“My child did not do well in the SA2 exams. What can I do to help?” This has to be one of the bigger, if not the biggest, points of concern for every parent.

There may be several reasons why your child did not perform as expected — stress, poor grasp of concepts, insufficient revision, the list goes on. As your child reviews his or her exam performance, take this time to discuss and determine how well he or she has taken to the syllabus, as well as the areas to work on.

Here’s what you can do during the December school holidays to ensure your child does better next year. 

1) Bridge the Foundational Gap

More often than not, if your child has not fared well in the past round of exams, it could be due to his or her poor understanding of what was tested.

“It is important for children to start working on their foundation early. This way, the gaps can be identified early, worked on and, ideally, closed. With the skills set in place by a strong foundation, they can then proceed to build more complex concepts, skills and knowledge,” says Sue Lynn Lee, Academic Director for Lower Primary programmes. 

While the holidays are the time to relax and unwind, it is also an opportune time for your child to “catch up” on his or her weaker subjects. Sit down with your child to understand where the gaps lie in his or her content knowledge and identify the topics or subjects he or she might need some help with. Recognising these problem areas early will help you decide on the next steps to help your child manage his or her subjects better.

Your child can also use this time to recap and revise topics that were covered throughout the year at a more relaxed pace and take time to fully understand the different concepts and theories.

2) Review Your Child’s Revision Plan

Understanding how your child revises his or her work can help you better understand what more can be done to improve your child’s learning process. For many, preparedness seems to be measured by the number of exercises or past papers completed.

Working on assessment papers all the time cannot guarantee that your child learns and internalises how to apply the required knowledge appropriately and effectively. It is more important to guide your child progressively in learning the right skills and answering techniques to tackle similar exam questions in future.

As part of your child’s revision, don’t forget to look over his or her past exam papers closely. For example, when reviewing the cloze passage of the English paper, you may want to analyse your child’s errors to ascertain if, for example, the problem is an inability to provide appropriate vocabulary to fill the blanks or to identify the clues.

Help your child understand why he or she might have made the mistakes he or she did and give him or her helpful tips on how to avoid these errors during the next exam.

Planning for Progress in 2020 — How Can The Learning Lab Help?

Whether it’s catching up with peers or improving future exam grades, it’s important for your child to start early.

Now that you have an idea of what your child needs help with, find out how we can better support him or her in preparing for the transition to the new academic level in 2020.

At The Learning Lab, our lessons will not only reinforce your child’s understanding of the current year’s syllabus, but will also introduce your child to topics that will be covered in the new year.

Want a sneak peek into our curriculum in 2020? Discover the enriching topics that we have in store for our nursery to junior college students.