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Saturday, November 26, 2016

More Results 2016

I am proud of this one. When he came, he was so badly behaved that he made his Mother cry.


This one has always been a joy to teach. He grasps quickly and never makes the same mistake twice.

This child learnt enough and left me before PSLE.



This boy did not do well. He only achieved a B in English. In fact, he got a B for every subject at PSLE. However, I still want to celebrate him. In the last 6 months, his attitude improved tremendously and this is the attitude he will carry with him to secondary school. Unfortunately, the PSLE cannot be aced with only 6 months of hard work. I am still EXTRAORDINARILY proud of this boy who has definite cognitive weaknesses when it comes to language acquisition, that really needed time and therapy to fix. He was a good boy but we did not have time.

We have mixed ability classes. Necessarily, we will have a range of results depending on (1) the IQ of the child, (2) the degree of parental emotional and scaffolding support and (3) the strength of partnership with Dr. Pet.

We set high goals for the children and are demanding when it comes to quality of homework. We reward work ethic (not results) with specially sourced gifts from all over the world - see HERE. Children with poor work ethic or are deaf to feedback for improvement are firmly dealt with, and sometimes, asked to leave the centre. However, when the children have worked hard and put in their best, and still bring back results that are not ideal... it is time to hug the child and be proud of him. 

We do not expel children for poor results. We do not punish children for poor results. 

Now that PSLE is over, the children cannot do anything about their results anymore. Punishing them achieves nothing. It is time to focus on the features of the child that are not summarised in the PSLE t-score. This boy loves to cook. He won a cooking competition by making chicken cordon bleu...

... emmmm... even I have not tried making chicken cordon bleu...

Little M brought home to me a B in English and I am proud of him. I am proud to say that I taught him and he got a B for me. I am not ashamed of my Little M.

On the day we went to get The Son's PSLE results, friends texted me to ask for The Son's t-score. Indeed, people I hardly knew wanted to know his t-score. I guess, being a blogger gives complete strangers the license to pry into my son's privacy. I told close friends his t-score. Those who were not so close, I rebelliously said, "I think I will put him in Yishun North Secondary School because it is a good school and has Shooting as a CCA. If you love me as your friend, do not judge my son and me based on our PSLE t-score."

This allowed me to differentiate true friends from mere kaypohs. Those kaypohs who cared for us after hearing Yishun North Secondary, became friends and today, they are fully aware of exactly how well The Son is doing. 2 major organisations negotiated with each other so that both could have him as a 16 year old intern in Nov-Dec 2016. Each organisation agreed to forego one week of The Son's time so that both could have him.

He may not have scored in the top PSLE score in the nation but The Son comes in a total package that is desirable to potential employers.

20 years from now, Little M will be a Michelin starred chef and I will get to eat for free at any of his restaurants. I have a good eye for talent. It was my honour to have taught him.

A child is worth more than his grades.

See more results HERE.


2 comments:

Azreen and Hafiz said...

Not sure why your posts always leave me teary-eyed. Could be because of the way you celebrate every child's ability. Or because reading about that little one that lags behind resonates with what I am dealing with. Or because I so badly wanna get him off your wait list and into your classes. Or all of the above. Either way, I'll wait and hope that one day, he will be one of your success stories in your posts. xx

Petunia Lee said...

:-)