The Pre-Primary 1 Parents Must-Have:
The P1 Parents’ Survival Guide to Primary School
Survival Tip 8: Know what to expect during the first few days of school
The schedule
Hmm…today’s post is not so much of survival tip but letting you have an idea of how school is like just in case you have forgotten about your own primary school days.
• Arrival at school
Most schools will get prefects or teachers to lead your child to the assembly area without the parents. However, there are some schools that allow parents to stand around the assembly area until the children are brought their classrooms by their form teachers and or co-form teachers.
• Talk/briefings for parents
Most schools will not allow you to hang around outside the classrooms though some schools get the parents to be in the classroom with the children. To minimise parents from loitering around the school, when the children are in the classrooms, some schools arranged talks/briefings such as how to prepare your child for primary school, stress-free parenting, how to help your child in the various subjects. Some of these talks are even conducted by professionals in the particular fields.
• Forming a Chat group
Attending such talks give you a good chance to know parents of your child’s classmates. This will be a good chance to set-up a What’s app or other chat group consisting of parents from your child’s class. The group is very useful especially during the first few weeks when you child is still new to school and may miss out some instructions by the teachers.
• Books & buddies
For the first day, most teachers will not start formal teaching yet. They will most likely get the children to introduce themselves to their new friends. Then, they will collect the books from the students and keep them in class so that students will not be carrying heavy bags to school. Then, they will arrange for the buddies from the upper levels to meet up with their P1 young charge before recess time. Almost all schools will assign a buddy from the upper level to each Primary 1 child. However, for some new schools, they have their own creative ways to help their P1 pupils.
• Recess
You might be thinking that if you attend the parenting talks, you may miss out on the chance to talk to your catch a glimpse your child during recess time. Don’t worry. The speakers/facilitators know your concern and they will coincide the break time of their sessions to coincide with the recess time of your child. I heard of a school that prepared recess coupons where parents will order the food for their child for the first few days and even arranged for the children to eat in their classrooms during recess but this is not the norm.
• Buddy Programme
For most schools, the buddy of your child will accompany your child to buy food. Thus, it will be good for you to prepare some pocket money for your child to buy food themselves with the help of the buddy. The buddy programme will most likely run for a few days to a week or two. You might want to prepare some food for your child if you are worried that your child will not like the food in the school canteen or your child is on special diet which is not available in the canteen.
If you are lucky, you may get to meet up with your child. However, most schools do not allow the parent to enter the canteen. They will barricade the areas around the canteen and you can only watch your child from a distance. Some children will come and look for their parents. But for my child, after eating his food, his buddy brought him around the school compound. Thus, on the second day, I decided to venture into “prohibited area” and manage to take photos of him and his buddy. Try not to follow what I do or you will risk getting “told off” by the school security guards, operation managers or even teachers.
• After recess
After recess, children will assemble in the designated assembly area. Most schools will get the pupils to return to their classrooms. Some schools will get the students to break into their respective “Mother tongue” classes on the first day while others will only do so on the second day. Some schools will also conduct a talk on matters relating to school, e.g. school history, school rules, school programmes etc.
• Dismissal time
Then, parents will attend the second part of their parenting/briefing session. The session will definitely end before the school dismissal time allowing you to pick up your child in time. Some schools will have asked you how your child is returning home, whether they are taking school bus or someone is fetching them. Whether your child is taking the school bus or you are fetching him/her, do remind him and make sure he is clear. If not, he may end up being at the wrong dismissal point. For my child who was quite blur, he nearly followed the teacher to the back gate for dismissal instead of waiting at the school buses waiting area. Thus, to make sure he get on the school bus safely, I waited for him to board the school bus and then rushed home by MRT. Surprisingly, although my child’s bus was the second last bus to leave, the school bus reached by the given time and he was back slightly before I reached home.
Basically, the above schedule will run for the first few days of school.
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