Officially a teenager!

Lesley-Anne celebrated her 13th birthday on Saturday. It was a simple celebration with dinner at Sushi Tei on Friday, followed by ice-cream at Swensen's.

On Saturday, my sister and brother-in-law came over for a simple meal and we had a chocolate fudge cake. Just as Lesley-Anne had requested, most of her presents were books. I overheard Andre comment, "Hah? All books? Not a single Lego brick??" (Obviously to him, that was a complete waste of a gifting opportunity.)



How did my little girl become a teenager overnight? Lesley-Anne now wears the same shoe size as I do, and she can borrow my blouses (though we obviously have different tastes in styles). In the blink of an eye, she's now 13, though in my mind, I will always see her in her fresh new p1 school uniform and two pigtails, all of 6 years old.

Actually, Lesley-Anne becoming a teenager isn't a very drastic transition. A family member once commented that Lesley-Anne was born a teenager. That's because she has always been very mature for her age, thinking and saying things beyond her years.

Even as she reaches adolescence, I know we will continue to have our mother-daughter fights and there will be many times when we cannot see eye to eye, but her intelligence, level-headedness and uncanny sensitivity to those around her never fail to amaze me. So here's my message to her: May you never sell yourself short, always grow in your spirit of care for others, and know what a blessing you are to your family and friends.


Happy birthday, baby girl!

Jumping on the 'band' wagon

CCA is considered a very significant part of secondary school. It's taken very seriously and the time spent on your CCA can almost be as much as curriculum time, especially if you choose a competitive one.

In primary school, Lesley-Anne was in the library CCA, which she never fails to blame me for. The story behind it was that she was in p4 and had just gotten into GEP. I was worried about the upcoming workload and so urged her to take up a light CCA. Since she wasn't into sports, library seemed ideal - just a couple of hours of duty a week and you perform them in air-conditioned comfort. Quite shiok right? Except she found it supremely boring. I guess wrapping and shelving books isn't exactly heady stuff.

So when it came to secondary school, I'd learnt the error of my ways (basically never make certain decisions for your kid or you'll never hear the end of it). "Go choose whatever CCA you want!" But old habits die hard and mummy always thinks she knows better. So while I didn't force her to choose any path, I couldn't resist planting some ideas.

You see, I always wished that I'd joined a concert band when I was in school. There's something very appealing about playing music as a group - it's a much more dynamic experience then playing solo. So I made the suggestion to Lesley-Anne, even nudging her to speak to my sister who played percussion in her JC band (which if my memory serves me well, was also instigated by me. Once a kaypoh, always a kaypoh.)

Quite to my delight, Lesley-Anne was rather taken by the idea and decided to opt for the concert band as a CCA. Such is the power of suggestion. Or maybe projection. She auditioned and was accepted, thanks to her music background. Initially, she'd wanted the flute but there was only one vacancy and it was quickly filled so she ended up with the clarinet which was her second choice.

Since the sec 1s are newbies, they take almost a year to learn their allotted instruments under the junior band. They stay back after school twice a week, 3 hours each time to have sectional practices as well as practices together as a band. Each section has its own music teacher and there is a main teacher who leads the entire junior band. When they have progressed sufficiently, they will join the main band towards the end of the year, to take over the outgoing sec 4s.

It's been about two months since Lesley-Anne started the CCA and she's enjoying every minute of it. She has already begun to play simple songs although I haven't heard her play as the students are discouraged from bringing their instruments home for now. When she talks about the band, her eyes light up - it's clearly one of the highlights of school for her.

I can see that the appeal is more than simply playing music. Being part of the band means bonding with a small group of like-minded students. The clarinet section (which happens to be the largest section) holds regular bonding sessions and activities, it's like a mini club and the kids form strong friendships. Eventually when the band enters competitions or plays in concerts, I can imagine the shared experience will only serve to strengthen ties.

Before I wrote this post, I asked Lesley-Anne, "So was joining the band everything that you expected it to be?" She didn't hesitate. "No. It's even better than I expected." Well, one thing's for certain - it sure beats library. Phew.

Ballet, piano... and exams

Lesley-Anne has had a hectic past two weeks. While other kids were probably enjoying the one-week break, she was busy preparing for her ballet exam (Grade 5) and piano exam (Grade 6).


What with starting a new school, new curriculum, tons of homework, demanding CCA, she ended up with little time to practise and it became a rather stressful period. Shakespeare claims that music soothes the savage breast but I'm sure he never accounted for ABRSM exams. Amidst the flurry of activity and frayed nerves, we wondered why we even made the decision for her to take both exams at the same time. In such situations, my reply is always: "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Anyway, it's done! I thought I'd post Lesley-Anne's piano exam pieces so I'd have a record of them since she's probably never going to play these again in her lifetime. That kinda tends to happen to exam pieces.

The first piece typically is a fast one in classical style.



The second piece is a gentle, lyrical song. When I was doing exams, I tended to love second pieces as they called for less finger technique and more expression.



Finally, the third piece is a contemporary, rambunctious one that I love best among her three pieces. Maybe it's because it's such an antithesis to Lesley-Anne's character that it's fun to watch her play it!

Breakfast for Andre

Before school closed for the holidays last week, Lesley-Anne's Civics and Moral Education teacher gave the class an assignment - the students had to perform five different household chores during the week.

This was Lesley-Anne's list:

1. Hang laundry
2. Fold clothes
3. Sweep floor
4. Dust furniture
5. Make breakfast for Andre

As you can imagine, it was the last item that elicited the most excitement from Andre. At last, his sister was going to wait on him and his stomach was the beneficiary. A double bonus!

The menu: scrambled eggs and cheese toast. Andre went crazy with the digital camera (I think he felt he had to record the momentous event).

The final product was pretty credible, so much so that Lesley-Anne gamely obliged with scrambled eggs breakfast for the whole family yesterday.

And here's the happy gourmand!

Test your world geography knowledge

Kenneth has been urging me to post more about curriculum matters as he thinks parents are more interested in knowing what kids are learning at school. I don't know if that's true but I'm happy to give it a go. If you have any feedback on the type of topics you like to read on this blog, feel free to let me know.

It's more fun for me to post about secondary school curriculum because it's new to me. Almost everything that Lesley-Anne has been doing in school so far sounds interesting and refreshing.

Geography this term is focused on physical geography, including map reading. Below is the quiz that the students sat for (based on the given map) to test their knowledge of the topic. I'm also appending the answers below but just for fun, try the quiz before checking the answers to see how many you know. The numbers in brackets are the marks allocated to each question. The answers are below the map so don't scroll to that portion first.

1. Write the letter name and identify the mountain range located north of India. [2]
2. Write the letter name and identify the longest river in the world. [2]
3. Write the letter name and identify the mountain range located in Russia. [2]
4. Identify the continents labeled A and B. [2]
5. Write the letter name and name the ocean nearest to the coldest continent. [2]
6. Identify Sea C. [1]
7. Write the letter name and identify the capital of Australia. [2]
8. Write the letter name and identify the capital of United States of America. [2]
9. Identify Country D and E. [2]
10. Identify line X, Y and Z. [3]



Answers:

1. P, Himalayas
2. H, Nile
3. W, Ural
4. A: Africa, B: South America
5. K, Southern
6. South China Sea
7. N, Canberra
8. L, Washington DC
9. D: The Philippines, E: Japan
10. X: Equator 0 degrees, Y: Tropic of Capricorn 23.5 degrees, Z: Arctic Circle 66.5 degrees

Maths mummy retires

I realise I haven't had a maths post in a long time which is kind of ironic since at one point, I think my blog was primarily about maths.

There's a simple explanation for this: maths was Lesley-Anne's stumbling block and I had to be actively involved to guide her through the subject so that she would be sufficiently prepared for PSLE. Now that the PSLE is over, I'm off the hook!

This is not to imply that Lesley-Anne has magically grown some mathematical DNA overnight. It's just that the transfer from primary to secondary school seems to have sparked a switch in my brain - primary school: Mummy On, secondary school: Mummy Off. I don't know what it is but I feel like at secondary school, the child should be mature enough to learn on her own and make sure she meets her deadlines. Mummy's role is now purely functional, ie see that she gets three square meals a day (well, one is in school so that's two) and that she gets enough sleep.

This mental switch is quite strange - it impacts me not just intellectually but affectively. I mean, Lesley-Anne came home with a 6/10 for her maths quiz and I was quite unperturbed, in fact nonchalant. My response was, "Do you know where you went wrong? You gao tim (handle) yourself, ok?" In other words, her not getting great results doesn't even stress me out anymore. Somewhere in the illogical region of my brain (maybe the part that controls food), I assume that she'll find a way to manage.

Maybe there's another reason for it and that is, I couldn't help even if I wanted to. If I thought primary school maths was tough, at least I could get away with drawing cutesy models and working out problem sums with narratives like "Ali and Ahmad have 25 balloons between them". How fun is that?

In secondary school, maths is serious business. Here are two samples of the no-nonsense questions from one of Lesley-Anne's math quizzes:

1) Given that 450 = 2 x 3² x 5² and 2625 = 3 x 5³ x 7, find

• the largest common factor of 450 and 2625
• the least common multiple of 450 and 2625, leaving your answer in index notation
• the smallest positive integer n, if 450n is a perfect cube
• the smallest positive interger m, if 450m is a multiple of 2625

2) Find a three-digit number A such that A + 17 is divisible by 15, A + 77 is divisible by 25, and A + 107 is divisible by 35.

Imagine a big, neon question mark above my head. What happened to all those fictitious names, the transferring of women and men into Halls A and B, and time taken to walk from playground to library? Sorry, this is secondary school. No more Ahmad and Ali. Didn't you hear? Maths is about NUMBERS. And PS, I have no burning desire to know the answers to the questions above so please don't email me.

After each topic, the teacher gives a quiz to test that the students understand what they have been taught. Those who score less than 6/10 have to attend maths remedial for that topic. I think it's quite a good system as the remedial sessions zoom in on specific topics rather than on specific individuals. After all, some kids may have difficulty only in selected topics.

And while we're on the subject of maths, Lesley-Anne called home sometime in January, informing me that she had been selected for Maths Olympiad training. She couldn't stop giggling as she told me. I asked her several times, "Sure or not???" She attributes it to her superior tikam skills on the MCQ diagnostic test ("Hmm... so many Cs, I think I'll colour a B...")

I let her go for the two-hour weekly training sessions, figuring hey, free maths tuition, why not? She's since been having thoughts about dropping out as she claims she has no idea what the teacher is talking about.

Bring back Ali and Ahmad, I say!

A tiger story to usher in the Tiger year

Secondary school means the introduction of new subjects, notably the humanities, which is a big attraction for the very much humanities-inclined Lesley-Anne. It's still early days yet but so far, she has been enjoying the lessons, especially geography.

Under history, Lesley-Anne has already done one assignment which I thought was pretty interesting so I'm sharing it here. The assignment was to pick an object which had historical significance to the student's life or family and write about it. The writeup had to cover the item's significance, student's reflection, and challenges faced in doing the assignment.

Here's what Lesley-Anne wrote, verbatim.

History Around Us


My item is this photo of my great-grand father and his hunting party with their hired worker behind the tiger they just hunted. This took place around the 1930s. At that time, many tigers, which were said to have swum to the island from Johor, used to roam Singapore. However, they could only be found in the old Chua Chu Kang Village, thus making it a popular hunting ground. Many people would think that the ones in danger would be my great-grand father and his hunting party. However, they do not know the full story.

The ones that were actually in real danger were the hired odd-job workers. Their job is to track down. When the tiger was found, they would start making loud noises to confuse it and chase it to the designated location, which would be where the hunting party was waiting. Then, one member of the hunting party would shoot the tiger on arrival. The process of tracking the tiger could sometimes take up to a week, hence the hunting party often camped out near the site.

My great-grand father was also the friend of the sultan of Johor. This resulted in his hunting party being granted permission to hunt, not only in Singapore, but in Johor as well. Back then, hunting was considered a sport meant only for the rich. This was because a lot of money was required to buy weapons, hire workers and last, but not least, the photographer. My great-grandfather’s hunting party was quite well-known at that time. A photograph of his hunting party was recently featured in the newspapers. However, it is unknown to us how the press managed to acquire the photographs.

This photograph is special to me as my aunt and grandmother would often show me this photograph and tell me about my great-grandfather when I was young. My family and I find the photograph very fascinating as it lets us get a glimpse of what life was like for my great-grandfather back then. We also like the fact that it shows Singapore before the Second World War just as she was developing.

Through this assignment, I made use of my interviewing skills as I had to interview my aunt and grandmother to get the information. Some difficulties I faced were trying constructing the interview questions to make sure I get actual facts for answers instead of opinions and assumptions. I also found out about my weakness in time management. I found it quite difficult to find time to work on this project whilst juggling many other activities and my busy school life. However, in the end, I’m glad that I managed to pull it off and I’m extremely happy that I managed to learn more about my great-grandfather and his life back then.

I thought this was a very interesting assignment as it helped bring home the relevance of history in the students' lives and made them reflect on their past. Lesley-Anne scored 16/20 for this project which I thought was a credible result for the first try. Her use of language is very simple but I think the teacher only marked based on content.

The humanities is definitely an area of interest for me as well. Looking ahead, I will probably be blogging about some of Lesley-Anne's lessons and curriculum so I've created a new label called "humanities" (duh) which will cover language arts/literature, history and geography.

Moving towards real learning in secondary school

I've always hated looking at my kids' primary school time-tables. It seems to me that the school is trying to cram in as much syllabus and content as possible within a finite number of hours. Simply looking at the subjects squeezed into intensive half-hour blocks makes me feel ready to hyerventilate. Non-core subjects like PE look like they're thrown in as afterthoughts and if that's not bad enough, these are often being usurped to make time for even more lessons. It's one big drill.

I was expecting Lesley-Anne's secondary school time-table to be much of the same, if not worse, particularly as new subjects are being introduced at the secondary school level. Much to my surprise, academic subjects take up just about two-thirds of curriculum time in her time-table. The rest of it is filled with non-academic modules. Apart from the usual art, music and PE, there are (or will be) other interesting periods such as research, IT, culture, even drama and dance. I was struck by how holistic and diverse it was. It certainly had a leisurely feel about it, a complete contrast from primary school.

Naturally it didn't take me long to figure out that reduced curriculum time means that the students are expected to do much of the learning on their own. For instance, with only one history period a week, there is only so much content the teacher can cover. The students are clearly expected to do their own reading and find their own information to supplement their learning, no spoon-feeding of content. With just two weeks of school under their belt (one, if you discount orientation week), the kids have already been handed out written assignments requiring research and reflection.

Fortunately for Lesley-Anne, she is familiar with these independent learning techniques, thanks to the GEP as its curriculum centres around such methods. Since p4, she has learned how to embark on research, how to organise and execute both team and individual projects, as well as how to use a variety of IT tools.

And I feel strongly that this is what learning should be about - not drilling of content but exposure to a wide variety of topics and intellectual exploration through guided and self-discovery.

Everyday, Lesley-Anne comes home from school all chirpy and eager to share some fun or interesting moment in school. I can see that she's engaged and interested, and that makes learning even more effective.

It's early days yet and of course I can't speak for all secondary schools, only Lesley-Anne's, but here's my verdict so far: I absolutely like what I see. Check with me again in a year's time to see if I've changed my mind!

The comedy routine of sports trials

One of the first things many secondary schools put their newbie sec 1 kids through are sports trials. These often take place during the first week of school or orientation, as the various sports attempt to identify and recruit potential players for the school teams.

The sports trials at Lesley-Anne's school were held last week and every sec 1 student had to undergo them. Basically, they had to try out at the sports stations to see if they would be shortlisted. The advantage is that you get to try out for a ton of different sports, many of which the kids probably would never have experienced before. The downside is that many of these kids, as I discovered, are decidedly unsporty and having to undergo one sports trial after another must be nothing short of torture.

Lesley-Anne was recounting what happened and it was just hilarious. Sports ranks lowly on her range of interests and it appears that she's not the only one. They had to shoot hoops for netball and basketball, do leaps for wushu, run sprints, do a long distance run, flip an opponent for judo, do catches for volleyball, among other tests. The kids huffed and puffed. They complained about how heavy the short putt ball was. For gym, they had to jump on a trampoline and many bounced awkwardly in circles before falling off.

The seniors would call out, "Who's interested in basketball?" *silence* "Who's keen on volleyball?" *crickets chirping* Finally they said in desperation, "You can't ALL be interested in the performing arts, right??"

When Lesley-Anne told me that she recorded one of the fastest times in her class for sprints, I figured her classmates were no Flo-Jos. Then I discovered she was even shortlisted for softball.

"Wah, maybe you got hidden talent! Did you hit the ball very well?"

"Err... the first time I hit the stand. The second time the ball bounced off."

I thought maybe it's just her school with the sports duds, until Elan shared similar stories of the sports trials in her son's school. According to her son, the standards for the trials fluctuated, ie as the coaches got more desperate, the standards got lower. By the time it came to her son's class which was the last one, he got selected for softball even though he didn't know what the sport was, as well as soccer even though he knocked down half the cones he was supposed to dribble around!

The wushu test initially was to squat with one leg in front and one extended behind, then jump up and kick until your leg is parallel to your cheek. By the time the last class did it, the test became: "see how high you can jump".

Thanks for allowing me to share, Elan. I laughed until my sides ached. No wonder schools nowadays are putting more focus on sports DSAs. If they had to rely on all these bookworms with two left feet, the schools ain't entering the Sports Hall of Fame anytime soon.

Higher Chinese

We have been trying to inculcate a love of Chinese in our kids, which is no mean feat considering I can barely read a primary level Chinese textbook. Thankfully, despite our rather haphazard methods and many mistakes, Lesley-Anne has not developed an aversion to Chinese. In fact, she can even lay claim to having interest in the Chinese culture and language which is nothing short of a miracle, I think.

This interest will be of paramount importance to Lesley-Anne because *deep breath* she will be embarking on Higher Chinese in secondary school. It's a huge leap of faith for her, considering she didn't take it up in primary school (leaving a couple of our friends scratching their heads, thinking we're crazy). Let's just say, nothing ventured, nothing gained and if she truly can't cope with it, she can always choose to drop it later on. We're not putting pressure on her to ace the subject - as long as she can emerge from the experience with a greater love and appreciation for the language, I would consider the venture a success.

So anyway, we have been encouraging her to read more Chinese books over the holidays and as usual, interesting Chinese stories seem to be terribly hard to come by. After some trial and error, she found a series which was pretty interesting, so I decided to share it here, in case other parents face the same problem.

This is a book she found quite engaging. Once again, as per my previous observation with Totto-Chan and Les P'tite Poules, the interesting Chinese books tend to be those translated from another language. This is the Chinese version of Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert O'Brien, a Newbery Medal award-winning book which tells the tale of Mrs Frisby, a widowed field mouse, who enlist the help of a group of former laboratory rats in rescuing her home from destruction by a farmer's plow. The rats had previously escaped from the laboratory and developed into a literate and technological society. Fascinating story.

According to Lesley-Anne, the other titles released by this publisher are also generally quite good. This is another she borrowed but has yet to read. It's originally in French but I couldn't figure out the name and author of the book. I think it's Reynard the Fox (which is a famous wily character in French folklore).

Lesley-Anne picked these books because she loves reading about animals but there are also other types of stories. Do check them out! I would place the reading level at about 11 to 13 years old.

We're on the pages of Young Parents magazine!

Hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas! I know we did... and it's over again all too soon.

We did have a special Christmas present this year, in the form of Young Parents magazine. You see, I was interviewed a couple of months ago for an article on mums who blog about education. Yup, Of Kids and Education made it to the newstands, how about that!

Lilian asked me to scan the article and post it here but several problems presented themselves, the biggest one was that I do not own a scanner. Secondly, even if I did, I don't think I would know how to post it here, the tech novice that I am.

So, if you want to read the article, do get a copy of Young Parents magazine, January 2010 issue. The article is on pages 50-54. The writer Tracy was really nice and accommodating, and I'm very grateful to her for writing about my blog in such a positive way.

Instead of blogging about the article, I'm going to chat about our experience. The interview was quite straightforward and uneventful, the highlight for my kids was definitely the photo shoot. It was a full studio shoot where wardrobe and makeup were provided.

The wardrobe was the tricky bit. While they were spot on with my kids' styles (gorgeous Gap tops and jeans), they were completely off the mark with me. It was completely my fault, I made it a point to tell them in advance not to put Lesley-Anne in a dress or anything with frills so that she wouldn't be uncomfortable, and forgot all about myself. So when they showed me a green sleeveless dress that I was to wear, I'm sure my expression must have been priceless. I'm not fussy but there were three things wrong with that outfit for me - Green. Sleeveless. And dress. Apparently it was a mistake not to have mentioned to them that I am almost exclusively a jeans and t-shirt gal, and that I can't remember the last time I wore a dress.

After some feeble protests, the wardrobe folks very obligingly agreed to change my outfit. It was another dress with a striking spiderweb print. It's still totally not me but at least it's not sleeveless and it's not green (one of the sure colours to make me look like I'm on my deathbed, apart from beige). So, not wanting to appear like a prima donna, I agreed.

Then the next surprise - they presented me with a pair of three-inch heels. My kids had hysterics - I'm sure my startled expression is permanently seared into their memories. Andre gallantly offered me his arm and asked with a straight face, "Can you stand up, Mummy? Here, take my arm." As I wobbled to take my place in front of the camera, I kept thinking, "Thank God it's a still photo."

And here we are. Let it be recorded that I also had false eyelashes on. Ah well, we should all be glamorised at least once in our lives!

The photos taken are property of SPH and so we were not able to receive copies, which is a pity. The photographer generously offered to take this pic of us using my handphone so we could at least have something to remember the session by.

After the group session, the photographer was so taken by Andre's typical animated self that she requested to take a few solo shots of him for her portfolio. Needless to say, Andre LOVED the attention - everything from the makeup and waxed hair to the Gap outfit. He posed, he hammed it up, he basked in the limelight.

Here are some shots I took on my crummy phone. Too bad we couldn't have copies of the actual photos, some of them were really nice.

He loved the checked shirt so much I bought a similar one for him for Chinese New Year. If by some miracle, he ever makes it as a model, let it be known that he got his start here!

Reporting day

23rd December 2009 - a momentous day. Bright and early, Lesley-Anne joined hundreds of other students in a variety of uniforms, to report to her secondary school.

As we sat with other parents in the hall, watching our young 'uns with pride, it seemed like there was an invisible thread binding us together in our shared circumstances. Lilian wrote about feeling a great sense of school spirit when she was with Brian at his secondary school and I totally understand what she meant.

Everything was hustle and bustle today, the school had obviously gotten the system down pat through years of experience. Registration was efficient and orderly, followed by the massive rush to buy uniforms, books and stationery. The stiff crispness of unworn fabric and the woody scent of new books - they all added to the excitement in the air. Eager faces unjaded by familiarity, a brand new campus waiting to be discovered and fresh routines to be carved out. I'd forgotten how exhilarating it was to embark on a new chapter in school.

What wondrous adventures lie ahead? Nobody knows... but we can't wait.

PSLE results and the great thanksgiving

Ok, I'm all done with my holiday posting and as promised, I'm going to share Lesley-Anne's PSLE results.

This is one of those posts where I had to think long and hard about how to write it because it's such a personal matter. I pondered over whether it was necessary to advertise my daughter's results to all and sundry on a public blog. At the same time, many parents have been faithfully following Lesley-Anne's education journey on this blog over a year and cheering her on. For this reason, I felt a sense of obligation to my readers, to provide a proper closing to this chapter in her life.

As I reflected on it further, I became convinced that I should share her results, the reason which will be revealed at the end.

That Friday before the results, Lesley-Anne's piano teacher told her, "All the best! But no matter what you get, give thanks." That was clue no.1.

In the school hall before they released the results, the teacher in charge led in the singing of two hymns, one of them was "Give thanks." Clue no.2.

The principal exhorted parents to accept whatever results their kids got as God gives everything purposefully. Clue no.3.

The atmosphere was so tense I could practically feel the anxiety of both the parents and the students. Finally, Lesley-Anne got her results - 252 for her T-score, 3 A* (English, Maths, Science) and 1 A (Chinese).

When she first showed it to me, my mind was a jumble of mixed emotions. On one hand, I was truly pleased with the 3 A*, I honestly didn't expect her to get A* for Maths and Science. On the other hand, 252 sounded like a lower score than what GEP kids would typically get.

So there I was trying to digest the news, not really sure how to react. Then I saw Lesley-Anne among some of her friends who'd scored 260+ and 270+ - she was genuinely happy for them without any tinge of envy, and more importantly, she was happy with her own score. And the thought flashed across my mind, "if she's not comparing with others, why am I?"

That night when she was saying her prayers, she said "Thank you God for my results" with such honest and simple gratitude that I was moved. I don't want to be overly dramatic and say that I had an epiphany there and then, but I think I finally understood what true thanksgiving was all about. On hindsight, the three clues were probably God's prompting for me.

Too often, we give thanks with conditions attached - only when God gives us exactly what we want. But we are told to give thanks in ALL circumstances. How do we do this? By understanding and acknowledging that God gives us everything for a reason, there is no accidental gift. Every gift is designed to build us, mould us or serve a larger purpose.

This is not rationalisation, as some cynics might believe. As I reflected on how far Lesley-Anne has come, I realised that we were seeing God's long-term plan for her in action. Back when she was just 9 years old, He led her into the GEP which provided the kind of education she needed. Through the GEP, she was led towards applying for DSA to the secondary school that she loves - one that we didn't even consider a year ago.

During her time in GEP, Lesley-Anne had never been among the top rung of high achieving students. While some GEP kids cruised their way through the programme, she has always had to work extra hard just to keep up. What she lacked in pure brilliance, she made up with hard work. Throughout this year, I have seen Lesley-Anne dedicate immense effort, initiating extra revision time on top of what the teachers doled out. From seeing the effort she put in, I know this was the best score she could manage, and therefore, there was nothing to be sorry for and everything to be proud of.

And once again, God had everything in place - since she has already been successful in her DSA, her PSLE score is in fact, inconsequential.

So to cut a long story short, I decided to share Lesley-Anne's results not simply to satisfy the curiosity of readers. Truth be told, the T-score is just a number, a child is so much more than that. But what I have gained as a result of this whole exercise is a lesson in the true spirit of thanksgiving. It is something that Lesley-Anne understood better than I did, and it's a message I feel compelled to share, especially in the light of the Christmas season.

We are richly blessed, and by giving thanks, we know this more.

"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." - Proverbs 19:21