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Time schedule & life of Secondary School

Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 6:13 pm
by daisyt
I am wondering how is the time schedule of your kids in sec school ? IP and non IP.

I am a bit worried and lost. My girl in IP, sec 1 and she is like so busy everyday. Morning she has to wake up at 5:30am and I try to insist her to go to bed at 10pm for sufficient sleep.

Every weekdays, she is always so busy, lots of homework and sometimes hardly has time to talk to her because don't want to disturb her.

Monday after 3rd language, reach home about 7:45.
Tuesday & Friday, after CCA, reach home about 7pm.
Wednesday, after either care and share or contact time with seniors, reach home about 4:30pm.
Thursday, no extra sessions to stay back after school hour, so can reach home earlier, about 3:30pm but then has piano lessons at home.
Sunday, almost spend the whole day doing homework or research, starting from 11:00 am till 10pm. In between has lunch and dinner time.

Everyday she is complaining tired and every Monday, she is dragging herself to go school. Saturday is the only time free and we would have some outing on that day so that she could relax herself.

Is this normal in Sec school life ? Already 2 months have past and she is still not getting used to this tight schedule. Is this normal ? She seems not to enjoy sec school life as much as primary school life. Is it common ? I am seeing her smiling face lesser compare to last year. I always talk to her, counsel her and trying to make her happy but seems not much effect. She always give me many negative feedbacks about sec school life and classmates. Any good advices ? Thanks :(

Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 10:58 pm
by lizawa
Hi daisyt.

My son also in IP. Very busy, with lots of homework, projects, presentation to prepare.

Monday is his earliest day, so reach home around 2pm+
Tues and Wed, between 3 - 6pm, depending on what activities they have.
Thursday, 3rd lang, but I go and pick him up, so reach home 7:05pm.
Friday, CCA until 5:30pm, Saturday, CCA 8:30 - 12:30pm.
Sleeps between 10:30 - 11pm. Wakes up at 6:10am.

Because we don't stay too far from school, so he doesn't need to spend too much time traveling. Bus journey is only 15min, excluding waiting time.

Yes, he also complains very busy, no time to watch TV and do other stuff. But I think he has some fun classmates and teachers, so he is still quite ok. He feels extremely stressful during the period with tests. So just have to help him destress, by telling jokes or talking "nonsense", which he seems to like. No high targets set for tests, just do your best. And he will take like 15 min to do some light reading before sleeping. It helps him sleep better. So slowly adjusting..... i guess different people take different time.

Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 12:00 am
by Zann
Same for my son, he is getting later for bed. Initially 930pm , now 10pm+ because of school work. He is also complaining tired and having not enough sleep. He just had HCL test today, not sure if he could pass. :pray: He does not have a very good foundation in Chinese and hardly have time to read nowadays. In order not to miss his favourite cartoon show, AVATAR, he eat his dinner during the show time. His complains no play time :wink: . When we go out for dinner during weekend, he quickily take the time to play handphone game.
Sec school life wasn't this way in the past, right? CCA was only on Saturday, and no such thing as 3rd language. One can take it up later at CC if really interested.

Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 11:43 am
by pinky
My son is in a non IP school and his schedule is still manageable at the
moment:
Mon/Wed-back home around 2pm, English tuition on Wed evening
Tues/Fri-CCA till 5.30pm
Thurs-enrichment class till 4.30pm
Sat-CCA 8am - 1pm
Sun-Chinese tuition in the afternoon
Sleeps at 10pm, wakes up at 6.10am, journey to school takes about 15 mins by bus.
Compared to IP students, I feel he has the luxury of having small breaks in between and a lighter workload.
He goes jogging/cycling whenever possible to build up stamina and de-stress. If he does complain
of heavy workload, I will show him the schedule of IP students , that
will surely do the trick!!!

Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 2:50 pm
by ApronMama
My nephew is also in an IP programme, but he did some "give and take " to adjust his schedule recently. I just learnt that he did not take up the offer of 3rd lang cos he learnt that many have dropped 3rd lang in year two due to tight schedule or enrichment events. He foresees it is likely to be the same for him. His parent also think that way so agreed with him. He also free himself up on Sat morning, for project meeting or sometimes school activity, by switching from one CCA which falls on Sat to another one which falls on weekday afternoon. :lol:

As for sport and entertainment, he has a table-teniis bat in his school bag and he plays table-tennis with his schoolmates during recess eveyday.

I think it is Ok to keep them engaged in school or busy with learrning. It will be more worrying if they are too free and go hang around outside school .

Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 3:04 pm
by daisyt
Hi, thanks for the feedback and advices. Hhhmmm ... all the feedbacks are from boys. Any feedback from the girls ? Somehow, I feel that girls seem to need more time to adjust to changes and they are more emotional. :?

Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 11:53 pm
by ApronMama
daisyt wrote:Hi, thanks for the feedback and advices. Hhhmmm ... all the feedbacks are from boys. Any feedback from the girls ? Somehow, I feel that girls seem to need more time to adjust to changes and they are more emotional. :?
Your girl in co-ed or girl's IP school? Not sure if there is any different.

Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 8:46 am
by csc
daisyt,

You may want to delve more into your daughter's feelings towards school life and classmates in general. Sometimes, the ability to fit into a group may affect the overall morale of a student, especially so at this adolescent stage. So you may want to go to the root of the problem. Is she just physically tired due to the demanding schedule or it's more of an emotional problem?

It takes times for new relationships to form. Is she the "quiet" type? Encourage her to interact more and develop friendships. I think having good friends in school and interests in CCA will make school life interesting, no matter how exhausting it is!

And sec school life is indeed physically demanding ,likewise for my son. Three days in a week, he will spend 12 - 13 hours in school, longer than my husband's working hours!!

But, he's enjoying school life as he looks forward to his CCA and other activities organised by the school. He does , on the other hand, wish for more time to laze around to read his books and sports news (which he has to skim thru now due to lack of time).

Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 9:48 am
by daisyt
Hi csc, she is very open type, not quiet and she has close friends in school. I see her problem is both physical and emotion. In primary, seldom had homework, no need to do homework in weekdays, not to say in weekend. Now she feels her weekend are being "stolen" by the school works. CCA was not so intensive. Emotion - she still misses her primary school classmates a lot and likes to compare the difference of the classmates, the teachers. I think like lizawa said, different people take different time to get use. To her, basically EVERYTHING is different now when compare to primary school time.

Same as your son, whenever she has free time, she likes to laze around to read her books. I hardly see her watching TV nowadays.

Actually I heard from her, a few of her primary classmates have the same feelsing as her, espeically girls. Boys are OK so far, they seems to get used to changes very easily.

I am seeing some improvements on her but still need to give her encouragement, advices and cheer her up.

Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 9:50 am
by daisyt
Hi apronmama, she is is co-ed IP. I told her no matter which school she is in, there are sure problems here and there, they are just different set of problems. :lol: