S1 promoted ...

If you recall... I had written many previous posts whereby I vented about the Mathematics in the boys' school? Do you remember the part whereby S1's teacher said "let's look at his final exam results and we'll see if he is WORTHY for promotion". Yes. THOSE exact words.
You say lah. This mom .... always keep quiet. People think she pussycat tai-tai. Donno anything. Never see my TIGER mom face before.

So... that was the start of S1's intensive tutoring from Yours Truly. Everyday (except one or two days lah) we worked on his Mathematics - from the basics up for an hour minimum. Sometimes two. Obviously, our effort paid off. S1 did pretty well in his final exams. People even queried if he copied! What an insult! He had better marks than quite a number of people in the top set (the set that I want him promoted to... because only kids in this set get to do Additional Maths) so obviously, I would assume that he will be promoted. He did surprise a lot of people - my tidak apa attitude son. One friend actually commented "What happened? You used to be F-king stupid. What happened?". An insult or a compliment?

For the next week after the results were out, I kept asking S1 if they told him that they will be promoted to Set 1. His reply "My teacher said MIGHT". What kind of C!B@I answer is that? Toying with my son ah? F%$K man. So I wrote to the teacher and then only the stupid fellow replied to say that "We in the Mathematics department have decided to admit S1 to the Top Set on a TRIAL BASIS blah blah blah ". I told S1, the teachers are WAITING for you to slip to bring you back down to Set 2. And S1 was like "that is mean!" ... but it is true. Because I was fighting so hard to justify my son's place in the top set, and he did prove to them that he can indeed do it when they are so adamant that he does not have the 'special mathematical skills or love for subject'. Thank goodness that it is a NEW teacher that is teaching him this year. One that is not yet in cohorts with the OLD gang.

School has started for a week... and obviously I continued to encourage S1 to do work - at least bits of it every day so that he will not be overwhelmed with so many subjects. He is quite receptive... doing some topic revision when I told him to last Thursday - which paid off on Friday's end-of-topic assessment. He said he aced it with 100 percent. I think that brought some feeling of satisfaction... hopefully that will motivate to continue to work hard.

Seriously, there's really so many subjects. On top of the usual Maths, Sciences (Physics, Biology and Chemistry), English, there's Mandarin (which he says it's easy), Resistance Materials, ICT, Economics. Quite a handful .... He asked if he should drop Resistance Materials and take up Geography instead. And if resistance materials more useful than geography. I was like ahhh-errr...And he said "or you prefer that I take PE instead of Geography?".
Me - "I am not a geography person. Nor a history person. I don't know. If for Resistance Materials...if you are learning about properties of materials and their uses, then it is good. Why do aircrafts able to fly further? It's because of the materials of construction...."
Then he himself added about the new properties in Speedo swimsuits which can be streamlinedto an extent that the resistance in water is reduced dramatically such that it is banned in competitions.

I didn't really want to force him to do this or that. Because some people want to balance out with easy to score subjects with harder ones. So no need to study so much. I think he did decide to stick with this option, which may require him to do lots of project and design work. This, I think I can help. Cause when I looked at the textbook, it's alot about processes, project management using Gantt Charts, flowcharts etc.... which is sort of my forte. :-) Thing I can't help him is identifying type of wood joints. Yikes! But shouldn't be that hard lah. I did learn about type of weld joints when I was working. Other subjects I cannot help with...biology, ICT, English and Mandarin. Economics can abit lah.

The only thing is that we were working so much on the Maths that we neglected the sciences. He did well but not good enough to be in the top set. So instead of doing the triple award, he is only doing the double award, i.e. doing three sciences but only getting two credits.
Yes. WEIRD British system! Too late to fight for him for this. :-P