On to Term 3, Looking back at Term 2

After our very extended holiday, Noey is back to school for Term 3. He had a bit of a shaky start, and I suppose I don’t blame him, seeing as we were away for quite a long time. It does take some time to get back into the swing of things.

On his second day back, he woke up tired after having taken a long time to sleep the previous night. He complained and dragged his feet as I got him ready for school, and when it was time for the drop-off, he stoically started the walk to class, albeit with unshed tears in his eyes. I left him to walk to class on his own as I sped over to the car to pick up a consent form I needed to pass to his teacher and saw him staring at me forlornly before being hustled along. I later popped over to take a peek in his classroom to see if he was ok and when he saw me, he solemnly gave me a couple of small nods as if to say “I’m ok, Mummy” before moving on to do what he needed to do. Just re-counting those moments, I can see how much my little boy has grown.

Fortunately the rest of the week went by without incident.

I’m real proud of how he handled himself, but I guess I’m not surprised because he has matured a fair bit over the course of this year. Bright as he is, he is still socially and emotionally immature for his age. It is a daily struggle for me to get him to see beyond himself, feel empathy for others, and just treat his sister better! He still has more growing up to do, but at least, from what his teacher says, I think he’s on the right track.

It’s probably a bit belated to talk about his half year report but I’m going to do it anyway, for my own records.

We completely missed the parent-teacher meeting in May this year due to our travelling schedule, but his English teacher was kind enough to meet us separately before we left on our holiday to give us an update on how Noey is doing in school. (His Chinese teacher was on MC.)

In short, he is coming along nicely, with no major issues. Whew.

I greatly enjoyed speaking to his teacher, who was able to regale us with many anecdotes, giving us a glimpse of what Noey is like in school, as well as providing some insight into his strengths and weaknesses. I was glad that his teacher also recognised that he has grown over the course of the semester, has settled down and is engaged in school. Full credit to his teachers for that, really. His teachers believed that part of the reason why he was giving some trouble behaviour-wise last year was that he was not sufficiently challenged in school, and as a result, he was bored. Indeed, he went through a phase last year when he just didn’t want to go to school and kept complaining that it was too long. That was really stressful for me and I briefly contemplated switching him to another school. What stopped us was the fact that Noey doesn’t adjust easily to new environments and I wasn’t sure it ws going to solve the problem.

This year, he hasn’t made the same complaints, and I’m sure his current teachers have really made a difference. Most of the class is currently learning to read and since Noey can read several levels above his grade level, his teacher has had to come up with ways to keep him interested, and also teach him to keep himself occupied when he has completed his tasks. Listening to his teacher, I can only imagine how tricky it can be to cater to kids of varying abilities at the same time, though I can see that it has really helped Noey.

A game to identify sight words where he apparently was super excited to help his group finish the fastest.

Pages from his re-creation of Leo Lionni’s book, Little Blue and Little Yellow. Apparently while everyone else was given pages with the text printed on, Noey was given blank pages and told to read and search though the strips of text to find the correct passages for each page. Term 2 is a Literature and Arts term and every student created his own book with paper-torn illustrations. It is a really cute and creative piece of work!

So apparently there is nothing to worry about with regards to his schoolwork. While I think his handwriting still leaves much to be desired, his teacher assured me that she thinks it’s ok for this age. He’s also apparently very quick when doing his work in class, something that I don’t see at all when I’m at home nagging him to do his homework! She even told me that he is above average when it comes to Chinese and that 老师 often called upon him to answer questions. Well, I’ll believe that after I speak to his Chinese teacher.

What I was most concerned with was his behaviour and I was very relieved that there were no issues. He’s learnt to be a bit more discerning when it comes to following others to create trouble, though given his playful nature, he is happy to join in. Still, it was good to know that he had friends and had people to play with. We’ve always thought Noey was a bit of a loner — “Self-sufficient” was the term his teacher used, and I thought that was exactly right. He’s happy to play with friends but just as happy by himself, especially when he’s lost in his book. She also described him as having an artistic temperament, which tickled me, yet struck me as accurate. 

A drawing he did early in the year about his dream playground. (Term 1 was about “My School” and the playground is one of the kids’ favourite parts of school.) I got a shock at the mess when I saw this, but apparently all that blue is because it’s under the sea. It’s a nautilus playground, and if you look carefully, you can the twisty slides and little coiled shells of the nautilus floating around. This is the stuff of his imagination.

What matters to me is that he is happy, learning and growing, and it sounds like that’s exactly what is happening.

Onward to Term 3!