Re: DSA 2021
Posted: Wed May 05, 2021 1:01 am
Hi to all parents whose kid is taking psle this year. I writing to share with you my experience of dsa 2020 with my DD and hipefully it can help you in one way or another in your kid journey.
My DD is from a neighbourhood school in the west, in fact it is the most “unwanted” primary school in the neighbourhood, with many many foreigners students, much more than locals.
I never believe in forcing my kids to tution, therefore i will always let them decide if they need to have any extra lesson outside. Happy to say she was “lazy” , helping me save quite abit on tution fees.
Since primary 2 or 3, i have been telling my DD if there is a subject that can acheive full marks, it will definitely going to be maths. These words have big impact to her as her subsequent exam for math has always been full marks, except sometime 1 or 2 careless calculation mistakes where she lost marks. But these carelessness actually motivate her more because her heart feels pain for giving the marks back to the teacher.
An Apple a day keep the doctor away. Since P5 i started to give her a maths problem sum every day for practise, which i pick up from some parents post in the facebook group post. From there slowly we learn together and understand together. Slowly from our learning , i realise her thought and process sometime are different from mine. she will explain her steps to me, and it makes sense. I thought her concept is much better than me. I told my wife about it and we decide why not let her try out Dsa for math domain?
We have our concerns too.
1) Will my DD have lesser chance since she is not from atas pri sch? She is not even the best in her sch.
2) will she be demoralize if kena rejected and affect her mood towards prelim and psle?
3) will the school even shortlist her? Her prior math cert is just a P5 MO which her pri sch made her participate, got a gold which she also dun know how she did it.
After some discussion with her, she decided to try. Her thought “no harm trying”
If get shortlist by sch, can hv free experience for interview. For a 12 year old kid, these opportunity for interview is rare right? We want her to embrace the experience and journey of dsa, while not going to let it affect her preparation for prelim and psle regardless of the outcome.
Next question what school to choose? She say girl school, and after some read up and decision, she chosen nygh and 2 others girl school. I didnt even bother to ask her why not rgs. It her decision, let her enjoy it.
To our surprise, she was shortlisted by all 3 schools. Test and assisgment were done in her pri sch after lesson end, follow by e interview.
From there she roughly can tell which sch she has a feel good feeling ( higher chance of co or wl). She feel she had the least chance for nygh cos she couldnt even finish all the questions in the paper. And she also forgot all the questions for interview. (Guess she must have mess it up). Further more, there were another 2 school mates applying for nygh too. They are always better than her in terms of academy results.
Dsa outcome was released before psle. It was kept away from her till psle was over, she was accepted by 2 schools, and nygh was of them. We dun want complacency to set in.
This dsa journey has actually prompt her to even excel her usual self for psle. We expect her psle result to be around 250-259, in the end her result was way beyond our expectation. She was out to prove the school wrong for not accepting her because she thought no chance for all 3 dsa schools.
End of day , this dsa journey prove to be a good one. We are happy for her and glad we involve her in decision making and embracing the opportunity given to her.
The sec sch teachers in charge have years of experience in dsa , it is definitely not something we as parents know what they are looking for or looking at. What we parents can do is to let our kids make the final decision and reassure them that no matter what the outcome, it is definitely not going to be end of the world. In fact it is just the beginning, the beginning of a new learning journey. Let the kids write their own journey, you be surprised where it is going to lead them to. Let them know it is not how successful they are that define them, it is how fast they can “get up “ when they “fall down” that will define them. So let dsa be an opportunity for them to learn, even though the chance of “falling down” is high.
My best wishes to all P6 in this year psle.
My DD is from a neighbourhood school in the west, in fact it is the most “unwanted” primary school in the neighbourhood, with many many foreigners students, much more than locals.
I never believe in forcing my kids to tution, therefore i will always let them decide if they need to have any extra lesson outside. Happy to say she was “lazy” , helping me save quite abit on tution fees.
Since primary 2 or 3, i have been telling my DD if there is a subject that can acheive full marks, it will definitely going to be maths. These words have big impact to her as her subsequent exam for math has always been full marks, except sometime 1 or 2 careless calculation mistakes where she lost marks. But these carelessness actually motivate her more because her heart feels pain for giving the marks back to the teacher.
An Apple a day keep the doctor away. Since P5 i started to give her a maths problem sum every day for practise, which i pick up from some parents post in the facebook group post. From there slowly we learn together and understand together. Slowly from our learning , i realise her thought and process sometime are different from mine. she will explain her steps to me, and it makes sense. I thought her concept is much better than me. I told my wife about it and we decide why not let her try out Dsa for math domain?
We have our concerns too.
1) Will my DD have lesser chance since she is not from atas pri sch? She is not even the best in her sch.
2) will she be demoralize if kena rejected and affect her mood towards prelim and psle?
3) will the school even shortlist her? Her prior math cert is just a P5 MO which her pri sch made her participate, got a gold which she also dun know how she did it.
After some discussion with her, she decided to try. Her thought “no harm trying”
If get shortlist by sch, can hv free experience for interview. For a 12 year old kid, these opportunity for interview is rare right? We want her to embrace the experience and journey of dsa, while not going to let it affect her preparation for prelim and psle regardless of the outcome.
Next question what school to choose? She say girl school, and after some read up and decision, she chosen nygh and 2 others girl school. I didnt even bother to ask her why not rgs. It her decision, let her enjoy it.
To our surprise, she was shortlisted by all 3 schools. Test and assisgment were done in her pri sch after lesson end, follow by e interview.
From there she roughly can tell which sch she has a feel good feeling ( higher chance of co or wl). She feel she had the least chance for nygh cos she couldnt even finish all the questions in the paper. And she also forgot all the questions for interview. (Guess she must have mess it up). Further more, there were another 2 school mates applying for nygh too. They are always better than her in terms of academy results.
Dsa outcome was released before psle. It was kept away from her till psle was over, she was accepted by 2 schools, and nygh was of them. We dun want complacency to set in.
This dsa journey has actually prompt her to even excel her usual self for psle. We expect her psle result to be around 250-259, in the end her result was way beyond our expectation. She was out to prove the school wrong for not accepting her because she thought no chance for all 3 dsa schools.
End of day , this dsa journey prove to be a good one. We are happy for her and glad we involve her in decision making and embracing the opportunity given to her.
The sec sch teachers in charge have years of experience in dsa , it is definitely not something we as parents know what they are looking for or looking at. What we parents can do is to let our kids make the final decision and reassure them that no matter what the outcome, it is definitely not going to be end of the world. In fact it is just the beginning, the beginning of a new learning journey. Let the kids write their own journey, you be surprised where it is going to lead them to. Let them know it is not how successful they are that define them, it is how fast they can “get up “ when they “fall down” that will define them. So let dsa be an opportunity for them to learn, even though the chance of “falling down” is high.
My best wishes to all P6 in this year psle.