2012 PSLE Discussions and Strategy

[Champion]

janet_lee88:

Hi everyone,

Yesterday was a bad dream...sorry to rant. My sincere apologies.

Moving on, I talked to son and hubby individually how and what we should next. :thankyou:

Janet :snuggles: :hugs: :love: :love:
I am happy to see your post here and know that you are beta You are a great mum - working that journey with your DS and I am sure he feels it.

I want to say - all parents are here to cheer and support you on - you are not alone! Jiayou!

[janet88]

I guess when we work so hard, we would have thought we would be blessed.

But after yesterday, I think it is not necessarily the case, at least for me.
This knock hit me especially hard bcos I felt as though I was the one sitting for the exam…anyway, it’s all over.

Moving on, I have to reassess what went wrong and hope to prevent it from happening to my younger one.

[Champion]

Janet, this is for you! :snuggles: :hugs:

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[weatherbee]

janet_lee88:

I guess when we work so hard, we would have thought we would be blessed.

But after yesterday, I think it is not necessarily the case, at least for me.
This knock hit me especially hard bcos I felt as though I was the one sitting for the exam...anyway, it's all over.

Moving on, I have to reassess what went wrong and hope to prevent it from happening to my younger one.

Maybe you would like to share what went wrong? How did your son do for the prelims? Now I am quite gancheong as my son will be taking PSLE next year! For secondary stuff, I can try to help you.

[Desserts]

Hi Janet and fifiyeo, I have been reading your posts and find that my situation is so like yours. My dd din do well also, tho it was 3a and b, she cried upon receiving the results. I din have no guts to follow her to school, dh was the one. When she reached home, I could see her downcasted face in tears.

Hi Janet, you have been so encouraging and so sincere and real that I can relate to you, esp when the sch teacher is not doing much. I know how it feels esp when we ve worked so so hard and yet this rewards. I feel for our kids and that it has emotionally scarred them at such a tender age. What we can do is be strong ourselves and tell them to look forward from now. Please take care of yourself and hugs to you. I m also having headaches now and this year has been extremely rough.

Hi fifiyeo,
Same here, I thought I was going to book a trip yesterday afternoon, no mood already aft receiving the results. Asked dd is she still wanted to go for hols, she said no. Now got to re look my list of sec Sch selection and to appeal for few schools. V sian and still have to throw old stuff out.

Tho hsk mentioned that psle is not the be all and end all exam, it’s still traumatizing to a 12 yr old. It’s their first national exam, and those few days of sitting for the papers determine all.

[janet88]

Desserts:

Hi Janet and fifiyeo, I have been reading your posts and find that my situation is so like yours. My dd din do well also, tho it was 3a and b, she cried upon receiving the results. I din have no guts to follow her to school, dh was the one. When she reached home, I could see her downcasted face in tears.

Hi Janet, you have been so encouraging and so sincere and real that I can relate to you, esp when the sch teacher is not doing much. I know how it feels esp when we ve worked so so hard and yet this rewards. I feel for our kids and that it has emotionally scarred them at such a tender age. What we can do is be strong ourselves and tell them to look forward from now. Please take care of yourself and hugs to you. I m also having headaches now and this year has been extremely rough.

It's indeed very traumatising for parents and the child to get such a shock. But all of you are so right...we shouldn't feel that way after one exam.
I hope this setback will wake my son up and motivate him to study. Begin everything on a fresh slate like what a kind parent said.

[Imami]

A few of you would know about this – that my best friend and I were aiming for NYGS when we were both sitting for PSLE donkey years ago. She was the best in our school cohort since primary 3, every year. Me? always among the top but never the best. She was as good in her PSLE result scoring 28x and me? haiz…. I dunno what happened to me. While my results was unexpectedly poor, they were good enough to apply for Crescent Girls/St Margaret/Fairfield Methodist (I only realised that when I was in sec 1). But in the end, I was so fearful of another ‘unexpected event’ that I applied for a neighbourhood school – somewhere I knew I would not be rejected (because I didn’t score good enough). Alas, I didn’t know better…Anyway, the few years after PSLE was a lot of self-doubt/trying to find the reason to life and I got into many situations which would send many parents pulling their hair. At certain point, I almost wanted to drop out of secondary school.


To fellow ksp members who felt disappointed/discouraged by your DC’s results–
*Hug* I could feel what you are feeling even though my kid has not gone through PSLE, because I felt the same thing years ago, as a PSLE candidate. If you have felt that the journey towards PSLE was a real battle (for which, I do agree), you would probably going to be in for another round – the journey post PSLE’s “disappointing results” – and this round, it’s going to last even longer. For my case, it was a roller coaster ride of two-three years.

As a parent, you may feel disappointed with the results. Well, so is your child. But do you realise that your disappointment or your child’s realisation of your disappointment would have an exponential effect on your child? It is already bad to feel lousy about one’s poor result. It feels even worse to know that one has disappointed our loved ones. At this juncture, your DC needs your support, faith (in him/her) and big-heartedness even more than before. There is no other time better than this instance to prove to him/her that it’s the effort that is most important (not the result). It is this time that your child would really look at you and your attitude closely. What do you want him/her to learn? That you would really love him/her all the time (even if the result is a two digit score). That it is the effort that we should celebrate and look for. That what one reaps may be lesser than what has been sowed. That the result is just a snapshot of his/her performance during that few days but it is not a good gauge of how much he/she has put in and would not become a testimony of how he/she would be in years to come.

Anyway, to close the loop – I didn’t drop out of secondary school. I completed O levels with 6 distinctions and went on to don the graduation gown.

[Desserts]

Told dd we got to reflect, what went wrong, and move on from there. If it’s the languages that need improvement, she has to kp reading, listening, writing etc.As we analysed with dd, Dh and i also dunno what went wrong. Cannot be blackout on the spot. But she did mention that the math was tough, or maybe panic after looking at the questions. She told me she has not seen some of those questions before. I suspect it’s some kind of very ‘creative’ questions. All long dd s quite strong in math, this time round she managed a b. her surrounding friends scored in the 21 range and they are from the best class. Only 6 pupils scored 253 to 26some in this so called best class. Dd is from a very neighborhood school in the east, won’t name it. The school just let them do psle past year booklet to train them, nothing else. ANd that was after the June hols. On our on, we did the top sch papers.


Dd’s classmate who went up stage to collect prize last week, cried inconsolably yesterday, so much that her mother had to hold on to her. I wonder how many will wake up crying this morning, yesterday was indeed a nightmare. Dd and friends mentioned that thy didn’t want to go back to their primary school, to … Even visit their teachers:( dunno if their primary school life holds bad memory for them.

[fifiyeo]

[quote="janet_lee88"]I guess when we work so hard, we would have thought we would be blessed.

But after yesterday, I think it is not necessarily the case, at least for me.
This knock hit me especially hard bcos I felt as though I was the one sitting for the exam…anyway, it’s all over.
[quote]


Yes, this knocked me very hard too. I knew DS would fall within a certain range but never could digest it. I never had to study very hard to cut my scores when I was in school. Since I had to study SO MUCH and SO HARD (never like that before) for DS + with DS. I expected him to fall just below mine or meet my grades. Obviously he didn’t and quite far off. So I knew if that happens I would pop 'cos I really can’t take it especially with insulting little remarks throughout the years made by ILs regarding my abilities to coach my DC.

That was why I told DH to standby in case I cannot contain myself. Well, I did pop after we got home.

[MotherHen]

Hi janet, fifiyeo, I can really feel your pain as I read your posts. I know it is easier said than done, but like what many others have said, PSLE is but one road block that our kids will encounter on their path to adulthood. Though less than ideal results might hurt really bad right now, I think it will be more devastating if it destroys the children’s confidence and kills their joy in learning.


Let your children know that they are loved. Let them know your faith in them. And let them know that all these "faceless" kiasu aunties and uncles are behind them, cheering them on. I am sure that your DSs will emerge stronger to face the road ahead.

Take care and God bless.