Report Card Day

UPDATE: I went through Abang's exam papers and he in fact made a mistake in his Bahasa Malaysia paper! So he didn't get 100% for it! It's ok, he just shrugged when I told him. His teacher was quite apologetic when I pointed it out to her ... heheh ...

Today was "Parent Teacher Conference" Day again. When he had "exam" a couple of weeks ago, naturally I was very cool about it. Not that I didn't care, but I just didn't want to make a big deal of it. The teacher packed them their books to bring home for "revision" so I duly went through them with him (seeing as she DID go through the trouble of packing the books for the kids).

The assessment - as I prefer to call it - lasted three days. Like real, I tell you. The first day, when I sent him and Adik to school, he ran in exclaiming, "Yay! Exam!" much to the teacher's and my amusement. As expected, Adik kept saying, "Adik want exam? Adik want exam?"

So today, being Report Card Day, Abang complained of an earache. I guess I can expect this for the next 12 years: illness on the day your parents are supposed to meet your teachers to discuss your progress!

Anyway, another glowing report, I am pleased to announce. Last year, when he had the end-of-year assessment, the school exempted him from the Mandarin exam. This time, they didn't. I was not expecting him to do well at all (and I would have been fine with it) but I was surprised that he knew so much when we revised his Mandarin together.

Amazingly, he scored 95% for Mandarin. (It could be the lowest score in his class, but who cares! Hmm... maybe I should ask his teacher ... oh no I'm becoming a kiasu parent!) The test covered vocabulary, i.e. matching the correct words to the appropriate pictures, as well as writing, i.e. fill in the missing strokes and write the tonal accent in the correct order, etc.

I think his teacher was quite impressed with his Mandarin and asked if Daddy helps him with that. I almost fell off my chair laughing and said, "No, no, my husband doesn't speak Mandarin at all. I'm the one who speaks bad Mandarin at home."

The other subjects, which are English, Bahasa Malaysia, Mathematics and General Knowledge, he scored 100%. I know his Maths is very good, so I wasn't too worried about that. English and General Knowledge - no problem. BM - hmm, we'll see. It's telling that he speaks more English at home when he can count to 300 in English, to 30 in Mandarin and to only 6 in BM. As they say in kindergarten, "Shame, shame!"

In fact, his teacher said they were given an hour to do the General Knowledge test but he took only 15 minutes. When he was done, he started helping the other children (!) with their test. She told him that in an exam he's not supposed to be helping other kids and he replied, "But pity them, teacher..."

As usual I asked about behaviour, politeness, etc and I got a very good report on that too. "Very friendly, helpful, polite ... no problem." Uh-huh.

Only one area for improvement, which is handwriting to which I readily agreed since his handwriting is really quite atrocious.

Next, I asked the principal generally how Adik is doing. She said, "Ooooohh, he's doing fiiiiiine!" Does he follow instructions, play together nicely, etc? "Ooooohhh, yeeesssssss.... easily follows instructions (HA?!?!), enjoys singing (yes, that's for sure), makes friends (ok, we're talking about the same child). But a bit manja with Teacher Shoba (yep, we know that) and a bit choosy with teachers."

Does he mind his P's and Q's? "Yes, yes, yes, very polite. Both boys are very well-mannered."

Hooray!