Highlight of little princess' school UPSR results

Went to pickup little princess for holiday camp today from her school. Saw the school's UPSR results for 2011. Looks like more students getting A's compared to last year. There are 31 students with 7A's, 17 students with 6A's and 14 students with 5A's. Congratualations to the school and hope they keep their fighting spirit!

Back-to-school shopping begins!

It's the beginning of back-to-school shopping. Promotions from Giant, Tesco, Parkson all in newspaper ads today. Planning to buy another pair of spare school shoes for princess, and another pair of school shorts. Already heard from another mom that Tesco's school shorts comes with elastic band which is more convenient for primary school children. She also mentioned their super cheap school shoes are actually not comfy. As a spare, need to buy a much bigger size. Will have to wait till the last week of holidays before any actual buying as the children grow so fast.

In fact, if missed the back-to-school shopping season at the hypermarkets and supermarkets, it will be difficult to find uniform stuff except at the speciality stores. I actually prefer the Kimnovak school uniform as they look nicer, especially for secondary school girl's pinafore. I think other school paraphernalia can get from other sources depending on pricing and comfort level. But next time, princess will have Kimnovak pinafore for her secondary school, that's for sure. When I didn't have Kimnovak pinafore last time, I used to envy the girls who wore them as it looked much nicer and smarter.

Local trip spending

We came back from a short local trip. After tallying our spending, I found that we had actually spent much more compared to what we budgeted. Food made up the bulk of the spending, followed by souvenirs. We should not be eating so much restaurant food. Maybe next time we will have one restaurant meal for lunch and one simple dinner. We also had expensive tea-time and mid-morning snack (cakes and desserts). In other words, we overeat during this trip.

I should not take hubs' words for granted about enjoy while we can, yet he comes back complaining about us overspending. His purchase of souvenirs for office staff is expensive, and he bought way too much local produce IMHO.

Lesson learnt, when you have expensive eating habits, limit it to only one meal per day when travelling. However hubs keep saying we must enjoy now, which distracts me from trying to be "frugal on a trip".

Uses of the RM100 student cash aid

If you are from well-to-do family, do you decline the government's offer of the RM100 student cash aid? Would like to suggest that this amount to be donated to the school after accepting the aid if you do not need it. After all, the school that your child goes to is the one who nurtures and educate them. In fact, why not top-up more donation to the school next year as donation to school are going to be tax deductable in 2012 (base on Budget 2012). Definitely the school will appreciate any kind of donation especially the SJK(C)'s.

Got the RM100 student aid

Little princess told us to go to her school to give our signature. However when asked what is it that teacher wanted, she is not able to elaborate. When the Boss went to her school, he was told it's the RM100 student aid. Parents have to sign accept or reject for primary school (I think). So far, all the parents he saw accepted the aid. Definitely any help for school will be welcomed ya. The cash aid for students is disbursed through school for Year 1 to Form 5 students. For those starting Year 1 in 2012, they will get the RM100 student aid later. Heard that secondary school students just get a memo and the RM100 is passed to them. Most school would have completed giving out the student aid by now as it's last day of school!

Preparing for the new school year

Ok I admit I'm a little kiasu. Like most parents I do not want my children to be left out when they start the new school year next year. So here's what I'm going to do with little prince and princess during the holidays.

Princess:
- Revise Year 1 Mandarin, Maths, Moral Studies.
- Start preparing for Year 2 Maths and Science. Was stuck after the first chapter of Maths and Science as it is all new things to her, so I think will focus on strengthening her grasp of Year 1 work such as recognize key words and learn how to interpret questions.
- Also start work on her English grammar and reading as it seems to be deteriorating from lack of conversational practise as compared to last year.
- Work on method for composing better sentences in Mandarin and BM with subject and object, improve on her weakness for this.

Prince:
- Work on conversational BM, English and Mandarin in preparation for the goverment assessment next year.
- Prepare according to syllabus of Kurikulum Standard Prasekolah Kebangsaan (KSPK)
- Start work on Maths workbooks which is written to meet KSPK criteria
- Ensure he knows Mandarin characters in KSPK and also can recognize key words in question paper
- Go through Moral Studies values in Mandarin as he learns this in English at his kindy, maybe leverage on princess' workbook for Moral Studies.

Some of the above will be for the holidays, some will have to extend over to the new year. However definitely there will be time for play and cartoon. Hopefully can balance up their work and play time.

Internal school competitions

Here's to record down children's school activities for memory sake. Next time will jot down in family calendar so that they will be more serious and learn to be all-rounder.

Date	Day	Activity
22-Jan-11	Sat	Chinese caligraphy competition, new year card design competition
19-Feb-11	Sat	Current events quiz
30-Mar-11	Wed	Chinese caligraphy competition
4-Apr-11	Mon	Chinese story-telling/poem reading competition
23-Apr-11	Sat	Mandarin singing competition
7-May-11	Sat	Drawing competition
8-Jul-11	Fri	Maths competition
26-Aug-11	Fri	Pertandingan Bina Ayat/Menulis Karangan (Sentences/essay writing competition in BM)
5-Sep-11	Mon	Sentences/essay writing in Mandarin
19-Sep-11	Mon	Spelling Bee Contest (Year 1 - 6)
20-Sep-11	Tue	Short Essay Writing Competition (Year 4-6)
5-Oct-11	Wed	Pertandingan melafaz pantun, bercerita dan syarahan
25-Oct-11	Tue	Patriotic Song Singing competition

Recounting Year 4-6 student school activities

Alright alright, in a few more years princess will be in upper primary school. By then, maybe I don't have the energy to record down what are the long string of activities that students have. So while I am still young and able *smirk* here is what I got from princess' school memo's. Also trying out function of copy-and-paste table here. These activities are for princess' school and for reference only.

Date	Day	Activity	Remarks
5-Jan-11	Wed	Taklimat PEKA SAINS	Year 4 -6
11-Jan-11	Tue	Start extra class for Year 6 (all classes), Year 4 and 5 (last 2 classes only)	4 hours per week, parents pay monthly fees of RM30
12-Jan-11	Wed	Taklimat Menulis Karangan BM	Year 4  and 5
19-Jan-11	Wed	Taklimat Menulis Karangan BI	Year 4  and 5
26-Jan-11	Wed	Taklimat Menulis Karangan BC	Year 4  and 5
9-Mar-11	Wed	Year 4 and Year 5 motivational talk
12-Mar-11	Sat	Holiday extra class for Year 6 (all classes), Year 4 and 5 (last 2 classes only)	4 days with total 16 hours class
14-May-11	Sat	Previous year UPSR results excellence prize ceremony	Those with good UPSR results from previous year invited back to school to get a prize
21/6/2011 to 23/6/2011		UPTP (1)
24-Jul-11	Sun	Pre-UPSR talk	Students pay RM27.50 to attend
2/8/2011 to 4/8/2011		UPTP (2)
13-Aug-11	Sat	Year 6 UPSR motivational talk
17-Aug-11	Wed	BM motivational workshop	At other school
30-Aug-11	Tue	UPSR motivational workshop	External
13-Sep-11	Tue	UPSR exam	3 days
23-Sep-11	Fri	Meet Year 6 parents	Explain method to fill up secondary school application form
27-Sep-11	Tue	Seminar on secondary education
12-Nov-11	Sat	Graduation ceremony	There's a dinner arranged for Year 6 students
14-Nov-11	Mon	Local attraction travel	For Year 6 students
17-Nov-11	Thu	UPSR results	Result slip availabe 10am onwards from school
8-Dec-11	Thu	Year 6 students get secondary school placement announcement	Back to school for this memo
15-Dec-11	Thu	Year 6 students report to secondary school	Only 1 day
29-Dec-11	Thu	Year 5 students gotong-royong	Half day

UPSR results out on Nov 17

According to The Star news, UPSR results will be announced on Nov 17. Now, this is considered fast as the Year 6 students just sat for their UPSR exams in Sept. I wonder how is the secondary school application like, will take note of it as little princess school doesn't have a secondary school. So the children will have to apply to other schools after their Year 6. This is something we didn't think about when we enrol little princess in the school. All we thought about is that it is considered near and it is considered an ok school, not too stressed, not too slack, not too competitive but competitive enough.

Kindy teaching syllabus to be updated for next year

I'm not referring to the government's pre-school syllabus. It had been updated since 2010 as far as I know. I'm referring to the one used by little prince's kindy. Just receive news from the kindy principal, that they will have revised Maths and Science syllabus next year. I'm now breathing a sigh of relieve as it will make coaching him easier. He is lucky to be able to learn the new syllabus. Little princess did not have some portions of the Maths at kindy last time. It's so hard to teach her about money, measurement and shapes. Luckily the kindy books will be updated for next year as little prince will need all the help he can. More about little prince and the coaching he needs in another post coming up.

RM100 student aid to be disbursed soon

Saw news article from Sin Chew here: http://www.sinchew.com.my/node/226122?tid=1
Seems that the RM100 student aid will be disbursed via school and parents/guardians need to sign no matter they consent to receiving the student aid or not. According to the news article in Mandarin is 接受或拒絕都須簽名. We have not receive any notification yet, so still waiting for information from princess' school. Only one more week before school holidays so hope the process will be smooth. For those who are going to Year 1 next year, seems like they will get the RM100 student aid only when school reopens.

The new start

I'm moving over the posts related to children as the other blog is getting more congested and scattered. This would be easier for my own reference too.

Still in learning stage how to manage these 2 blogs, wonder if I could just export some of the posts over to here?? Try, try and try again.

Been viewing my other blog for some time and couldn't find any button to export the posts I want over here. Sigh... so manual??!!!!

PTPTN might not provide living expenses?

News on TV and online had chairman from PTPTN saying they might not provide loan including living expenses in the future. It's still in discussion stage with the Government (which Ministry?, not very clear in the article) and the PTPTN highlighted many borrowers did not pay their loan, thus it's limiting their ability to provide full loan to future students.

I hope PTPTN will reconsider as students do really need help with living expenses as well so that they can concentrate fully on their studies. Especially nowadays a lot of studying opportunities are away from home and thus living expenses loan is big help. I would hope my children would get loans that includes living expenses as they might study at a place away from home in the future. With inflation shooting up (not creeping, mind ya), we middle-class parents need as much help as possible. After all, we are a sandwich generation that needs to take care of elderly family members and also the children (not one child, typical families have 2 or more children nowadays). It's not only the low-income group that needs help.

PPSMI soft-landing?

I think so-called "soft-landing" is for those currently in standard 2 and above. For children in standard 1 year 2011, they are already studying in mother tongue and not in English anymore. There will be more news and updates on the "soft-landing" as mentioned by Education Minister later.

http://www.sinchew.com.my/node/225464?tid=1

http://www.sinchew.com.my/node/225461?tid=1

PPSMI decision stays

From all the raging news online and in print, looks like we have to say goodbye to PPSMI. It was with heavy heart coupled with dismay when I know of it. This meant a lot to us as our children will not be exposed to Maths and Science in English (except at kindergarten level). There is a blogger mom who said that she will continue buying reference books in dual-language to teach her kids the terms in English. I think it's a superb idea. Next time there is a member day's sale at Popular, I'm going to sweep some of the revision books in dual-language. Should I be as crazy as to buy up including revision books for secondary school or just primary school? :p Hubs will kill me for the overkill.

Well the folks who think it's too hard to study Maths and Science in English, it's your loss. Continue with your closed-mindedness, and stay in your own tempurung. We will continue to give and pass down whatever knowledge we have to our children which the group will never be able to do. To look on the bright side, maybe those who cannot follow lessons in English might now stay in school longer and there will be less Mat Rempit after we abolish PPSMI. Scratch that, who are we kidding here? Those who won't study will not matter what is done. Those who are determined to study will make it through some how and some way.