Our first PTM at Caden's Primary School

We have to recognise the fact that Primary education should be taken seriously, even at P1, as this is the stage where the school builds a good foundation for the children to progress on their secondary stage.

Caden's first PTM at Mee Toh school happened on the 24th May and we took half day to attend a scheduled 10 minutes session with his form teacher.

The wait was fairly long, although our timeslot to meet the teacher was due, the earlier session with another group of parents happened to be highly engaging. I was thinking to myself.. what's there to be discussed which would have taken half an hour at P1 PTM? (we were earlier at the school 15 mins before our timeslot and had to wait for another 10 mins after our timeslot - so the earlier group took at least 25mins with the form teacher).

Mdm Suzie came across as a warm teacher. She commented that Caden is a shy boy at class, doesn't speak loudly during lesson but able to communicate well with the teachers when need to. He had also played his role as the team lead well in term 2, coming across as very responsible and shown good leadership in his team.

She went on telling us that Caden can be careless in his work (which we are aware too) and would like to see more improvement on that area. When we asked where does he stand in terms of academic, she said "He's average"

AVERAGE?? At the point in time, my heart dropped. Average? Despite us putting in that level of effort with him and he turns out to be average in class? I thought he was doing not too bad, based on the test results that he brought back in term 2.. so at that point, I was thinking, wah, this school's students' standards are really high!

Then Mdm Suzie went on to show us his school portfolio, where they have filed in his compositions (creative writing modules) and show and tell scripts. She then shared with us his test results (which we were aware too) and then said that, " for Math, he's in Band 1", "for English, he's also in Band 1, but at the borderline".. we then found out that actually the definition of Band 1 is the top tier group in his class, so was finally relieved that least, what we have done so far, are on the right track.

His personal portfolio..

As we left the school, ,my ah lou also commented that he was shocked when Mdm Suzie told us that Caden falls under the 'average' category when his test results, we thought, are not too bad.. so her words really caught both of us by surprise. This school really advocate that we need to continuously improve the children's academic standards for their benefit.