Orientation in school

Can you believe it? After so many years out of uni, I still have to attend an orientation session ... but this time it is for Ryan's brand new year in school.

Yup, it is his second year and I am feeling so proud of it. This morning, I attended Ryan's orientation session for the parents. Because it is his second year in the school, his class is separated from those 4 year olds who only started this year in the school. Their curriculum is supposedly more advanced. Boy, advanced is understated.

We were told that as opposed to the previous year, this year, they will be concentrating on writing and reading, no more the cutting and pasting and colouring. The kids will be having reading sessions on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. They will be given a book where they will attempt to read from and then they will bring the book home where the parents will also have to sit and read with them.

There will also be individual reading sessions with the teacher so that they can be individually accessed. They will be exposed to phonetics so that they can learn to spell a word, before they begin to read. Phonetics wor ... I don't think my teachers even spoke to us about it! We just rambled along till we hit the right pronunciation.

Gym is on Tuesdays and PE is on Thursdays. So, they will need 2 sets of gym clothes, in case the clothes don't dry on time. Water play and cookery classes will be held once a month. They used to have water play every week and cookery once every couple of months.

Then there is also newspaper cutting and they are required to state why they chose the clipping, they have to bring stuff from home for show and tell sessions, preferably things they made on their own. They have to present all these things in front of the class to practise public speaking and overcome their fear and shyness.

And to top it all, apparently there will also be creative writing for them!! At 4 years old wor ... I have no clue how they will do creative writing, but I also trust that the school will deliver what they have promised to la, so I take it with good faith lor.

At the end of the session, I was feeling more stressed that the kid himself. A mum next to me said "It's ok, let the teacher stress herself, we just pay the money!" Haha ... ideal thinking, wait till the kid comes back with the materials and list of things to do ... I think I will faint from it all since creativity is not something I am born with.

And how does Ryan feel? Well, he proudly said "I am a big boy now, my class is upstairs. I am the big boy now. I say bye bye to KG3 already." Some things kids say, really no money can buy.