Report card night

We had the first report card night on Nov 18th at 6 pm. Parents were asked to assemble at the auditorium and Kids were babysat by one of the after care teacher.  At auditorium after a brief update from the Principal about other activities and happenings parents were asked to collect the report card from their respective class teacher. The card had a number on it and we were allowed to have a one on one with teacher for strictly five minutes based on the number.  If we think the meeting might exceed five minutes then we have to schedule a one on one with teacher at a convenient time later.  After collecting the report card we headed to the hall way near the classroom and waited for our turn.  The good part is while waiting if we feel the parent is inside for more than 5 minutes then we can knock on the door as a gentle reminder.  My number was 9 and I had enough time to go over the details in the card before my turn with the teacher.

The report card had around 25+ attributes broadly classified as Reading , Printing (Writing) , Mathematics, Personal development and Extracurricular objectives.  The grades were 1 to 3 for each attribute where 1 is Consistent, 2 is Progressing and 3 is Needs support. Personal development category included attributes like “Respects Peers”, “Displays Self Control”, “Has a good self image”, “Pays attention to details” etc… Isn’t this too much for a 5 year old?  May be yes to a 5 year old in our generation but I am telling ya this generation is much more advanced than these attributes.  Anyways, it was amazing to look at the way the report card has been structured.

Adi scored 1 for half of the attributes and 2 for the other half.  I spoke with her teacher about her overall performance and the “2” marked items.  Her teacher said the 2 meant 2 closer to 1 and not the 2 closer to 3 🙂 and she was pleased with Adi’s performance overall.  The girl has to seriously work on identifying lower case alphabets and printing numbers. She confidently identifies b as d, d as b, p as q, q as p and prints numbers 2, 3 , 4, 5 6, 7, 9 the opposite way. 1, 8 and 0 are good as they look the same written anyway.  Sometimes she also reads 12 as 21 and 41 as 14. We were a little upset about this.  Later that night when I spoke with her about this she insisted me to show the report card, asked me to explain all attributes and asked what was her teacher’s comments on the attributes marked as 2.  My intention of the talk was to just make her aware of it but the talk took a serious twist at least I felt so when she asked “Momma is it possible to get all 1’s”… There is no need to explain more to her and I ended the conversation by saying “You have done your best this time and continue to do the same. I am proud of you pattumma. You are the best to me always”.  After all I am not after 1’s.  The scene ended same as how my parents used to console me when I scored less instead of the other way around.

Her teacher’s overall narrative
“She is a well-liked classmate because of her great sense of humor and willingness to help. Her challenge now is to recognize that her social nature can impact her attention to completing task at hand. ”

It looks like this girl is jumping to other tables to help friends in need before completing her own task and sometimes when the class is involved in a group discussion she gets into her own discussion with couple of friends. Otherwise she is doing greeeeaaattttt 🙂

Another thing we have to work hard together is the time at which she gets dropped at school. I feel ashame to say that she hardly attends the assembly. We either drop her with the group that is the last to be dispersed post assembly or  at her classroom while fellow kids settles down after assembly.  The assembly starts at sharp 8:30 am and we can make it to that if we leave home at 8:15 but every single day including today morning we end up leaving by 8:25.  That means she joins the group post assembly at 8:35 am. If she gets dropped after 8:40 then we have to collect a late slip from office that will be counted in tardy days. In this quarter she had full attendance but 5 tardy days.  I remember couple of days we managed to leave at 8:15 but unluckily on those days either M misplaces the car key or I forget my jacket or the road closer to school is closed for road work 😦  We as a family are looking with all hopes for that tomorrow when she will start attending assembly… Please don’t tell me tomorrow never comes.

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