When I found out that my four year old son would be getting a report card from the preschool he had been attending for less than twelve weeks, I thought “WTF?” He’s FOUR. He should be playing with play-doh and dress-ups and running away from girl germs. I don’t care if he gets a B in putting on a pirate costume or an A in play-doh sausagry because frankly, he has his whole life ahead of him to be graded.
But things are a but different here in Asia. School at four is quite serious and all about letter formation and early maths and songs about planets and geography. Did you know that and Isthmus is a skinny bit of land joining two larger land masses? I didn’t, until it was part of young Millar’s homework. Yes, homework. In Kindergarten.
Anyway, so I went to the parent teacher meeting thingo and sat my ample arse in the tiny chair and received his school report card.
A+s – lots of them.
Well, I can hardly poo-poo the education system of a very populated nation now can I? Maybe I was wrong about the value of the report card… This one is getting framed!
Yes I totally wrote this post to brag about how awesome my kid is. I am, after all a mummy blogger. pfft.
Holy Cow… my girls don’t get that kind of home work and they are in grade 2!! LOL
I told their prep teacher that I thought reports were a bunch of balony and I didn’t care if they didn’t learn a thing as long as they were happy… then I got their report and it said they were reading well above their grade level… I might have been quite a bit proud! LOL
That’s exactly it! If it was a bad report I’d be like “whatevs!”
Wow reports at kinder! Well happy and smart….what more could you ask for! So interesting though the different approaches to education in different countries.
it really is interesting. I know that it took longer for Millar to get settled and enjoy school than he ever did in Australia. He really looks forward to going kinder there – mainly because of the play based learning I suspect. He never looked forward to school here except on swimming days.
Loved Fraser’s kinder reports! They did actually highlight for us a couple of areas where we know he will have a little trouble at least initially when he starts school this week, and I love that we’re fore-warned and able to have coping mechanisms in place. So while it does sound a bit weird, I think they’re an important assessment of school readiness.
Also, kickin’ the A PLUS, Millar!
That’s good! I guess reports can be useful when you use them as intended instead of a bragging tool. hehe.
woo hoo for India (for at least two seconds). They recognise brilliance when they meet it!
Can we agree it is the mothers genes? I think we can!
yeah totally my genes!
Well done Millar! It is never to young for education I say, its how they teach the education is the important part.
I actually think report cards are very important and if they were being used here the same way then I would be a lot happier. These days nothing is really written in a report card in my opinion, there is no real information of what you child can do, more just if they fit inside the box or not and if they do then they get passed and sent on to the next level. I swear most of them are just copy and pasted and I would love to get a whole year together to see if each said the same thing because the ones we receive don’t really personally talk about the child other then adding their name in to a few choice places. I made a comment on how we don’t know how the kids are really going at school to a teacher because it doesn’t list where they are maybe having difficulties and could do with improvement and the teacher replied they aren’t allowed to put anything negative in there. There is no A-F system or areas to improve on its just a box with a spot somewhere inside.
This has actually been a topic I have been wanting to write about Toushka for quite some time, obviously for a completely different reason to you though.
I expect to see that framed in your new house in Australia!