If your child was able to take home his or her SA1 examination paper, take some time to sit down WITH your child. Together, identify where most of the marks were lost and discuss why your child had answered incorrectly, or if your child knows where he or she went wrong.

Was it carelessness, a lack of understanding or simply not applying the right technique? This forces children to reflect on their thought process and answering method.

If you are not familiar with the examination format or what your child is weak in, fear not. Reach out to your child’s teacher or tutor for help (preferably with reference to your child’s SA1 or weighted assessment). As specialists in the field, a teacher or tutor would be able to help identify what went wrong. At the same time, you can seek guidance as to what your child should be doing at home to work on his or her weaknesses.

Bring out the goal setting sheet that you and your child might have prepared at the end of last year or the start of this year and compare the results your child has attained in the SA1 to this list.

Is your child meeting originally set mid-year goals? Or, perhaps, is your child on track towards attaining year-end goals? The SA1 and mid-year weighted assessments are meant to serve as a checkpoint or a half-way mark to spot problematic areas early. If your child seems to be rather far off from a goal set earlier, should tweaks be made? While aspirations are necessary, it is also crucial to be realistic.

Perhaps, instead of changes to the goals, your child might need to review his or her revision strategy. Is your child studying hard, but not smart? Has your child been applying the techniques taught in the practice assessments? Together with your child, make adjustments to your child’s revision technique and timetable.

“What a waste of time!”

“How is this going to help?”

“My child already knows all the answers. He’ll probably just answer based on memory.”

I know this sounds like an odd suggestion, but this actually is a good review method.

Your child’s teacher would have gone through all the answers in class and your child should have already clarified any doubts about questions which were answered incorrectly.

Attempting the examination paper (or sections of it) again will give your child the opportunity to correctly apply the skills taught and to cognitively reinforce important strategies and techniques. Being able to turn wrongs into rights—weaknesses into strengths—will also be a great confidence boost for your child.

Many parents often ask their child:

“So did you have the best score in class?”

“How did the rest of the class do?”

“Why didn’t you score as well as (insert name of smart kid)?”

It is human to make comparisons, and frankly, many of us were brought up this way. In a country where meritocracy is one of our core values, we strive to instil in our younger generation the desire to be the best.

However, with mental wellbeing increasingly being under the spotlight, it is important to provide children with plenty of encouragement to help spur them on without damaging their self-esteem.

DO:

• Acknowledge the minor improvements your child might have made.
• Show recognition for the effort your child has put in.
• Help your child to understand a cause-and-effect relationship in his or her actions and what has been achieved (e.g. Do you think your less-than-ideal score could be the result of you not revising for the examination? Do you think your composition score is not improving because you have stagnated and are not pushing yourself to be better?)
• Speak with your child’s teacher to discuss areas in which your child has improved as well as where he or she seems to be struggling. Praise your child for the improvement made, and encourage your child to work with his or her teacher to get better.

DON’T:

• Belittle any improvement made by your child. It is more difficult to make big leaps in terms of scores if your child is already at an average grade. For example, while Tommy who was failing initially might have been able to make a 15-mark jump in the SA1 to achieve a score of 55, your child (who was already passing) might only have made a 5-mark jump to 65. This does not mean your child is not as good as Tommy. This simply means that Tommy has resolved the misconceptions that were causing him to fail. Your child’s improvement is worthy of praise too. Encourage your child to seek clarification in areas of difficulty so that an even better grade can be attained at the SA2 examinations.
• Provide praise in a passing manner. Children can read tone and expressions really well, though they might not convey it. Insincere praise will only serve to lower your child’s self-esteem.
• Tell your child that he or she just needs to do more assessment books and examination papers WITHOUT first understanding what went wrong and coming up with a strategy. This reinforces conceptual misunderstanding, unwelcome answering habits and incorrect technique application.

Ultimately, the end goal here is to help your child achieve his or her best and learn some life skills along the way (learning from mistakes, reflecting, turning weaknesses into strengths, rising from adversity and failure). Establish a common understanding about this with your child (and any other secondary support) to set out on the journey to improvement.

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