Monday, January 14, 2013

Starting Primary One #10 - The School's Curriculum & Practice

DinoBoy survived 3 days of school without any major or out of the norm issues.  However he was down with high fever on the 3rd day, it was 38.8Deg when student care called me that afternoon.  Lucky I was on leave so I was able to rush to the school within 15mins, I saw him sleeping in his sleeping bag along the corridor (away from the human traffic of course), he looks lethargic and gave me a sleepy look when I was there.  We immediately heads off to the nearby clinic but only managed to see a doctor a full 50mins later!  The clinic was crowded to the max, every one; adults and children, were either coughing, sniffing or looking lethargic.  Strong virus going on!

He sleeps while waiting for his turn to see doctor

Anyway, on the second day of school DinoBoy came home with rolls and rolls of letters in his bag.  Yupe, you read it right, ROLLS of letter.  His teacher told the students "not to fold the letters" so he roll them up and put them at on top of his bag.  They practically spring out at me when I opened his bag later that day to unpack his bag.  So here are the letters;

Welcome letter from the school informing the parents about certain things;






Letter from the Chinese teacher;


Letter informing us of the Integrated English Language Curriculum for Primary 1 students;


Letters informing us of the Co-Curriculum Programme for Primary 1 students;



When it comes to anything that has to do with money, it is something we parents would rather not receive or read about.  Nevertheless, it is a MUST for us to pay these as its part of the  school curriculum.


Luckily the school subsidize some of the fees and thank goodness our government set up the Edusave scheme to help pay for enrichment classes etc.  Therefore for now we only need to buy a 10 slots divider for Chinese and pay $21 for the National Geographic magazine.

School timetable!  Something that all parents are eager to receive.  Not very happy that class ends at 2.30pm on Mondays and Tuesdays though.



Student Handbook, a very important book, besides having information on the school's song, values, rules & consequences, Children Day's song and a handful of others, it is also a book where the teacher will write notes to parent, vice versa.  Home work will also be written in this book as show in the photo below, so remember to check the handbook every day to see if there is any home work or any things that your child needs to bring to school etc.


For our school, parents are not allowed into the school after the first day of school for safety & security reasons, but don't worry, the Primary One students will have a buddy from the older class during recess time to bring them to the canteen, find a seat for them and accompany them to buy food.  However, this only for the first 3 days, after that the Primary One students are on their on.  On the other hand I have heard of other schools allowing parents to enter the school for the 3 days and having the buddy system for a week so check out with the school of your choice on both of this.
  
On a lighter note, he drew this on Friday (the day he had high fever) during Art class.  He wanted to write Frisbee but does not know how to spell thought its not far from the correct word, he must have use his phonics skills to spell the word.


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For the next few weeks I will be sharing our experience on our preparation for DinoBoy's Primary One.  I hope it will serve as a useful guide to parents when its their time to get their child ready for the new journey and have an idea how Parent Volunteer works.

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17 comments:

  1. This is crazy! I have a headache already looking at all the letters with their headings,subheadings and the amount of money to pay! All I can say is... SIGH! This is our school system for us!

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    1. That's how I feel when I see those letters too. However this time we do not need to pay anything since school and Edusave pays for all. Unless your child's Edusave is $0 then you have to pay cash :(

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  2. wow! I am absolutely overwhelmed! Goodness. If we forget to check the comms book, then we will miss out the important notifications?

    I am the $_$ here - how does the EduSave work? Does the parent need to start up any account and where does the money come from?

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    1. eh click the link and read lah haha~
      No need to sign up, its auto set up for schooling Singaporean kids.

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  3. That's a lot of additional programmes that the school has partnered external providers to run for P1 students. Do other primary schools do this too?

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    1. Not too sure but my guess is for those "branded" school they will either have the same or most likely more programmes for the students. BTW, mine is not branded school, just a neighbourhood school =)

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    2. I showed your blog entry to my husband. he couldn't believe his eyes. we feel really out of touch with the MOE system and primary school system. we want to enrol our boys to a neighbourhood school in future, but even neighbourhood schools these days are so 'on!

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    3. even neighbourhood schools these days are so on! my hubby couldn't believe his eyes when i showed him your sharing here.

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    4. I guess to keep up with the rest of the "elite" schools they have to raise their standard.

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  4. Whao..so many additional programs for the kids and REMEDIAL for P1???? REally so "ON" for Z's school.

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    1. Exactly! He will be busier then me + Dinopapa add together!

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  5. Wah he actually quite creative huh, rolling up the papers haha

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    1. haha~ I don't even know where he get the idea from.

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  6. I must say I'm totally out of touch with the school system these days. The remedial lessons sound scary to me. Is it necessary for every child? Because if it is, then I think the curriculum's probably not suitable for the cohort. Shouldn't the syllabus should be covered within the school hours and covered sufficiently for most children to understand w/o having extra lessons?

    But I like some of the additional non-academic programmes that they have. Quite interesting...

    How does your boy like school so far? :) Have they started receiving homework?

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    1. If I'm not wrong the remedial class is not for all students, the teacher will see which students will need it.

      The Jump Jam is very tiring! Ytd my boy came home and complained that his leg is very painful. Too much exercise in 2 hours ahahaa~

      So far he is enjoying it a lot, homework are minimum now some days no homework. I guess they will have more homework gradually.

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  7. his handwriting is so cute! oh i remember those school diaries! they are the best! so much space to write in. better than any store bought ones!

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    1. I have friends saying that his handwriting is neat. Neat??? Ok ok not bad but have to work on the sizing of his words haha~

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