Secondary 2 Week 22 Update

This was week one of the June school holidays, but both BB & GG had to go to school, though mostly on different days.

BB had a space camp and his Math Olympiad test. The space camp which was a one day camp at the Science Centre was not something he really enjoyed since it focused mainly on the robotics part of space travel. He is not a big fan of robotics, preferring the actual aviation related topics to that, so he did not come home impressed. He has another space camp this week, this one a two-day camp where I am guessing they will also focus on the aviation part of space travel. They are also going to have a NASA engineer to come and talk to the students, so I do know that this is something BB is looking forward to!

The Maths Olympiad test was ok, according to BB. Some of the questions were very easy and some were difficult that he could not even attempt. The other days, he just spent at home, playing on his phone and the laptop, though I did make him do some of his holiday homework and revise some concepts.

GG had English Oral exams on one day. She spent more time travelling to school and back than she did in school that day! This was because her roll number in class is one and this meant that she was out of the exam in 15 minutes! She also had choir practice for three days. Their choir is putting together a villain-themed song and dance routine to a k-pop song. The choir has become an all-girl choir now that the two boys who were there graduated. On the last day, she came home with a crepe bandage on her leg because of the excessive dancing!

This was week one, there are still three more weeks to go and I wonder how this holiday will pan out! Have a wonderful Sunday…..

Secondary 2 Week 21 Update

The holidays are here! School ended and the holidays started officially yesterday and will go on till 26 June. They get an extra day this year since Hari Raya Puasa or Ramzan Id is on 26 June which is a public holiday in Singapore. 

We had parent teacher meetings for both of them on Friday and the comments from their teachers could not be different. 

First BB’s report. Except for Maths, he didn’t do well in other subjects. We spoke with his form teachers who teach him Science and English and they said he is quite talkative in class. This actually came as a surprise to me as he is fairly quiet at home. But apparently either he is talking with his friends or someone is talking to him and so he feels obligated to respond. He is also quite messy and disorganised, which I agree with and who can forget comments about his handwriting! His teachers mentioned that the O level papers are not marked in Singapore and unless his writing improves, the marker may not spend time trying to understand what he is trying to say. So that’s my project for the holidays. 

Now to GG. She has gotten very positive remarks from all her teachers as her school allows us to consult individual subject teachers unlike BB’s school. One of her teachers called her ‘an angel’ and all very very appreciative of her work ethic and attitude in school. They were very supportive of her ambition to do something in mass communication as they also felt it was something she would do well, given her love for the humanities as well as her strong grasp of the English language and her skills in writing and speaking. She needs to work on Science as that seems to be her weakest subject and I am quite seriously considering if I should start them both for tuition in the subject. 

This was our week, which somehow seemed to fly. This week, both have school, but on different days so I’ll have each one at home, maybe time for some 1-1 with them. 

Secondary 2 Week 20 Update

This was the penultimate week of school before they break for the mid-year holidays and other than paper checking, the children had some fun in school. 

GG went for a two day coding workshop. Initially she was very resistant to the idea of coding, even after I explained how it was a life skill these days. Her reasoning was that she was planning to major in humanities so coding which was a science subject was of no use to her. But she enjoyed the workshop so much that she was super excited to go back to school for the next day’s session. She also did a geography investigation where they interviewed residents near their school on their take on the amenities found there and what they liked/disliked about the neighbourhood. They now have to do a report and present it to their class. 

BB was the big surprise this week. His school’s lifelong learning programme is music and arts and as part of this, they had a music fest in school where students had to make groups and perform like a band where they have one or two students singing and the others playing instruments.  Now although BB was in his school choir in primary school, after his voice broke almost two years back, he has refused to sing at all, being very self-conscious about his half childish and half adult voice. So when he told me he was going to sing, I was actually surprised and GG and I landed up at his school to listen to him. We were pleasantly surprised. He did a great job of singing One Direction’s Night Changes and they were the only group who got calls of encore and one more song from the audience which mostly comprised his cohort and some parents. After the concert and the next day, many students came up to him to tell him he had sung well. The best accolade for him came from his principal. He met her in the corridor and she stopped and told him he sang very well. BB was so happy when he came home that day!

This week is the parent teacher meeting in both schools and then they break for almost a month. Both have activities the first 10 days of the holidays and then it’s play time for them. 

Secondary 2 Week 19 Update 

Happy Mothers Day to all the lovely mum’s who read this blog!

Exams ended for both the children this week and they were home on Friday because it was marking day in both schools. 

Next week will be paper checking in school before they get their report books the week after next.

BB got the second highest marks in English, which his teacher messaged them in the class WhatsApp chat group. But the bar was set very low as only five children in a class of almost 40 passed! We need to wait till they get the papers back to see what actually happened. 

This week, BB will be performing in his school. His school’s Lifelong Learning Programme is music and the arts, so he is going to sing in the class concert. He just passed me the tickets yesterday so that’s something I am looking forward to. 

Secondary 2 Week 18 Update

Again exam week. The week started with a public holiday on Monday which is the best kind of a holiday (other than a Friday holiday)!

BB had another day off because of Mother tongue exam so he was able to stay home and study for his exams. 

During the week, GG came back from her Maths exam saying there were some questions which they were not taught about. I immediately wrote to her maths teacher (after finding who he was in the school group photo and then digging his name and email address because GG didn’t know his full name and there were two male teachers with the last name in the Maths department). He got back to me the next day telling me they will get back to me and after a day, I got a couple of emails from the HOD explaining the situation. It was a logical explanation and I was happy with the outcome. What happened was a single line explanation last year made a 3 mark question this year! I am quite happy the school was quite proactive in reaching out to a parent to sort out the questions I had. 

Exams end next week with Friday being a holiday for both where both school Teachers will be marking their papers. So I have to plan some post exam activity for them then.