Importance of making the right choice for pre-primary center

Today, my son’s P1 second assessment papers were over but the previous day, while he was studying for Chinese, we realized the importance of choosing the right center for preparing your kid to primary school. Why?

During K1 and K2, our son attended a particular well-know child care center that had branches all over the island who focus on holistic teaching for both English and Chinese, they did not teach him the normal stuffs like  hanyu pinyin and 笔画 for Chinese as they emphasize on creative learning etc. Now in P1, he is struggling for his Chinese and there was a period of time, he was not interested in Chinese because he find it difficult and after much persuasion, he is slowly getting interested.

Our daughter who is now in K1 and is now attending another center which is much cheaper and less well-known that uses the normal teaching method that taught her hanyu pinyin and 笔画, she is finding it easy to learn chinese and I think when she is in P1, it will be easier for her to understand the subject.

From this experience, may I suggest if you are looking for a pre-primary center for your child, it is better to check that they provide the right teaching method to prepare them for primary education. It is not always the case that you pay the most expensive and with all the holistic teaching your child will be well prepared for primary education. On the contrary, they may even feel more stress if they cannot catch up when they are in primary 1.

I hope this sharing will help you to be more careful when you are selecting a pre-primary center for your child.

It’s exam fever again!

It’s the time of the year where students sweat and parents stress. Time flies, it was only like yesterday when I saw my boy started the 1st day in school and now he has the final assessment to take. Though they were saying that there will not be any ‘exam’ for P1 and P2, we are still given the assessment schedule on the date, time and subject the child will be taking. This seems like a exam timetable to me.

So being a typical ‘kiasu’ Singaporean,  I started to find free past year assessment papers for my kid to try so he can at least have a ‘feel’ of how the final SA2 paper will look like.

My expectation of his result is as long as he does not fail, I will be satisfied. The same standard as my Dad has set for me years back when I was schooling.

NDP celebration cum sports day in school

This morning I attended my son’s ndp school celebration and sports day for the lower primary.  When they sang the school song, it really brought back memories of me singing the song when I was a young boy, the first sentence of the song “The boys and girls of Rosyth School we march one thousand strong..” will always stay in my mind..it seems like only yesterday..

The sports event was very interesting and seeing the boys and girls took part in the different sports item is fun. Some of them cheated and some of them are downright honest that they literally go back to the same spot when they went out of the track…the innocence and honesty of kids..

I am glad that all the kids receive medals regardless of their position, a good thumbs up for the school and it make the kids feel good even if they are last..they just printed the position 1st, 2nd etc behind the medal which is the same design..here’s a pic of my boy with his medal..and his house, the “Richards – Red” house came in overall second..well done boy!

I am glad we have this medal regardless of the result.