven art studios open their doors at 4, and Chinese classes move into Nursery 2 and the first writing strokes. Not everything lets go of your hand, though. Happy Fish, Isplash, Friendly Dolphin and aquaDucks still keep a parent in the water with some 4-year-olds.

This hub covers ten activities and the 181 schools on Jungle that run a class a 4-year-old can join, taken from our ten age guides. Every school in them was checked on its own website, timetable or fee sheet on 6, 7 or 16 October 2026. For each activity we say what a class looks like at 4, and show the two or three schools whose class for this age is clearest.

Start with the summary and the readiness checklist, then go to the activity you are weighing up. Each section ends with a link to the full guide, where every school is listed by area. If your child is still 3, our hub of classes for 3 year olds covers the year before.

Classes for 4 year olds, at a glance

BalletGymnasticsSwimmingFootballArtMusicHip hop and danceMartial artsChineseEnglishWhat changes at 5

Is your 4-year-old ready for a class?

• They can be left with a teacher for an hour. At 4, nearly every class here is drop-off, and M.A Ballet and Bianka Panova do not let parents into the room at all. If not yet, choose one that keeps you close: Yamaha's Primary Course asks a parent to sit in for the first year, and Happy Fish keeps you in the pool.
• They can follow an instruction given to the whole group. Classes here run from 30 minutes in the pool at Marsden to two hours of Chinese at Le Xue. If not yet, start short: hip hop at Ritz and pop dance at Aure Studios are 45 minutes.
• They cope in a group. Groups run from four children at Inspire Mum and Baby and United Language Centre to up to 15 at Bianka Panova. If not yet, look for a small one: Artify keeps one teacher to four, and Kickmatics one coach to five.

If one of the three is not there yet, a trial will tell you more than any checklist. Of the schools below, The Dance Place, The Swim Starter, Technique Pro, Euro Soccer, Tree Art, The Karate Academy and United Language Centre run free trials. Elsewhere published trials cost $15 (Aure Studios) to $90 (Da Little Arts School's two-lesson trial project).

Ballet

At 4, ballet splits in two. Yan, M.A Ballet, The Dance Place, Swan and Le Grand start the RAD Pre-Primary syllabus, and Singapore Ballet Academy's youngest class is Pre-Primary for 4-year-olds. Others, such as Elevate and Charlotte Marn, keep 4-year-olds for another year in a class that mixes ballet with jazz, modern or acrobatics.

All 21 schools in our ballet guide take a 4-year-old. Five publish a fee for a class this age can join, from $25 a class at Tanglin Arts Studio to $59 for City Ballet's 90-minute Pre-Primary, which takes children born in 2021.

See all 21 ballet schools for 2 to 4 year olds.

Gymnastics

At 4, the first squads and rhythmic classes open. Prime invites 4-year-olds from its KinderGym class to a girls' squad, GymKraft invites some KinGym children to a two-hour class, and Bianka Panova starts rhythmic gymnastics for girls in the year they turn 4. GIM Sports moves children up to KinderGIM. Elsewhere, 4-year-olds stay in a recreational class for another year or two.

All 16 gyms in our guide take a 4-year-old. Seven publish a clear fee, from $34 a class (GymKraft off-peak, before GST) to $80 (The Little Gym).

A coach working with a young gymnast among balls and a hoop at GIM Sports, Marina One. Photo: Jungle

See all 16 gymnastics schools for 2 to 4 year olds.

Swimming

Swimming is where 4 splits schools most. Happy Fish, Isplash, Friendly Dolphin and aquaDucks still keep a parent in the water with some 4-year-olds, and Swim Masters does at weekends. Elsewhere 4 is when the first class without you starts: The Swim Starter takes no child younger, with parents watching from the pool deck, and Penguin's Preschool I says no parent is needed in the water.

Twenty-five of the 26 schools in our swimming guide take a 4-year-old, in lessons of 20 to 55 minutes. Nineteen publish a fee for a class this age can join, from $25 (Swim Masters at Senja-Cashew, Smileswimmers) to $70.85 for a weekend group class at Happy Fish's two HOME pools. Private lessons cost more.

See every swim school for 4 to 6 year olds.

Football

At 4, seven of the nine academies in our guide take your child, and the parent's role shrinks. Borussia still has parents running with 4-year-olds, while Lion City Sailors' Under-4 to Under-6 groups ask parents to watch from outside the training area. EuroAsia FC, F17 and Technique Pro all start at 4. Sessions run 60 to 75 minutes, except F17's two hours. Four academies publish a clear rate, from $35 to $49 a session.

See all 9 football academies for 3 to 5 year olds.

Art

At 4, more studios open and classes get longer. Pei-Per, Studio Miu, KiLiO, Artify, Joyme, Zeniko and Artistori all start at 4, and Shine Arts and Da Little move children up to their next class. KiLiO runs 1 hour 45 minutes and Studio Miu 100 minutes. All 27 studios in our art guide take a 4-year-old, and 11 publish a fee for a class this age can join, from $30 to $65.

See all 27 art studios for 2 to 4 year olds.

Music

At 4, music splits three ways. Yamaha's Primary Course starts at 4 as a 50-minute keyboard group of five to ten, with a parent in class for the first year. The Music Circle, Kindermusik and, from four and a half, Joy Music Studio run group classes without you. And one-to-one lessons open up: Drum Tutor, Cristofori's Poppy Piano and Aureus all take children from about 4.

Thirty-two schools in our music guide take a 4-year-old, counting Joy and Nousound, whose classes start at four and a half. Where the fee is published, group classes cost $40 to $61 a class, and one-to-one lessons of 25 or 30 minutes $42 to $70. Creative Hearts' Little Pianists, for 4 to 6, plays in groups of three.

Preschoolers balancing on discs in a movement class at Creative Hearts, Pandan Valley. Photo: Jungle

See every music school for 4 to 6 year olds.

Hip hop and dance

At 4, the first hip hop classes start. Ritz and The Dance Place run hip hop from 4, Danspirations hip hop and K-pop from 4, and All That Jazz a 60-minute street dance class for 4 to 5. Others teach creative dance, pop or jazz at this age, such as DanceHomeStudios' Creative Dance, Aure's Kids Pop Dance and Amy's Preschool Jazz. Ritz, All That Jazz, Amy's and Dance At The Difference say plainly that parents wait outside.

Sixteen of the 20 studios in our hip hop and dance guide take a 4-year-old, in classes of 45 to 90 minutes where the length is published. Four publish a fee, from $25 to $37 a class, and less on Aure's larger packages.

See every hip hop and dance studio for 3 to 5 year olds.

Martial arts

At 4, most children start in a tots class. Twenty-eight of the 39 schools in our guide take 4-year-olds. Classes run 45 to 60 minutes and are mostly games: Johan, Taeseong and Gaonhae keep their youngest taekwondo classes to 45 or 50 minutes, while Gracie Barra, CADRE and The Gentle Art Academy run an hour. Martial House's Kungfu Tots runs 90 minutes. Eight schools publish a fee for a class a 4-year-old can join, from $30 to $58.

See all 39 martial arts schools for 4 to 6 year olds.

Chinese

At 4, Chinese means Nursery 2, and writing starts. Hua's N2 class adds writing strokes and simple characters, Tien Hsia teaches the basic strokes, Beijing works on pen grip, and HaHa starts radicals and strokes. Skylace's youngest class starts here, and Le Xue's 3R Independent Reader takes children from 4. Twelve of the 14 schools in our guide take a 4-year-old. Only Kumon ($170 a month) and Berlitz (one-to-one, $83 to $95 a lesson) publish fees for this age.

See all 14 Chinese enrichment schools for 3 to 6 year olds.

English

At 4, children start blending sounds into words. Learning Journey's Junior Phonics, for 4 to 5, covers consonant and vowel sounds and the first simple blending, and LCentral's LaunchPad, from N2, moves on to first, middle and last sounds. Eight of the nine schools in our guide take a 4-year-old. Three publish fees for this age: Kumon at about $21 a session, Berlitz at $90 to $105 a lesson, and United Language Centre at $102.

See all 9 English and phonics schools for 3 to 6 year olds.

What changes at 5

At 5 the choice widens again. Ten more martial arts schools take children, from BJJ to wushu, and Barça Academy and JSSL open their football to 5-year-olds. Coding and robotics is the next new activity: at 5, Nullspace Robotics and The Lab start children on floor robots, picture cards and LEGO rather than screens, and Scratch on a computer waits until 7. NK Robotics, School Of Robotics and Redwood Campus already take some 4-year-olds.

Classes also get more formal. Ballet moves towards RAD Primary and the first exams at 5 and 6, which our guide to ballet for 5 and 6 year olds covers. Some Chinese schools start Hanyu Pinyin in K1, and English moves from blending to reading short words. In K2, our guide to P1 preparation classes takes over. In the pool, Happy Fish moves children into its drop-off Kid class at about 5.

How we picked these

Every school here is listed on Jungle and comes from one of our ten age guides, where each school was checked on its own website, timetable, fee sheet or booking system: ballet on 6 October, gymnastics, football, art, Chinese, English and martial arts on 7 October, and swimming, music and hip hop on 16 October 2026.

We count a school as taking a 4-year-old if it runs a class a child can join while 4, including classes that start at four and a half. A school in two guides, such as Kumon, counts once in the total.

For each activity we show the two or three schools whose class for this age is clearest on four points: its name, its length, whether you stay, and its price. Where we had a choice, we picked schools not shown in our 3-year-old hub. That is our judgement, not a ranking, and the full guides list every school by area.

At a glance

For more, browse classes for 4 year olds on Jungle, or preschooler activities for ages 3 to 5. For younger children, our hubs of classes for 3 year olds and 2 year olds cover the years before.