My Child Did Not Do Well in the SA2 Exams - What Can I Do to Help?

The SA2 exam results have been released and your child may not have performed as well as you had hoped he or she would. This has to be one of the bigger, if not the biggest, points of concern for every parent.

There may be several reasons why your child did not perform as expected — stress, poor grasp of concepts, insufficient revision, the list goes on. 

Instead of adding stress to your child and yourself, here’s what you can do during this term break to make sure your child does better next year. 

“It is important for children to start working on their foundation early. This way, the gaps can be identified early, worked on and ideally, closed," Sue Lynn, TLL's Lower Primary Academic Director shares. "With the foundational skills set in place, they can then proceed on to building more complex concepts, skills and knowledge."

Take time to sit down with your child to identify the areas he or she might need some help with in the various subjects he or she is taking. Recognising these problems early will help you determine the next steps to take to empower your child to understand his or her subjects better.

Be sure to give your child lots of verbal encouragement as well. Knowing you are working together will definitely help your child’s confidence and build a positive mindset towards the need for improvement.

One good revision strategy is to expose your child to model answers so he or she can familiarise himself or herself with the expected approach needed to secure more marks.

However, it is crucial to note that reference alone is not enough, your child needs to have proper recollection and application of information to fare well in his or her exams.

As part of your child’s revision, don’t forget to look over his or her exam papers again closely. Help your child understand why they might have made the mistakes they did and give him or her helpful tips on how to avoid these errors during the next exam.

But remember, don’t pile on too much work or your child may end up even more unwilling to touch any books this holiday!

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With regard to skills application such as in language learning or understanding heuristic problem solving methods, having a teacher analyse the student's problem areas would help in understanding where more discipline and practices should be applied.

Working on assessment papers all the time cannot guarantee that your child learns and internalises how to apply the required knowledge appropriately and effectively. So don’t stress your child (and yourself) with the drill and grill.

What is more important is that your child fully understands and develops a passion for the subjects that he or she is studying in school.

Even if your child takes a longer time to grasp more technical subjects like Maths and Science, don’t worry. It is normal for students to take time to adjust and adapt to new curriculum demands. 

With a keen interest in his or her subject, your child will begin clarifying doubts on her own, revise more and a natural improvement in grades will follow. 

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