P1 transition program - Here I come, P1!

Scroll through Facebook posts or mommy blogs, and you’d know that one of the hot topics for parents of six year old kids this period is the P1 registration. I think Singapore is the only country where a primary school registration can actually evoke so much attention and stress among parents. We are lucky that we have a primary school that Wayne can enter into without too much effort on our part, so the registration for us was pretty much a non-event, but just hearing nervous parents around us awaiting results were enough to make us feel quite kan chiong for them too.  We actually saw ourselves worrying whether Wayne’s friends managed to get into the school of their choices.

No 65, one of the last few for the phase

We took the day off for the registration; it was nice to have a first glimpse of the school our boy would be attending for the next six years. The principal seemed like a really nice person. While waiting for our turn, we saw these few young boys greet the principal, ask him if he had his lunch in Mandarin and heard them tell him that they liked the stories he told at assembly… which was really cute and for some reasons, to me, very heart-warming. I wondered how Wayne would take to primary school. It is indeed quite a big adjustment for them, isn’t it? I worry about silly things, like if he knew NOT to sit on the toilet bowl in school. Sigh. Haha. 

Mindchamps have already been preparing the kids for primary school since this term, which has actually been quite assuring for us parents. 

They call it the Primary 1 Transition Programme where he arrives in school to recite the pledge (in both English and Chinese!) and sing the national anthem at 9am each morning, pays for his own lunch and has his lessons in half hour blocks just like in primary school. I hope he will be able to adapt quickly and enjoy primary school. His school is one of the few that still runs double sessions and so, he will be in the afternoon session for two years. It is a challenge to pick both the kids up in time in the evenings, for which the logistics we have not sorted out yet, but I am sure we will get there. We have a few more months to think about that!

Here is a video of Wayne reciting the pledge:

Exciting times ahead!