Life of a P1 student and all you need to know as a P1 parent

In a twinkle of an eye, half a year had gone by.

This year is an important year for Little One as she enters the Primary School. This marks the beginning of formal education. So far, she had been doing fine although personally I think she has been not doing good enough for her Chinese.

For the first half of the year, I had adopted a rather relaxing attitude with her. I did not ask much from her except to expect her to do her school work as well as to learn her spellings diligently. I focus more on the aspect that she learns to be self independent like reading her time table, packing her bag and getting dressed without prompting all by herself.

Most days, she would be home at about 2pm. Once a week, her school will be released half an hour later due to CCA activities in the morning. For P1 and P2s, they do not have CCA activities, so they would be having enrichment classes instead.

Below is her usual time table

6.30am Wake up + get ready for school
6.45am Breakfast
7.15am Leave for school
2pm Reach home, shower and lunch
3pm Revision/Play/Outing
6pm Rest
7.30pm Dinner
8.30pm Shower
9pm Bedtime Ritual
9.30 pm Sleep

Understand that it is the time of the year for Primary One Registration. I shall share briefly how we chose the current school Little One is studying in. We have chosen a neighbourhood school, A, located within our neighbourhood. It is not an elite school. Neither was it our alma maters. There is another neighbourhood school, B, in our area too. Both schools are more or less the same to me except that the other school has newer facilities than the current one Little One is attending. Personally, I prefer School B. In the end, the major reason I chose the school A is that it is nearer to our home. I know Little One would prefer to sleep rather than spend fifteen more minutes to travel to school B.

What to expect?

This section of the post is meant more for the parents who are going to send their child/ children  to school next year on.

Orientation
Prior the start of school, there is actually orientation. In the orientation, the children will be brought to their class and they will have a get-to-know-you kind of session to familiarise with the teachers and environment. Meanwhile, the parents will be in the hall while the principal will conduct a speech about the school values and a brief guidance as to what to expect when the children start P1. Such activities were unheard of in the past. We were only introduced to our school during the first day of school. How fortunate are our children these days!

Holistic Education
The current education focus on holistic assessment.

What is holistic education? I have a vague idea. During my time, our results were all academic driven. The new system seeks to create a more all-rounder rather than academically driven student. This, I am entirely unfamiliar with. It seeks to create a thinker, inventor or probably a leader.  I like the idea of developing a more well rounded person but questions such as these following run through my head. How does a school measure how well a child performs holistically? How do I help the child on this?  Do I have to register the child for enrichment classes that he/she is interested in? (This sounds kiasu, isn't it?) Am I adding pressure to his/her schedule by requesting him/her to perform well especially in the area he/ she is interest in? I am sure the answer to this question is yes. I am afraid if the child is under pressure, it may kills his/her interest. So, I am still in the exploration mode.

Meanwhile, all schools have begun implementation of Holistic Assessment. They will do away with examinations whereby the students would be tested everything from Term 1 to the current date. Instead, they introduced bite sized tests which may or may not be weighted. These bite size tests usually focus on several topics instead of a big lump of topics. They may even conduct mock tests.

Assessments at the beginning of the year
Children are being assessed in the beginning of the year to determine whether they need to attend a separate class from the rest of the peers.

Scraping of aggregate score in PSLE
In April 2016, the Ministry of Education (MOE) announced that the aggregate score for the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) will be scrapped, and replaced with wider scoring bands from 2021. This will be similar to grading at O and A levels. Hence, the current P1 students are the first batch of students, including Little One,  without aggregate score.

When everyone is getting similar grades, what will be the criteria for secondary school to select their intake? Probably the next emphasis will be how all rounded is the child. Whether or not, it will lead to a more competitive environment. it is too early to tell. I am sure it will has its consequences.

Meanwhile, I chose to focus on build up her foundation. I think at the end of the day, the basic foundations are still important.

Report Book
I am not sure about other schools, what interest me is that the report book does not reflect on the grades Little One scored. Instead, it focus more on character development.

PAL

The Programme for Active Learning (PAL) is a recommendation by the 2009 Primary Education Review Implementation (PERI) Committee to provide greater emphasis on non-academic programmes for all Primary 1 and 2 students. Students are exposed to varied and fun learning experiences in four domains: Sports and Games, Outdoor Education, Performing Arts and Visual Arts. Students also learn socio-emotional competencies such as respecting others and responsible decision making. PAL nurtures confidence, curiosity and cooperation skills in students. The programme is rolled out via a phased-in approach and will be offered in all primary schools by 2017.

- schoolbag.com

I was told that teachers could make use of PAL to access the students so as to make suitable recommendation for Co-Curricular Activities (CCA). CCA is compulsory from P3 onwards. I remembered when I was in primary school, CCA (it was known as Extra Curricular Activities,ECA) was not compulsory. I used to join netball and I had to quit the team because my mom wanted me to focus on PSLE, much to my dismay.

FTGP

Form Teacher to engage in quality interactions with his/her pupils and help pupils strengthen social and emotional competencies during Form Teacher Guidance Period (FTGP).  

During FTGP, there will be play activities between the Form Teacher and pupils  to enhance teacher-pupil bonding. The Form Teacher will also conduct lessons to teach social and emotional competencies as follows:
(a) Self-Awareness – To better understand self
(b) Self-Management – To learn ways to manage self
(c) Social Awareness – To better understand family and friends
(d) Relationship Management – To learn ways to work with family and friends
(e) Responsible Decision Making – To make appropriate and responsible decisions

Usually, I do not know what is being conducted during this period unless the teacher had assign some tasks for the children to do at home. My girl sometimes said she had forgotten. Sigh...

PTM

During this Parent Teachers Meeting, parents would use it to find out more about the overall performance of the children. The session is 10 minutes session per teacher. I do find that the time is short. In order to fully utilise the session, it may be better to plan ahead what questions you would like to ask.

Tips for parents of P1 goers.

1) Get everything prepare before school re-open, such as stationery, water bottle, lunch box, uniform,black hair ties for girls, white shoes, white socks and dark bag. The reason I indicate dark bag is that you do not need to wash the bag as frequent as you need for lighter coloured ones.

2) Label your child's/children's name on all stationery, include bags and shoes. In my girl's school, they take out their socks and shoes occasionally for activities such as reading corner.

3) Ask your child/children about their school life. Do not ask "How was school?" Usually, they will reply you with short sentences such as 'fine.", "not bad".  For example, what have you been doing in your XXX lessons? I usually chose to ask about the Enrichment lessons and PAL.

4) Check your child's/ children's bag that he/she had completed their homework. Sometimes, they may just forget that they have one.

5) Use your child's communication book. This is one of the ways to communicate with the teachers. Read the school's newsletter and website so that you know what is going on in school.

6) Monitor their behaviour. If you find that they have been behaving withdrawn, it is a tell tale sign that something is wrong in school.

7) Do sit through with your child/ children while they are doing their homework. In that way, you could guide and have a rough idea what the teacher had been doing. From there, you would also know you child's weakness and give some practices or think of something to help them overcome that weakness.

8) Show them how to read a time table and how to pack their bad nicely. You need to repeat this for a period of them before they remember how to do it correctly.

9) Show them how to keep their papers in files /folders properly and not crushed like kiam chye (salted  vegetables, refering to crumbled papers) in the bag.

10) Don't bother to stress yourself to teach them how to count their money. They will eventually learnt from daily dealings with the vendors. Of course, you can start to teach them now but it is a concept to be grasped over time.

11) Be patient. This is the most important part. Children their age tends to misplace stuff. You 

 would need to keep reminding. To add on, there will be mundane stuff which you would need to teach repeated and hence patience is required.

Term 1 and the end of term holiday

Term 1 flies in a twinkle of an eye.

Initially, waking up was not an issue for Little One. However, as the days goes by, Little One struggles to wake up each morning. There was no tantrum but I could see if given the choice, she would rather be in bed.

Little One is learning to pack her bag properly. She checks her time table and packs accordingly. Most of the time, she packs correctly. Occasionally, she forgets a thing or two. It is her responsibility to learn to take care of her own stuff. Hopefully, in this coming term, she will not forget to bring anything to school.

Homework is to be put in the folder which she carries to school everyday. However, she does not have the habit of keeping them in the folder. Many times, they came back crumpled. I have to remind her again and again to use the folder. I am glad to say this finally is being put into practice.

Spelling is not a big issue but I do get problems when she does not cooperate with me to learn the words by heart. It is not a must to score high marks but if she does not put in some effort to learn, I truly worries for her. This is another responsibility issue which I have to tackle this term.

Little One and her classmates used their own whiteboards and markers during lessons.  This, I feel, is great! At a glance, the teachers will know instantly, how the students fare.

Health check by the ministry was done in the first term. I am glad that there are no major issues with her health and her eyesight is normal. However, her eczema starts to flare since the beginning of term. I wonder what is the cause. I have similar issues but not as bad. I wonder whether it is because of the hot weather or could it be other allergen.

I had to get her baby teeth extracted as the 2 adult teeth behind them had almost reached full size and food had been trapped between those teeth.

She has been bringing homework back every other day and most of the time, it is Chinese homework. Only the last 2 week, there was no homework. She had her first online homework to do during the holidays. It is a new experience and I believe in future, there may be more of such works.

Holidays!
During the holidays, we have been going to various activities, most notably Gardener's Day Out , National Gallery, Sentosa (Kidz Flea) and Singapore Design Week.

In Gardener's Day Out, Little One learnt that one can grow and harvest one's own crop in Singapore. Pity we don't have much space for farming in HDB flat. Hopefully the dreams can be realised as per the Future of Us exhibition whereby local flats can utilise the open air space on top of our blocks for rooftop gardening.

We visited the National Gallery again. This time, we spent time to study the art of some pieces in the gallery. One of the painting that caught Little One's attention was Forest Fire by Raden Saleh Sjarif Boestaman. She was wondering why the animals were behaving that way. I asked her to examine the piece carefully and analyse what was going on. This detailed painting captured the expressions of the wild animals and how they were trying to survive. I encouraged Little One to think deeper how were the animals feeling. I asked her what she thinks causes the forest fire. Of course, there were no absolute answers for this painting but I would like to point out to her that this is what could be happening if there was a forest fire, be it of a natural cause or man made "slash and burn" disaster. Although our conversation was pretty superficial, I wanted her to know the importance of protecting Mother Earth.

Little One is pretty inspired by the children she saw in the Kids Flea. I had told her the children were there to learn how to do business. It reminded her of her Entrepreneur Day organised by her kindergarten and hence, she was pretty supportive of the programme and she bought 3 items for below $10.

As there were free workshops in National Design Centre, I brought Little One over whenever hubby was not available to take care of her. I had signed up for several workshops. She attended the Clothes Call workshop to upcycle T-shirt and also watched a fondant rose design demonstration by
The White Ombré.

Squabble

Little One had a squabble with her best friend in class. It was actually over a bookmark and a bookmark holder which I had given to her for her usage. The purpose of the bookmark is to mark the page of the handbook whenever I have a message for the teacher/s or vice versa.

What happened was when Little One took the bookmark out to mark a page, her friend saw the bookmark holder which I had attached to the handbook and decided to show off. Actually, it is just some simple laminated card with logo which I didn't realise would fascinate her classmates.

Anyway, her best friend saw the holder in the handbook and decided to show it to the rest of class. Little One being taught to be humble did not want that to happen and snatched it back. Both of them refused to give the book up and hence the book was torn. At the end of the day, both kids were angry with each other.

So, moral of the story, if you were to allow your child to bring anything to school, keep it as plain as possible. I guess children their age like to show, whether it is their own stuff or something that belongs to others.

What did I do then? I  decide to keep the bookmark holder as it is, I do not want to change, who would know whether the children would start to show off to the rest of the class if I do that and there may be squabble number 2.

At the same time, I took the chance to teach respect and forgiveness.

Muddle headed

Very simple bento which I had prepared for her.

Week 3 of school passed by. I can see Little One adapting well to the school but she is relatively muddle-headed. Days I find her leaving her homework lying on the desk without keeping. Sometimes, she forgets to do part of the homework. Sometimes, she does not know that she has to do homework even though she copies instructions from teacher into her handbook. Last week, her form teacher messaged that she had given homework but I saw none in her bag. I enquired whether she completed in school. She replied in a matter- of -fact way, it was in school although she did not complete. Faintz~ how does she treat homework so light heartedly? I am super kan cheong (uptight) but she somehow feels that it is okay to do such things. I gave her a lecture and secretly hope that her teacher do the same so that she knows it is not something to be treated lightly.

If you were in my shoes, what would you have done?

Settling into second week

Little One is settling down on the second week. The weekly routine had officially kicked off last Thursday. By the second week, she had entered her full routine in school. For the first time, she had her flag raising ceremony at the parade square together with the whole school. I saw her hesitation when she was told to proceed to the parade square for the first time. She turned to look back several times. I had to wave her off.

Also for the first time, she had spelling and it will be a weekly affair. Her Chinese spelling consist a mixture of both Han Yu Pin Yin and Chinese character.

As her Chinese textbook were submitted to school on the first week, I was surprised Little One kept telling me day after day to bring the textbook to school. In the end, I message her form teacher to enquire. Only then I realised they have a corner of the classrooms to put their Chinese textbooks and they were to bring the textbook to the class every lesson. I also found out Little One did not know that she had to take the book from there for Chinese class although she did see some children taking books from that corner.

Little One starts to bring lunch box for tea break. As it was just 15 minutes break, I do not need to pack much. Either bread, sandwich or fruits will do. As her adult teeth are emerging and yet her milk teeth are not falling out. Hence, I packed fruits that she could bite. Hopefully, they would help the teeth to drop. Perhaps due to the pain when biting, she finds ways to get rid of the fruits. Yes, she would be sharing out the fruits with friends.

Do you have other ideas to share to help the milk teeth drop?

1st week of school mayhem

Day 4

It's official! Yes, Little One is officially schooling! Did tears well up my eyes on her first day of school? Well, nope. This was for the 1st 3 days, Primary 1 (P1) parents were allowed to visit the school with their kid/s and the P1 students in her school were allowed to return home 2 hours earlier. (I am not sure about other schools though). Hence, in a way, it was more or less similar to timing of a kindergarten.

So, here goes...

Day 1

On the first day, Little One started the day bright and early, complete with smile. She was so exciting about going to school. I am not sure this mentality would stay on till the end of Primary 6 but I do hope so!

Unlike the the school I attended in the past, the teachers conducted talks for parents to get us familiar with school system and how we could help our child/ children with their work. There were talks for the 1st 2 days. I intended only to stay for that. When all the talks ended, it would be time to bring Little One home.

I sent Little One to her class, got her to be familiarized with the route from the gate to the class. We had already met her form teacher on Orientation Day. During that time, Little One was already brought around the school so the school was not that unfamiliar to her. She was pretty excited to start the new school term.

Together with other parents, I stood outside the classroom taking photos of her first moment in class, witnessing their first class assembly singing the National Anthem and reciting the pledge. I was pretty amazed to see Little One moving her lips when the school's song was played. Later I found out from her, she does not know the lyrics of the school song. So, she was just lip-syncing.

Time table was given on day 1. Her bag was pretty heavy as we were required to hand up most of the workbooks and activity books to the teacher. This was something that was different from the past too. In the past, we were to carry every textbook, workbook and exercise book so long that there was a lesson conducted on that particular subject that day. And on the first day then, we would carried everything to school because we did not which lessons would be conducted.

The P1 students in her school were allowed to return home 2 hours earlier these 3 days. I am not sure about other schools. So, that means I did not need to pack her any lunch boxes for the 1st 3 days. I visited her only during recess time and watched her buy her food from afar. She had a buddy with her who guided her along. After recess, I managed to talk to her at the assembly area. One of her classmates also returned early from the canteen. When he saw me talking to Little One, his eyes started to water. I panicked but still I comforted him. Fortunately, he calmed down and sat quietly after that.

For the first 3 days, P1 would be released from the hall. After the talks, I waited for her to be release from the hall. After which  I would  guide her back to the gate which I believe the teachers would continue to do after the 3 days of orientation.

Day 2

I guided Little One to pack her bag the day before. Little One told me that there were some more books teacher collected on Day 1 but were not listed in the book list. I had to assure her that we will be packing those and submit on Day 2 together with other required items..

During the talks, I got to know P1 will be subjected to screening test to decide whether additional help is required to provide to the students. Little One told me that they had to do some school work for Chinese. I believe that was the screening test since they would be distributed according to their abilities.

Little One bought too much food for recess. A plate of bee hoon and a slice of water melon. Comparing to the day before, this time she ate too slowly and she could not finish her water melon and passed it to me. I wonder what would happen the next time she can't finished her food.

Things did not seemed to settle down one Day 2. Little One brought home a set of colour pencils that belong to one of her classmates. It was not labeled so we do not know whose it belong to. Luckily, we have a wadsapp group for most of the parents. We found the owner and the pencils were returned the next day,

I noted the class has their own library corner and children were to take off their shoes prior entry. Oops! I had yet to label her shoes!


Day 3

There was no talk on this day, so I sent Little One to school and waited through class assembly before returning home. There were still quite a plenty of parents around. Someone in her class got sick and vomited. The parent of the child happened to be there and brought him home.

When I went to school hall to fetch Little One. I was surprised to see yogurt in her bag. She told me that she borrowed money from her buddy to buy the extra yogurt! She said chicken rice cost $1 and the yogurt $1,10. Guess what? She still has 10 cents in her pocket. I was pretty upset because I gave her $2 as pocket money which in my opinion is not very little money.  From then on, I banned her from borrowing money. I do not want her growing up to think that she can borrow money to get stuff she could not afford. She must learn to spend within her means.

Nevertheless, I still walk on the grounds with her and showed her where I would be picking her up in future.

Day 4

This day onwards, she would be having full day class. Parents are no longer allowed into school vicinity. I sent her off at the gate. For the first time, I thought she was growing too fast! I started to worry. What if she forgets instructions which I think she would. What if she lost her way? What if she day dreams in class? That was when I took the above picture. That was when I felt teeny weeny bit of emotions.

Picking her up was pretty exciting too as I did not know what to expect. I just wait outside as per many parents or caretakers did. Soon I spotted her coming near the gate with her class teacher and friends.

I asked whether she had problems going to her class. She replied no. At that moment, I felt pretty proud. Nevertheless, I reminded her in case she was lost and did not know where her class went, she can always go to the General Office to seek help.

Again, I had problem with her pocket money and how she "spends" it. This time she bought a sandwich for 70 cents but returned with 20 cents. I am not sure whether she dropped the coins or had handed the wrong amount of money to the vendor.

Her teachers gave them some forms to bring back. Some of them already became as "kiam chye" (crumpled). This was despite the fact that I had show her to put her forms into the folder which I supplied. Sigh!

Day 5

The first time she brought home homework from school. Her spelling list came back as "kiam chye" =_=

She said her Chinese textbook was being kept in school. So was her Character and Citizenship textbook. I wondered whether was it because some parents complained that the school bag was too heavy?

I asked her what she ate for recess. She said she only ate the stuff I packed for her lunchbox as she could not finish during her tea break time. So did she managed to save the money I provided for that particular day? No. She spent 30 cents on a pencil because she thought she was running out of pencils. So, she had discover the fun of stationery shop.

___________

So, that was the 1st week. Pretty exciting and confusing, isn't it?
If your child is attending school for the 1st time, how was the week for you?

Preparation for P1

Amidst the confusion of filling up the administrative forms for Primary One (P1) admission, I got the book list on the spot and bought almost everything that is listed, even the optional items. The only thing I did not buy is a thumb drive. Strange enough there was not a long queue for both bookshop and the store that sells uniform.

The trip to the new school both excites and unnerves me. Little One is growing up! She is going to P1 next year! At the same time, looking at the items that were compulsory, they include earphones, markers, whiteboard and a duster, items that I never used when I was in P1. I could see that the mode of education is different from what I used to have. More advanced technology are used. The textbooks used were so very different. I wonder whether how I was taught then were outdated. I doubt my ability to assist her should she need any help for school work.

Feelings aside, I need to keep calm. Now I only have to get her a school bag, another pair of white shoes, a new water bottle, labels for her school uniform, and some basic stationery. Maybe, a lunchbox too.

Do you remember getting ready the items your children need for their formal education?

Do you have similar feelings like I do?

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