Transiting to Primary One is a big deal for kids. It's the beginning of formal education in Singapore and for many of the kids, it's their first encounter with serious and intensive studying. Apart from the kid feeling the stress and heat, the parents usually get stressed up and nervous as well, especially if it's the first time for them. I started this series to document the chronological order of events, my intimate thoughts and emotions on this journey, and it will continue until Joey settles down in Primary One. Hopefully, as we go along, the posts would become more and more positive and encouraging. I do believe in that. :)
Wednesday
23 Jan 2013
1.05am
I don't know how your Primary School life was, but I remembered mine to be extremely colourful.
Apart from participating in all kinds of ECAs (I was in Science Club and basketball, and was a Brownie), I was also involved in drama performances, story-telling competitions, recitals and all kinds of camps & excursions. I have very fond memories of my Primary School life - It was a time I felt I truly enjoyed school without having to deal with examinations and stress.
A very vital part of Primary School life was of course sweet romance with the favourite boy in my class. My 'boyfriend' and I 'got married' at Primary Three, and we treated our friends to our wedding reception of 10-cent drinks. It was all in the name of fun, nothing too serious - Though we were publicly known to be an 'item' till we graduated from Primary School! I am sure even if you didn't have a wedding reception like me, you would have secretly admired someone from your class or received love notes from your secret admirers. It is hilarious as I recall everything now of course, but it's all part of my growing up. :)
And so, Joey has been telling me about this boy called Brandon - a Primary Three prefect, who has been disturbing her all the time. When I heard how she calls him 'irritating', I couldn't help but giggle inside. It's even funnier when she mentioned him three days in a row, albeit all complaints about what he had done and said. Sounds really familiar. =P
I'm not sure I am ready for my girl to grow up so fast (it's only been three weeks since school started!), but at the same time, I feel excited for her. Life is full of interesting things and people, and I can't wait for her to have new encounters and new experiences in life. :)
Since I started this series, I haven't really touched on the academic part of the Primary One journey. The truth is, there really haven't been much homework given yet. In the last three weeks, Joey's come home with homework less than 3 times. I like it that the school is taking it slow and easy - I definitely don't want my girl to be bogged down by tons and tons of homework & assignments.
English spelling and hanyu pinyin spelling have started though. Joey's had no problem with English spelling - she scored full marks easily last week. But hanyu pinyin spelling is new to her, so she got only 16/20 for that spelling. She came home telling me that she was very disappointed because many of her classmates got full marks. Looks like I don't even need to put stress on this girl of mine - she has high expectations of herself. Of course, I had to assure her that marks was not everything and she can always do better the next time round. I have no doubt she will.
The next good thing is that there will be no Examinations for Primary One kids. The teachers would be doing an assessment of every kid in many areas of cognitive and behavioural skills and give a report at the end of the year to the parents. This would continue for the first half of Primary Two, so the first examination that Joey would face would be in Oct/Nov of 2014. Sounds good to me. :)
Read all the posts in this series: Mum's Diary
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