My child doesn't enjoy school

[jesschan]

Hi! I am new to this forum. My older boy is in P3 this year and let me share my thoughts.


I think children undergo a major change when they enter P1. Most pre-school encourages learning thru fun play, has a smaller class size and lots of play time. In P1, the class size is 30 and there will be a proportion of kids who did not have a good pre-school foundation, especially in the ordinary neighbourhood schools. These children will find the school work tough even though it is probably relatively simple for other children who have learnt phonics, hanyu pinyin, number bonds etc… prior to P1. Hence the teacher has to spend more time with the weaker students and manage the brighter children who find school work too simple and bored - tough job!

My son went thru the same phase, finding school work too boring and he only enjoys the recess time and PE lessons. So he often gets into trouble in class initially. Luckily he loves to read and I always ensure that he has a good book to read and that really helped to steer him out of trouble.

Most schools will have an internal streaming to segregate the children in P3 and teaching progress will be adjusted according to the standards where brighter children will start to do more challenging work, more creative writing etc… Children are very resilient, they will learn how to manage themselves eventually, don’t worry.

[learningtobekiasu]

[Moderator's note: Topics merged.]


we are having a hard time with our son who is not used to the structured system of P1 where he has to sit still for 6 hours. he is easily distracted and bored. he is smart and picks up stuff easily so once he knows what the teacher is teaching, he will switch off.

as a result he is constantly (daily) being reprimanded... i think its fine to teach discipline but am very dissapointed and angry at the way the teacher deals with him. daily threats of being sent to the discipline master and the latest was 'if you don't behave you will have to leave the school... and go to a girls school' or something to that effect.

my child is full of life and loves life - he can't wait to wake up every day because he enjoys living - but nowadays it so sad to see him dislike (even to the point of hating) school because of his problem adjusting to the 'system'. a system which i thought has long been modernized! didn't realize there are still these old school methods being used...

any thoughts? am i over-reacting?

[csc]

You are not over-reacting. You have a right to know what has happened to your child.


Suggest you make an appointment with the form teacher to discuss the matter in an objective manner. It is good to hear what the teacher has to say and clarify matters.

And yes, systems are easier to change than people. Perhaps the teacher was trained under the old system and find it hard to adapt to the "new’ system.??

[jedamum]

[quote] he is smart and picks up stuff easily so once he knows what the teacher is teaching, he will switch off.[/quote]
I think there is still a need to talk to your kid and let him know that he should treat the teaching in school as a revision and show the teacher respect (by not switching off) even though he already knows his stuff. Perhaps you can explore into letting him take up a CCA (if permitted by school) so that he can channel his energy and interest elsewhere.

csc:

Suggest you make an appointment with the form teacher to discuss the matter in an objective manner. It is good to hear what the teacher has to say and clarify matters.

And yes, systems are easier to change than people. Perhaps the teacher was trained under the old system and find it hard to adapt to the \"new' system.??

Perhaps you can start exchanging email with the teacher first? Sometimes we risk misunderstanding the teacher's position/words when such has been conveyed to us by our children. You can start by asking about how your kid has been doing/coping in class. If you acknowledged that he deserves to be 'stretched' to curb his boredom in class, perhaps you can suggest to the teacher to let your kid takes on additional duties (group leaders, teacher's helpers) so that he have something else to look forward to. Being a selected 'role-model' will also somehow curb his mischievious behaviour (if any).

Yes, systems are easier to change than people, but in some schools, it is easier to change the people than the proven system. Sometimes, we also have to understand that the teacher may just be having a bad day and such is a one-off incident.

If situation doesn't improve over time, perhaps it'll be better to consider a change of environment if the school's teaching philosophy doesn't match yours.

jmho.

[learningtobekiasu]

the teacher is pre-historic, which i believe is part of the problem - still using methods from 30 years ago! recalled from retirement i was told.



there is a communications book and teacher and parents write to each other in the book (doubt this teacher uses email!). anyway, this is not a one off. there are complains about his behaviour every other day.

this is what has alerted us that there is an issue. we have made an appointment with the principal to discuss and ask her for help in suggesting ways to help him cope.

we have indicated in our notes back to the teacher that our son needs constant reminding and guidance - we just think she is not interested to adapt her methods and fear this might be detrimental to his development in school.

hopefully the principal can suggest something. maybe there is a counselor he can speak with regularly to help him cope with the transition. we know this school does work with special needs kids like autistic students (they take them into ordinary classes and have counselors on hand to work with them), so we hope they might have other kind of counseling for difficult kids.

[heyhoe]

Thank you to all mommies who have taken time to write on their helpful suggestions.


After meeting up with his form teacher, we have agreed that he would offer his assistance to his classmates as long as he finished his work earlier. Alternatively, he can read story book or draw while waiting for the rest of his classmates.

Another reason that I can think of now is that my kid is a sensitive child. Perhaps, he takes offense where none is intended and frustrated at a world that fails to live up his expectation. I guess we’ll just have to face it day by day and hope that he’ll eventually enjoy school.

[learningtobekiasu]

just a quick update in our case. we met with the principal. she thanked us for providing more information to her on our child’s behavioural traits and will speak with the class teacher to get her feedback and response…


we shall see if things improve.

[yvonnemommy]

Tough situation. But don’t worry. Things gonna be Ok. Maybe you can turn to an interesting way that can draw your child’s interest in school. DD is using beestar.org. It’s a lovely website. She loves it very much. You can have your child try the cute worksheets. They are full of interesting pictures and stories. Maybe these worksheets can make him interested in learning slowly. This has happened to my daughter. Good luck.

Lisa

[heyhoe]

:thankyou:


Thank you to all mommies. Wow, a year has pass and now he's in P2.

Just to share that this year, I can see him running up to his form teacher. He truly adores his teacher . I'm glad that he finally fits in and the preserverance has paid off. I enjoyed talking to his teachers as well as they seems geniuely caring and notice his strength and weakness (untidiness :stupid: )

Hope he will continue to handle the challenges in life.