Tuesday, June 01, 2010

2nd Parent Teacher Meeting

The girls gave me the notice from the school that the Mid Year PTM was on. I felt like I had just attended the last one and here it is again. This year has just swooshed by - 7 more months and Harvynna starts Primary school and I havent even decided where to send her. We have done all the necessary registrations, but there are lots of things to consider. From Primary 1, 2011, all schools will have to revert to teaching Maths & Science in BM. Initially, I thought Harvynna would be safe as they were supposed to start it only in 2012, but alas, they now have decided for 2011.

Back to the PTM, it was a real long wait. I thought I will beat the queue by going there early, but there were many other earlier birds.Plus, i have to see 2 class teachers this time, so that would take even longer. I started with the BM teacher (who by the way, is an excellent BM teacher)

Well, as expected, she mentioned that Harvynna is a very good girl and catches up very fast. (yawn...)
She is advanced in her reading and writing and takes the iniative to do things and also speaks to her in BM. She has no issues with her and in fact she encouraged me to start giving her simple essays to write in BM. Looks like i will have to practice my BM too.

Then, the teacher says, 'Do you mind if we discuss Rowena no?' Then she starts off with 'Rowena is totally different from Harvynna. All the teachers here say the same thing.' Then I knew where she was heading!!
She says Rowena has a mind of her own but is very entertaining. She talks to everyone and is very friendly. Her attention span for her work is quite short so she gets bored fast. She does not seem to like BM much' - so she keeps volunteering to send things to the office so she can miss the class.
But I told her that its ok since Rowena is only 4. Then again, she says 'but when Harvynna was 4, dia sangat cepat dan verrrry interested in her work'.

Then when I went to see Harvynna's class teacher, it was the same story - Harvynna is doing very well and is a very helpful girl. I did ask her about 2 girls, that Harvynna really dislikes and the teacher said that those girls are very loud and quite rebellious - so harvynna finds them annoying. The girls are also quite intelligent so she probably feels the competition. So young - and so competitive.

Then I went to see Rowena's class teacher - she started with Rowena being very friendly and kind. She is loved by all the teachers and students and is everyone's friend.And she related a few stories about Rowena, which was quite funny yet sweet. And that was it. i looked at her and asked 'What about her work?' Then she paused for few seconds and said, that her work has improved a lot from when she first came and showed me her work - looked ok. How much can you expect from a 4 year old?. She mentioned that Rowena loves to sing and dance like she did at the last school assembly.And that was it???

These teachers must have been trained to focus only on the positive things!

It's hard to imagine how different these 2 girls are. But I would rather have them this way, then to have 2 exact characters - definitely spices up everyone's life!!