The first semester exams have just ended and the results are in. BB & GG have fallen a full band down in raw scores. I asked around and was told this happens. Apparently Primary 1 & 2 are supposed to be the easy years and then Primary 3 takes that up a big notch! But the results have resulted in both BB & GG (and a very angry mama) being very disappointed with their marks. So we’ve decided to come up with strategies to make sure this does not happen for the next exam. Even though their school is not one of the branded schools, but just a neighbourhood school which is not a neighbourhood school, the papers were set at a level just slightly above what was taught in school. In BB’s class, apparently 40% of the class failed in the Maths paper! But the school also has alternative assessment so those marks may increase scores for the children and that 40% may drop.

The past few days I have been reading about about what is possibly the most dreaded exams every Singaporean child will undergo – the PSLE (Primary School Leaving Exam). Children here take it at the end of their primary school education when they are about 12 years old and in Primary 6. Although BB & GG have another 3.5 years before they sit for the PSLE, what I read has made me really scared. This exam pretty much determines your future and to get admission in a good secondary school means you need a very good/decent score. Also the exams are apparently set at about a year to two years more advanced than what the children are taught in school and all this higher order thinking skills means that they need to start now! So operation PSLE will start from the school holidays this year. I need to get BB & GG to start reading books meant for teens now so that they will be reading adult literature when they reach P5/P6. This will help them in English. Now to source for resources for Maths, Science and Hindi.