June holidays mean revision time for daughter

It is already June and I have not mentioned any aspect of my daughters' schooling in this column so far this year.

One may imagine I have become a less harried parent who is more concerned that my daughters are getting a holistic education instead of chasing after grades, in line with the new emphasis by the Education Ministry on developing values, character and collaboration.

Wrong. I haven't been writing about school because I have been busy figuring out, mulling over and agonising over how to survive this academic year.

My younger daughter, Yanbei, is taking her Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) next year and studying has been quite a slog so far.

Some schools try to finish the syllabus ahead of schedule so that pupils can devote more time in Primary Six to relearn and reinforce concepts they are weak in, as well as hone their examination skills by doing reams and reams of practice papers.

It's a sound strategy but one that demands accelerated learning during the Primary Five year.

I believe Yanbei's school pursues such a strategy because her pace of learning this year has been quite daunting.

In the weeks before her recent first semester assessment (SA1), she was inundated with homework. It did not help that she was in the school dance team that participated in the Singapore Youth Festival in April.

In the weeks before the performance, she had to stay back in school for intensive practice.

This curtailed her homework time, so much so that there were occasions when my wife more or less supplied answers for Yanbei's homework just to get her to go to bed before midnight.

Yanbei is fearful of handing in blank or largely incomplete worksheets even though we tell her it is all right to do so. But she is afraid of being scolded. I am nonplussed.

In my time, it was common for teachers to punish pupils who did not complete their homework by asking them to stand on chairs. Some who produced shoddy work even had to suffer the ignominy of seeing their exercise book torn up by the teacher in front of the class.

But in these enlightened times, surely not. Still, one cannot be certain if her fear is real or imagined.

On the other hand, my fear that she was turning in homework without understanding the subject came home to roost when she received her SA1 results for maths and science.

My wife and I did not have high expectations but still, it was rather disappointing that the outcome did not quite match the effort put in.

Of the four subjects, maths was the one in which she had spent the most time revising. But it was also the one in which she scored the lowest. It was quite demoralising for her.

As a parent, I am also beset with doubts. I can tell that Yanbei does not have a flair for the hard sciences, but I do see glimpses of her ability when I supervise her work.

So what went wrong? More importantly, what can we do differently to improve her results?

I discussed this with her form teacher at a parent-teacher meeting and came away with some sort of an action plan to put into practice during this four-week break.

So this June break will not exactly be a holiday for us.

At the risk of being labelled a Tiger Dad, I have told Yanbei that I will spend time revising maths and science with her during this period. That means no holiday trips, except for a short retreat to Malaysia.

To her credit, she is fine with this, as long as it's not all work and no play.

Yanrong, my older daughter, is equally pleased at staying put. Secondary school has been quite a challenge. She has been working just as hard as she did last year when preparing for her PSLE.

There were days during the school term when she had the look of a zombie, the consequence of sleeping at midnight or later, and waking up at 6am. She told me her situation was not uncommon.

She has seen her sleep-deprived schoolmates stretch out inelegantly on the floor or hunch over their desk during their free time to take a little nap.

Not surprisingly, top of her agenda this month is sleeping in.

This article was first published on June 8, 2014.
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