Focus on a love for learning, not academic results: MOE

[janet88]

If you are thinking P5/6 is bad, wait till you see the secondary kids. My S4 girl sleeps an average of 4-5 hours a day and whole weekends burnt on catching up on her sleep, hw and school stuffs.

the jump from p5 to p6 in terms of workload is no joke...i agree on this.
son catches up on precious sleep over the weekends. he has supplementary until 430-5pm on weekdays. super tired but still has homework to be done.

[pirate]

Even top universities have DSA sports or something like that, you know?

[Imp75]

hi-5! Alng

I especially like your statement "We also want to find time for him to watch TV, play ipad and more importantly, rot".

Just sharing a bit.....my girl trains 16h per week, has ballet 2x a week on top of that (which I am cutting to once now due to PSLE and forbidding ballet comps this year.....yes sob sob!)
My girl is luckier in the sense that she still has time to rot and stay connected to friends via social media (though that has come under close scrutiny this year too) because she doesn't have tuition (ok this year I sign her up for 1 becos I am getting ks) nor extra work assigned (except near exam time). With this kind of lax parenting and child's effort, I don't know whether she can survive in IP seriously!!! but I am reluctant to take away her personal time at the expense of academic pursuits!!! I don't want her to grow up to be a dull child who only remembers about mugging and nothing else.

Dilemma indeed!

[alng]

hi-5! Alng

I especially like your statement "We also want to find time for him to watch TV, play ipad and more importantly, rot".

Just sharing a bit.....my girl trains 16h per week, has ballet 2x a week on top of that (which I am cutting to once now due to PSLE and forbidding ballet comps this year.....yes sob sob!)
My girl is luckier in the sense that she still has time to rot and stay connected to friends via social media (though that has come under close scrutiny this year too) because she doesn't have tuition (ok this year I sign her up for 1 becos I am getting ks) nor extra work assigned (except near exam time). With this kind of lax parenting and child's effort, I don't know whether she can survive in IP seriously!!! but I am reluctant to take away her personal time at the expense of academic pursuits!!! I don't want her to grow up to be a dull child who only remembers about mugging and nothing else.

Dilemma indeed!

With 16h of training, is she achieving the expected and desired outcome? Sometime back, we were being "advised" to increase the training hours for our son so as to improve his skills. We did not proceed. Those who proceeded are really training at this kind of hours per week. Of course, their national ranking has improved too. :-)

[BlueBells]

We also want to find time for him to watch TV, play ipad and more importantly, rot.

Why would you be the one finding time for him to watch TV, play ipad, etc. ?

Let your child find his own time - let him learn the gives and takes on the things he wants to do. He will be more efficient if he manages it on his own.

[alng]

We also want to find time for him to watch TV, play ipad and more importantly, rot.

Why would you be the one finding time for him to watch TV, play ipad, etc. ?

Let your child find his own time - let him learn the gives and takes on the things he wants to do. He will be more efficient if he manages it on his own.

Currently, if leave to him to manage whatever time he has at home (which is not a lot now), he will sacrifice his hw and sleep time over ipad thus intervention is still needed. But I do agree with you that he has to learn to manage his own time.

[HAPPYH]

...

If we apply motivation theories, KPIs/desired outcomes/incentives determine behaviours. If the rule of the games are to get good academic results and be competitive in a sports, there is no surprise at the extreme actions of parents today. The playing field in education is no longer level.

Who determine the rules of the game? The authority. Who play the games? Parents and students.

The recent tightening of appeal leaves parents with 2 choices. Either VERY good in sports/arts/music to successfully DSA or concentrate in academic studies. There is no room for in between because even a mere 1 - 2 points will make a difference in which school our children go to.

If I have another child going through PSLE, I will sacrifice the sports/arts/music if my child doesn't have obvious talent that enable him/her to compete nationally/internationally. I am playing the game.

It should be VERY VERY VERY good. One in how many thousands?

[floppy]

I know, I know...sob sob! We are trying to work things out. But 10 hours of training must be cut too. And the expectation for sports must also be reduced. He has tuitions for languages only and we still have to guide him for the other two subjects. You know each language can already take up 4 hours of tuition per week due to the separation of writing and comprehension/language. We also want to find time for him to watch TV, play ipad and more importantly, rot.

What has gone wrong? I remember that I could even take afternoon naps daily when I was at P6 and I did ok for my PSLE without tuition. Though I missed RGS by a few points then, I was happy with my secondary school. I really pity the kids now.

Maybe the question is:
Is this what he wants?

[floppy]

Even very good in sports also must think thrice whether can survive in IP schools....

My gal is talented in her sports (national level ranking) but at best, I think her psle score hovers around low/mid 25x....not sure can survive in NYGH or not.....or give up DSA use psle go any other mid-tier school......dilemma!!!!

Parenting nowadays is a very demanding job!

IMHO... your case is hardly a dilemma.

Low/mid 25x will place your child in the top 15 to 20% of her cohort, hardly mid-tier level. Any of the better girls' schools (NYGH, RGS, SCGS, CGS, etc) would fit your girl and she would likely benefit from mixing around with the top sportsman / smarter kids. It's not the same as those who DSA with t-score around 200.

[floppy]

The recent tightening of appeal leaves parents with 2 choices. Either VERY good in sports/arts/music to successfully DSA or concentrate in academic studies. There is no room for in between because even a mere 1 - 2 points will make a difference in which school our children go to.

If I have another child going through PSLE, I will sacrifice the sports/arts/music if my child doesn't have obvious talent that enable him/her to compete nationally/internationally. I am playing the game.

Only 2 choices? No wonder parents and children are feeling stressed out and getting more kiasu by the minute.

What happen to the choice of letting children grow up like normal children. Getting into a top school is not the be-all and end-all of the child's existence. Like I said earlier, if parents' aren't willing to change or open up their mind, the kids will forever be stuck in the game.