PSLE results day

The moment of truth finally happened on 24th November (Friday). I have applied to work from home on that day so that I could be there with Caden to provide any emotional support he needed in school.

I was feeling chilled during this school holiday until the eve of the results day when most of my friends started to show their support in our watsapp group. It was all triggered from good intentions but they resulted in BIG butterflies in my tummy ... on the results day, it was nerve-wreaking as we waited for the time to pass from 8am....

We reached school at about 11am and the school Principal (Mr Gao) gave a long speech about the school's vision and values... etc, etc.. and finally talked about how this year's cohort has fared. Generally, improvement from last year's results, and notably, big improvement in distinction rate for Higher Chinese.

Suddenly, Mr Gao announced the students who scored 250 and above so all of us could give our applause to these kids who have done well.. and I was elated that he was included in the list !

Whilst he did well to achieve his distinction in Higher Chinese, his overall aggregate fell short of the cut-off points for his dream school... we spoke to him and he was well aware of the situation and accepted that we will try out another school which is equally focused in Bilingualism. We told him that he has done well and deserved a pat on his back! (although the journey this year was tough)

Fingers crossed - hope that he gets into the choices we have put up in our selection list!

Update on 22 Dec : Caden was posted to Dunman High - and I'm happy that he made it there based on his own credits although we missed out on the DSA opportunity.

Our DSA journey 2017

We were given some encouragement by our neighbors to put Caden through the DSA application this year because of the words "if you don't try,  you never know "

So I decided to do submit applications to 2 schools of his choice in June. Although I know the chances are very slim,  given that he didn't have consistent academic records over the past 2 years and have not won any awards in any competitions - I went on to apply under the CCA leadership domain for both schools. 

True enough,  we never heard from 1 of the schools throughout the selection period. But miraculously,  the other school shortlisted him for a first round of interview in July.  I think Caden was happy then but we didn't make any efforts to prepare him for potential questions because I feel that he has to either think of the questions and prepare his own responses himself. And the first round of interview didn't seem to go well because he told me that he couldn't get to speak as much as the other 2 students in the group interview as they were grabbing every opportunity to answer the questions first..  So I thought it will be a no-go after round 1.

Miraculously,  we were called up for round 2 interview sometime in early Aug. I was thinking maybe the school is probably looking out for genuine candidates who don't respond in a scripted manner. I didn't prep him again for round 2 but rendered my support by driving and accompanying him to the school. 

During registration,  I was taken aback with the no. of applicants scheduled for round 2 and worked out that the probability of being selection is at most 35% (true enough, this year's intake from DSA is 35%). Mentally I was prepared but I didn't share this stats with Caden prior to his session. He felt good after the interview but I knew he couldn't address most of the questions well when he shared with me his responses to the questions asked.  

True enough, today we received the rejection letter from the school. Coupled with the results from his prelims,  I hope this will be the last push for him to get out of his complacency and work harder. I can't read if he's upset or affected with the rejection news but we told him that the only way to get into those schools now are very much dependent on his final results. 

PSLE - Countdown to 9 more days

9 more days to first paper of the anticipated national exams.

All I am asking / hoping is that my dear son is making good use of his spare time after school to do revision. 

Still questioning if I have made a right choice by working on most days in the last 6 months when most mummies would have already been on sabbatical leave this year. 

Our P6 journey - April

Another month has passed and honestly we didn't achieve much again..

The boys were grounded from playing soccer for a month because both of them fought when we were not at home.  Caden exhibited behavioral issues during the month and we noticed that he turned rough with his younger brother when there was slight irritation that got in his way.  We spent most of the weekday nights questioning the sequence of events and resolving conflicts between them. They made up quickly most of the time but when another day comes,  they may end up quarrelling again.. I hope this is just another passing phase of their childhood.

Some nights,  I ended up getting into a debate with Caden when I told him to put more emphasis on his weaker subjects instead of Chinese. He explained that his higher Chinese paper 2 is weak and hence needed more practice. But he didn't see the point that his other subjects are equally important as well and required practice too. I have probably reached a saturation point myself on guiding him and decided to let him determine what he needs to do.

It's been a tough month for us to manage our first born in the whole of April but the consoling thing for us is that this Labour Day holiday long weekend had been productive. The boys were motivated to complete some of the past year's exam papers in exchange for time at their cousin's place to play PS4. Most of the times, I secretly wish my son to be  more matured and not argumentative, hoping that he'll be more cooperative.

4 more months to go before the national exams and I certainly don't expect the level of maturity to improve significantly in this short span of time. Just hope that he'll get some level of motivation from the friends around him or encouragement from his teachers.

Our P6 Journey - March

The school's Chinese teacher has given Caden's class so much work that we saw him spending most of his time on Chinese the last 2 weeks. Although there were some good resources provided but we have some concerns now that he can't spare any time to work on other subjects if this goes on (which I believe will get more intensive).

In the past few weeks, Caden slept near 10 plus pm each night, which is an hour later than the children's usual bedtime. Part of the reason was that he has so many stuff he'll rather do before starting on his homework:

1) playing soccer in the evening

2) watching tv shows

3) playing his rubik's cube

4) reading his storybook (which is done after items 1 to 3 have been completed)

Recently I sat down with him after school and list down all his to-do homework items on the whiteboard and made him estimate the time needed for each assignment. Indirectly I am hoping to inculcate the importance of time management. With this approach he realises how little time he has from late afternoon to his bedtime and helps him to prioritise and forgo some of his personal activities if need be.

We have been talking about how much more effort we need to put in for his English (he is still insistent on not going for tuition, so I will have to support his decision) and get him to set aside some time for this subject before it deteriorates further. At this point, we are still taking BABY steps on getting the momentum build up leading to his first major exam. I hope he will step up and spend more time on his weaker subjects soon.

Stress

When I heard about how Caden has scored for his CA1 English paper, I tried not to look disappointed because I suppose he had already tried his best. Given that he ended up as one of the bottom lot in his class, I raised the idea of getting him back into English tuition lessons in Mind Stretcher (we compromised earlier this year to drop English because he did not want to have tuition this year). He reasoned it out with us that it will add "stress" to him if we get him on more lessons apart from what he's going through with his school's revision.

The term 'stress' was something new that came out from his reasoning. He probably had picked this term up from his friends in school or through some of the conversations in class.


Ethan happily added to his brother's point and said, "ya lor, you know we have a lot of stress one!"

I asked both of them in return, "what do you understand with the term - stress?"

Answer given to me was " Headache lor"


Their response was not entirely wrong but my point to them was that if they don't want tuition, then they will need to exercise more self-discipline in getting their own revision done in their spare time. The boys will be getting the rest of their CA1 results soon and I know that I can't pin too high hopes on any eye-popping surprises.

The start of our P6 journey - February

My students often asked me how old my children were and when I replied one is in P6, another in P4 this year, most of them have the same reaction - "Ah! Are you nervous?"

Honestly, not too nervous at the start of this year but gradually the pressure seems to pile up on me over the past weeks. I heard of some friends working their child hard since the last quarter of P5, some going to the extend of doing tuition for all subjects in P6. I have just attended the parents engagement workshop organised by his school to understand more about the exam format changes this year as well. Caden is not at all in any condition gearing up to be hard-working since the first month of the year and is still concerned with getting his playtime all the time.

I gave up nagging and pushing him to do revision on his own in his spare time. Recently, I told him that the resources (past year's exam papers, assessment notes) were already made available to him so we will leave it to him to make use of them. I know that this arrangement will probably leave all the exam papers/assessment notes untouched eventually, but I am hoping that some time later part of this year, he will be more self-motivated to start planning for his revision.

Last week, he started to clock in late nights from doing his homework from school. I supposed the school is also starting to gear up on completing the syllabus earlier so they will have more time to work on revising past years' topics. I couldn't help much at this point but just to be physically awake while he's doing his homework at 10plus pm!