It is only natural to feel anxious when our kids are taking
examinations. As parents, we often feel that the responsibility of children performing well in their
exams partially lies with us.Since Renzo entered Primary school last year, I've been going through revision with him before his term tests, just like most other parents do. I must say I'm really blessed that Renzo has never given me any frustrating moments or hair-pulling experience. He even told me that exam paper to him, is just a set of questions which he should already have answers to. I was pretty impressed with how calm and composed this little Primary 2 kid is. Of course slowly I figured out that he's probably just too
Recently, this famous school Principal letter to parents has taken the internet by storm. A friend of mine also shared that her girl's school principal advised parents during a parent-teacher-meeting session, that parents should refrain from reminding their children about upcoming test dates. As they have been reminded often by teachers in class, it's added stress to keep telling them about the same at home.
Interestingly, I do notice that compared to actual exams, Renzo has been performing better for his mock tests in the past, it has nothing to do with the difficulty level of the test papers because sometimes the mock tests can be even harder. And I do suspect that Renzo has unknowingly taken on certain level of pressure from my constant reminders before exams. So this term, I've decided to take a step back, since he's only in Primary 2 and there are plenty of chances to salvage his results, even if he fails his paper due to lack of preparation. We didn't even remind him on his test dates (we do have the dates pasted on the wall which he could easily refer to), let alone helping him with revision this term.After the exam period was over, waiting for result became extremely torturing this time as we totally have no idea how he fares since we didn't prepare him before exams. He didn't do any revision either, but of course he followed his routine to complete his daily learning in the afternoon. We spent all our weekends during his exam period at Wild Wild Wet, I didn't feel like uploading our fun pictures on social media as all my other friends were sharing their tips (or at times struggles too) on how they prepare their kids for the upcoming term test.
End of the day, I was the one who stared in wide-eyed wonder at Renzo's SA1 results. Again, Renzo passed with flying colors, indeed his results for all sujects were better than what we expected. When being asked how did he manage to score well without any preparation before his tests by me, he answered, "I know, I just need to learn and practise everyday!", with the look of incomparable determination on his face!The daily afternoon self learning routine we've instilled at home for Renzo seems to be working really well. Even on those days when I had to rush for work and forgot to leave any "smart work" aka assessment book for him, he would take his own initiative and work on a few pages for each subject. At the same time, he has plenty of play time when he gets to work on this Gundam models, Lego bricks or simply zone out in his cozy corner doing absolutely nothing!
I'm ending this post with a book I would like to recommend to all pupils, I believe this book helped Renzo tremendously in getting 12/12 for his English composition.
Will I be preparing Renzo for his term 3 papers? I guess not. I'm going to give him a stress-free exam period in hopes that he could perform his best again. But please don't get me wrong, not preparing him doesn't mean not caring about how he gets himself prepared. I will still be checking his school worksheets and as soon as I notice he needs help, I will step in and I will stay open minded about tuitions and enrichment lessons. He's never attended any as of now, but he might need it when things get tougher with one more subject added into his curriculum during upper primary.
