Meet the teachers -- Primary one SCGS

Today was the very first meet-the-teacher session at SCGS for Madison.

What a world of difference from preschool.

First we had to book the session with the teacher online. First come first served type thing.

Madison was also expected to tag along.

Being a weekday, I left work early to make it in time for the session at 430pm. Chris made it as well so that was nice.

We met the form teacher first. Mrs See is also her English teacher, and apparently a very well loved teacher. ( Nothing but praises for her whenever I tell anyone who Madison's teacher is! )

Mrs See was very encouraging towards Madison, and her main assessment was that while Madison is bright she had a tendency to be dreamy and seemingly not pay attention. ( we knew that since preschool-- a recurrent comment from her teachers! ) She also got along with most girls, and apart from that first incident at the start of the school year she has adapted somewhat to the big girls school.

Madison had to say a short spiel about what she liked doing in school and how she could improve herself. ( apparently a new thing they were trying out for the primary 1 and 2s )

After we collected her portfolio folder we went upstairs to the main hall to wait for our turn to see the Chinese teacher.

Seems like the Chinese teachers were hot property. There were queues at every station waiting to see the Chinese teachers.

We found Madison's teacher and sat down to await our turn. It was a one hour wait. We were booked to see her at 510pm but only got to see her just after 6pm!

But honestly, it was worth the wait. I was so tempted to just leave without seeing the Chinese teacher but I'm glad I waited. It was a good thing Chris was around too so he could take Madison home first for dinner while I waited. By the time he got back it was just in time to meet her. ( not that he really understood what she was saying!!)

She gave a very useful assessment of Madison, and gave me some suggestions to help improve her understanding and use of the language. She made me see that in order for Madison to improve she has to have an innate understanding of the language and that came by listening and reading more. Of course I knew all that but when she reinforced it and reassured that if we could do that Madison MIGHT not need more outsourced help ( IE more tuition -- arghhh ) I was really concerned that the level of Mandarin that the kids were facing would be completely out of my reach but Ms Ng ( the teacher ) was very reassuring. I guess we'll find out next year! Or maybe even before that!

All in, I had a good feeling as I left the school, and I'm very happy and proud that my daughter is now studying in my alma mater. It's truly awesome that she gets to spend her childhood years in this environment, that she gets to call herself an SCGS girl!