Pei Hwa Presbyterian Primary

[Jennifer]

VbusyMum:

I think this is PH system...it put alot of stress to both parents & child

In my elder boy's case, I was not stressed as all his teachers except one are very responsible. We need only to engage CL tuition (his weak subject) and attend a crash course for the other subject he was not getting proper guidance in his PSLE year.

As for my P3 boy, I am stressed as the teachers are not doing a better job than I expected. The FT is always on MC, relief teacher not teaching much. As for the CL teacher, I was grossly wrong in my opinion after checking with another classmate's mother. So this Jun hols, I will be doing damage repair for term1 and term2.

Stress or no stress or how much stress really depends on what type of teachers your child gets. Like E3 whose girl is in CH2, the expectations are high. Whereas my boy in Hu3, expectations not high but teachers not doing a proper job, so in order to keep up for PSLE, I need to be more proactive.

[Jennifer]

VbusyMum:

My child did average for this SA1 and I was really upset (maybe I need to be realistic) and angry with him for the tons of careless mistakes. And I think it affect my child because of the form teacher called me yesterday and inform me that my child was upset when he received his result slip (whereas all other kids in the class incl those did worse than him were indifferent).

My boys also made careless mistakes in their exams. I think it is good that your boy feels sad (rather than bo-chap like mine). This can be moulded into a motivation for him to check his work well in future. Talk to him and encourage him and also teach him how to check.

Many children do not know how to check effectively. To them as long as there is an ans to the qn, it is considered checked. Many do not re-read the qn again, check if the ans makes sense. It is exam skills that we should teach our children too. JMHO

[kohhweelin.010441gmail.010441com]

Jennifer:

VbusyMum:

My child did average for this SA1 and I was really upset (maybe I need to be realistic) and angry with him for the tons of careless mistakes. And I think it affect my child because of the form teacher called me yesterday and inform me that my child was upset when he received his result slip (whereas all other kids in the class incl those did worse than him were indifferent).

Talk to him and encourage him and also teach him how to check.

Many children do not know how to check effectively. To them as long as there is an ans to the qn, it is considered checked. Many do not re-read the qn again, check if the ans makes sense. It is exam skills that we should teach our children too. JMHO

Fully agree. I taught my dd to start checking on sections that most likely she'll make mistakes in first, eg. Section B or C for Math, OE Comprehension by underlining the answers in the passages, underline keywords for grammar section. For cloze passages, if she sensed that a word is inappropriate, check the previous answers again, instead of just anyhow choose. Lastly do final checks by re-doing the questions (esp Math) till the last second so as to minimise errors. For Math, she'll think longer for questions that required deeper understanding, she'll only write down an answer when she's confident of it.

When I looked at her exam scripts, I realised the answers she had gotten wrong were usually questions that she did not know how to do e.g., to quote a phrase in OE compre passage. She has to write EXACTLY the same as what's reflected in the passage. She has no problems for quoting word or sentence but this time round, it was a phrase which she's supposed to quote and being a thinker, she felt that the phrase shouldn't start with Uppercaps so she quoted it with Lowercaps as it's not a sentence, although that particular phrase in the passage is taken from the beginning of a sentence. This is how my dd will learn. I can't teach her everything cos I may missed out during revision too.

For Chinese, cos of a scrutinising Chinese teacher, my dd would be very conscious of her strokes, so this time round, she wrote a stroke slightly longer (over-compensated) so that the teacher would not see it as an L for tianxiehanzi, though the character was the right one, but too bad, teacher couldn't accept it. This is the result of over-compensation on her part and our over-anxiety of teacher's high expectations on character strokes. We learn from our mistakes after each exam and what to let go and what to take note.

But what I was pleased is she puts in alot of effort for areas like Chinese and English OE comprehension sections. I could see that she was careful in answering the not-so-straightforward questions.

For compo, I told her to do 5 things,
1) Choose a suitable beginning,
2) Decide on which scenario those pictures were depicting (which she had a few templates in mind),
3) Number the helping words to be written for each picture (planning),
4) Have in mind a rough guide on where to end for each paragraph while writing so can guarantee a certain length (thus development of content), at the same time, use creative phrases and linking words,
5) Check grammar and spelling.

Kids lose marks cos of careless mistakes sometimes, not due to lack of knowledge so exam skills are truly important. Preparedness and unwavering attitude during exams are also important. When my dd told me she'll try her best before she went for the papers, I believed in her and stopped worrying cos I know whatever results she gets, she had tried her best. Oh...I prayed a lot too for unforseen circumstances and things beyond my control. Haha.

[VbusyMum]

Thanks for all your tips. I must say that my son FT is very responsible but the CL teacher is not as zealous …but his results were an opposite of situation. He scored very well for CL (high 90s) but the EL & Maths were just standard/class average…which I am puzzled.


Doing remedy this holiday by getting him a tutor for EL & Maths…

We have tried really hard to get into PH by doing PV (and we need to appeal cos it was rejected initially). I do believe that this is a good school but how we collectively (parent, child and teacher) manage through it.

Probably he is my first child and hence I need to learn how to teach/coach him correctly (right model for maths, compre tips etc)…the system is totally different from my own primary sch days. It there any idiot proof guide books for Maths & EL which parents could use to teach P! kids?

[Jennifer]

VbusyMum:

It there any idiot proof guide books for Maths & EL which parents could use to teach P! kids?

I think for languages, the child must read and read and read, no shortcuts. We might not see the results now, but it certainly helps when the child goes to upper pri level. Just like my P3 boy. His p1 and p2 EL results were not fantastic. But this year, he was able to do well despite having FT who always is on mc and he does not even hv EL tuition. I still need to coach him on new topics like connectors. His MCQ grammer/vocabulary/cloze passage were almost full marks.

As for CL, we need to do more sentence construction. I bou the CL vocabulary guides and go through them with him. Must start to read more too.

And MA, to do well in sect A should not be too much of a prob as long as the child is careful. In sect B, there are usu. 1-2 IQ type of qn. You can purchase the Maths Olympiad book for junior level and refer to this book to teach your child how to see through the qn, esp those sq n circles add up to x, what is the sq/circle and the pyramid type of qn.

As for OE compreh in EL and CL, I am still working on how to help my boy.

[kohhweelin.010441gmail.010441com]

VbusyMum:

Probably he is my first child and hence I need to learn how to teach/coach him correctly (right model for maths, compre tips etc)....the system is totally different from my own primary sch days. It there any idiot proof guide books for Maths & EL which parents could use to teach P! kids?

I had \"pm-ed\" you.

[VbusyMum]

Jennifer - thanks for sharing


E3 - I got your PM. Thanks for the encouragement and sharing.

[markfch]

I am very happy to share that with the completion of today's Sports Fest, dw & I have completed almost 50 hrs of PV for PH already. Yippie, a rock off our backs

[dyh]

E3:

However, if you are aiming for class Charity, your ds should be within the top 2nd or 3rd positions in class, to play safe.

Still there is no guarantee. when my son was in p1, only the top child in his class was able to get into CH2.

[kohhweelin.010441gmail.010441com]

dyh:

E3:

However, if you are aiming for class Charity, your ds should be within the top 2nd or 3rd positions in class, to play safe.

Still there is no guarantee. when my son was in p1, only the top child in his class was able to get into CH2.

Yes, agree. Happened last year too but being the top 2 or 3 for each class was just a rough gauge. 5 pupils from my dd's class got into Charity last year.