How to help my child excel in Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE)?

It is natural for parents to be concerned about their children’s PSLE performance. Anxiety among parents is starting to build up, especially as the big date is coming close. This week, we are dedicating some time to answer some questions that worried parents may have on how to help your child prepare and do well in his/her PSLE. This is not an exhaustive list. If you have more questions, please feel free to send it to us at info@handsonlearning.com.sg.

Question: My boy's grades are not ideal and he is not worried. What should I do?

The first thing a concerned parent should do is to reflect why the boy is not worried. There may be several reasons for this. He might have put in his best effort, but is still not able to reap the results you expected. Thus, he is given up and allowing nature to take its course. He may also not be motivated in studying as he had not have an ideal school in mind to work towards. Alternatively, it may be that he has low expectations and is satisfied with his current results, despite your high expectations.

It is important to jointly address this issue with your child and try to motivate him, by helping identifying the underlying factors. One good framework to leverage is the POWER framework.

1) Plan – Discuss with him what he wants to be in the future and understand the motivations behind that goal. Once you understand his ambitions and aspirations, you can help him plan how to work towards the goal. For instance, if he wants to be a musician, you can help him identify the steps he needs to work on to get there.

2) Organise – Work together with your child to identify how you can achieve the goals, including finding the right secondary schools, researching their areas of excellences, affiliation. For instance, you can accompany him to the open house of School of the Arts and talk to teachers to understand the programme better.

3) Work on it – Help your child identify the entry requirements and guide your child to develop a plan of attack to achieve the results that can get him into his first choice school, School of the Arts. Seek help in subjects where he is weaker.

4) Encourage – It is important to provide the right support your child to work towards his goals, but do not take over the whole process. You should provide opportunities for him to achieve the goal and not force him to attend programmes you think will be helpful. For instance, let him know what enrichment classes are available to strengthen his portfolio, encourage him to select one that he likes and could do well in.

5) Review – You should continuously review his progress and praise him when he scores well in his tests or does well in his enrichment class. Whenever you give feedback, remember to be constructive. When you receive the news of his successful entry, congratulate him and ask him to think of the next steps and what he will do in the year ahead. If the application is not successful, do not reprimand your child. Instead work with him to identify alternatives.

Throughout the discussion, you can also help him to discover his strengths/talents and how these can help him in his studies now and in his life in the future. It is important to note that your role as a parent is critical to help your child do well. There are 3 tips that we would like to share with you:

1) Instead of exerting too much pressure on the child, generate enthusiasm. You can stress that PSLE is a mean (not an end) towards his secondary education. Discuss the "fun" and new challenges that he will be experiencing when he's in secondary school. In this way, the child will look forward to rather than dislike PSLE

2) Be realistic about your child's abilities when selecting secondary schools. When your child genuinely believes that he has a chance to meet the goal, he will be more willing to try. Motivation requires optimism and optimistic children are confident that if they work long and hard, and apply enough creativity, they will, in fact, succeed.

3) Reluctant learners are unwilling to learn for a reason. They often have been wounded by comments from friends or adults about their perceived abilities. Isolate the reasons behind your child's reluctance and work on them with positive encouragement and reinforcements.

Next week, we will talk about how to select the right pre-school for your child. Stay tune!

By Ms Brenda Yeow and Ms Angeline Tong

How to help your child with homework?

Parents play a critical role in educating their children. The pressure cooker society today is making it more difficult for parents to increase their involvement in their children’s school career. One good way, however, for parents to be more involved in your child’s education is through homework. Research has shown that ongoing parental involvement in homework can provide a solid foundation for children’s learning and attitudes. When you are involved and maintain high expectations for your child's performance in school, regularly do homework related activities with their children, and display a positive attitude toward homework, your child will benefit. He/she will feel confident, enjoy and learn more from school; and understand the usefulness and importance of education and school.

Admittedly, helping your child with homework isn’t the easiest tasks. Many parents are dumbfounded when their children seek help on their school assignments, especially when they have forgotten concepts thought to them years ago. Others find it difficult to motivate their children and bring them away from video games, online chats or television programmes to concentrate on their homework assignments. We have also met overly anxious parents who sent their children to so many enrichment activities that the children hardly have any energy left to complete the homework. Of course, there is always the perennial complaint from parents that there is too much or too little homework. The list is never ending and we hope that through this week’s sharing, we can provide you with some practical tips, on how you can help motivate your child complete his/her homework assignments successfully and develop the right learning habits for life. Parents with children in primary and secondary school should find these tips most relevant.

Before we discuss ways on how you can help your child, we thought it is important to remind parents how homework benefits students - Homework encourages self-discipline and responsibility by providing them an opportunity to manage time and meet deadlines, teaches children to work independently, reinforces what children have learnt in class, and helps develop good habits and the right attitudes.

Showing that you think Education and Homework are Important

Children look up to their parents and it is very important that they know their parents’ care about their learning and think that homework is important. To help your child do well in school, you should first show that you think education and homework are critical. To do that, you could:

1) Begin early in the academic year. Start sharing early in the year inspirational/ success stories of immediate family members/extended family members/close friends, especially people your child is very close to or heroes he/she is familiar with, on how education and good learning habits (through homework) has helped their success.
2) Get child to set targets/goals; plan what to do to achieve the goals; get him/her to own the achievable goals (such as improving Mathematics scores by 10 marks).
3) Set aside a regular time for your child to do his/her homework. For a younger child, you can always work with him/her to develop a schedule. Remember to set aside time for his/her hobbies and for fun. For secondary school students, they are able to develop a proper schedule, but it is important that you ensure it is a good one.
4) Remove distractions during homework time – turn off the TV and other sources of distractions, such as loud music, computer games etc.
5) Show your child that the skills he/she is learning is relevant to things he/she will do when she grows up. For example, if you want your child to be motivated learning Chinese, let him/her see you reading Chinese newspapers, books or speaking in Mandarin with other people. You can also share with them what you do at work and how Chinese has helped you (perhaps negotiating a deal with a client from Taiwan or Mainland China). To motivate your child to learn maths, you can always show him/her how maths is useful for you (such as calculating payments during groceries).
6) Besides showing your interests, you can also make homework interesting. You can make time to bring your child to libraries, science centre or museums to do research required for his/her assignment (or just for enjoyment). Draw links back to his/her school work, but also the broader environment – to create a better understanding and awareness of his/her surroundings.

Helping them with their homework, not do their homework

It is important to note that while it is critical for parents to show interest in their children’s homework, they should only give support and not take over the assignments. Remember, the homework is for the children, not for the parents! By doing your child’s work, you are depriving him/her the opportunity to understand, process and use information, and making your child more dependent on you. The following tips could help you provide the right level of guidance:

1) You can encourage good study habits by helping your child manage their time to complete assignments. For example, you can help him/her plan the steps required to complete a big research project. During holidays, you can also select a project that your child is interested in and guide him/her on the steps needed to complete the project. This would not only allow you to provide guidance to help your child break assignments into smaller tasks, it will also be a good time to build and strengthen bonds.
2) You can also talk about the assignments with your child. Make sure that he/she understands the requirements of the assignments, where he/she might have problems and whether you could provide additional resources to help in completing the assignment.
3) It is also important to watch for frustration – it might be time to give him/her a break and continue to encourage him/her that the task can be done.
4) It is important to give praise. Your child needs encouragement from people whose opinions he/she value the most – you and your spouse. Little words of commendation can go a long way in motivating your child to do better!
5) Your child also needs to know if he/she has not done the best. It is, however, to keep all feedback constructive. Instead of telling your child that he/she is stupid for solving a maths problem wrongly, try using statements like “Perhaps you might want to try solving the problem in another way.” Then give praise when he/she has corrected the mistake and explain where he/she gone wrong in the first place.

Keeping a constant eye on homework assignments

As an enlightened and involved parent, you should also constantly monitor your child’s homework assignments. With your vigilance over his/her progress, it is more likely that your child can successfully complete these assignments. The degree of monitoring depends on your child’s age, independence and how well he/she does at school. In general, you should make sure that:

1) You are always available. Primary school children, especially, like parents to be around, so that someone they trust could answer any questions they may have on any assignments.
2) You look over completed assignments to ensure they are completed. Read the feedback that teachers gave after the assignment is returned to see how well your child has done and where improvements is required. No matter how well or badly he/she has done, you should always be generous with time, love, praises and encouragement. It is also important to praise good behavior, such as completing the homework on time, completing them correctly and neat handwriting.
3) However, if your child continues to have problems finishing his/her assignments, you should talk to your child to find out what the issue could be. Give your child extra time and help if he/she has difficulties understanding the homework assignment.
4) While all distractions should be switched off during the pre-agreed homework time, parents should also monitor the number of hours their children spent on TV and computer games. This could be an underlying reason why homework is not completed on time.

Parents should also not hesitate to contact teachers, if they wish to clarify something with regards to the homework assignment or when their children are not able to complete the homework frequently. Homework is not only a good way for parents to be involved in their children’s education; it is also a common platform for teachers, parents and families to improve students’ learning.

By Ms Brenda Yeow and Ms Angeline Tong