Blog

Wait, a second!

8/1/2022

JD was awarded a special Certificate at school this week. He had been asked by his teacher to enter a National Art competition about a month ago (celebrating the COP-15 Conference held in Kunming last year) and we were all pretty stunned to hear he came top in Yunnan Province and second out of all China!

Admittedly there was a bit of parental help in thinking up the idea and drawing some of the creatures, but that's pretty normal in China, and JD coloured in most of it. So we were all chuffed and JD's Primary School teacher apparently gained a lot of kudos.

Be leaves

12/12/2021

JD's Primary School is in a road full of Gingko trees. Their leaves are quite something at this time of year. JD believes the oncoming car in this photo is floating!

Paul Harder

14/11/2021

JD's class came top of the ten classes in his year in a tug-of-war competition this week. Being the fattest in the class, JD anchored the back of the line and was thrilled at the victory.

Space racist

2/11/2021

JD [bottom left in photo] and his classmates had a series of presentations about planets and space travel this week.

I thought JD would love this as he's very much into tech and spaceships. But he said it was largely about how American rockets are rubbish and the Chinese ones are the best. Must everything be political in schools here?

Art for art's sake

26/9/2021

JiaJia and I challenged JD to an Art Competition last week (to get him off the iPad for an hour or two!). We decided to all draw the same thing (JD chose one of his aeroplane toys) with the best sketch winning a prize [L to R below: Jiajia's, JD's, mine]. Who won, do you think?

JD's schoolteacher is fully aware that Jiajia has a Masters in Art and JD's English is fluent, so she often sends us details of Art/English Competitions for us to enter "for the glory of the school". The painting below was a JJ/JD joint effort for Teacher's Day!

Running the class

18/9/2021

My University lessons are back in full swing after an unusually long, but very welcome, two month Summer holiday. This was one of my classes earlier this week doing a "Running Dictation" exercise...

The Chinese Government have been rolling out a series of education reforms over recent months to "reduce the burden" on young students in China. These include banning online tutoring with teachers based abroad, removal of western printed textbooks, regulating after-school and weekend training classes and reducing homework and exams in Primary Schools. However, JD's school seem to be largely ignoring the "less work" parts. Completing his daily homework is taking longer than ever. He didn't finish until after after 10pm on Monday/Tuesday, though Wednesday/Thursday were "only" 8.30pm [see below]. Crazy.

Tables

30/6/2021

This week and next sees JD's end of term exams - so even more stress and homework than usual. His after-school class takes on the brunt of the Chinese and Maths exercises with Jiajia and I giving him a little extra, personalised work at weekends.

JD, front right

Recent feedback from JD's teachers are that he is focusing better in class and is much-liked by staff and students alike. We are expecting top marks in English, hoping for a top ten placing in Maths and fearing he'll be bottom ten in Chinese... Fingers crossed!

100 - 1 = 99%

26/4/2021

JD has his mid-term maths exam today (Sunday!) and spent most of yesterday (Saturday) practising for it. Let's hope he does as well today as he did in his mock exam yesterday when he finished the hour-long exam in 20 minutes, scoring 99%. Fingers crossed.

HOLs over, scHOLs back

2/3/2021

JD had his first day back at school yesterday, preceded by some tears for fear of not having finished all of the huge amounts of holiday work his school gave him to complete. As it turned out, he'd done enough and, by the time he got to after-school homework club [see above], he was much happier. Here's to the new term.

加油! (means "Come on!", literally "add oil"!)

18/1/2021

JD's Primary School held their "End of Term Closing Ceremony" this morning and JD had a nice surprise, winning an award for "Most Improved Student" in his class! Admittedly this represents improving from last place to "5th from last" (in written Chinese anyhow, with a score of 85%), but all his other exam grades were 95-100% and he has indeed worked very hard this term. It's nice to have that recognised.

No rest for the wee kid

10/1/2021

JD's Primary School have been ramping up the homework these last two weeks in preparation for the upcoming end-of-term exams. We pay for an "after-school club" to pick him up from school each day at 3.30pm and then one of their teachers goes through his homework, corrections and review with him until it's all finished. They also feed him. At first he managed to finish everything by about 7pm but more recently it's sipped to 8pm or 9pm and this week he hasn't left before 10pm. I get him home for a quick shower and then straight to bed, poor kid.

Skip napping

28/11/2020

Sports Day (JD on left)

Before

Nap Time (JD closest)

After

It's eighty, matey!

22/11/2020

JD's Primary School celebrated their 80th Anniversary last week with various games, exhibitions and ceremonies. At first, JD was convinced the school was 8 years old until we showed him the black and white photos of the school's first students in 1940.

Can you spot the school's only foreign student in the picture above?

Writing and wronging

16/10/2020

JD's school continues to send inane homework requests through, late in the evening, for completion by the next morning. So one evening last week we were told (at 9pm) to take 3-4 photos showing homework and housework being done. Having already completed all that by 8pm we had to fake photos of JD reading, writing, doing craft, looking after the hamsters, etc. I imagine most/all the parents were faking it.

We duly emailed the photos off to the teacher but have heard nothing more about it, Another pointless exercise?

Parental chinwag

20/9/2020

With Jiajia away on business it fell to me to attend the parents meeting for JD's class. It lasted two hours and I understood about 10%. Fortunately they only have one per term, so I've done my bit, pointless though it was!

A weird award

26/7/2020

We thought JD's 85% in the Chinese end of term exam was fairly good until we were told he ranked bottom of the class! We were really upset after all the many hours of homework and preparation we had put him through during the COVID-19 months and afterwards. However, other results came back today including 98% in Maths, putting him in the top ten in his class, and an "Outstanding Student" certificate for English!? Art, Science and Politics were all A's. Just as important was a short written report from his class teacher saying how responsible, outgoing and well-loved JD is within the school. So a better end to the academic year than we feared at first!

Testing times

12/7/2020

JD starts his "end of year" exams this week. English first (should be fine) and then Maths (like the puzzle above, which he managed to do in 20 seconds but which took me 2 minutes to work out!) and finally Chinese (which will be the toughest for him). JD's teacher is very competitive and likes her class to get the best results of all the ten classes in his year group. So the homework is mounting up!

Snail mail

2/6/2020

JD's science teacher asked all the students in the class to get two snails for a future experiment.

Amazingly, Jiajia found some for sale online and we duly had two large snails delivered in the post. That was three weeks ago - no further news from the school. I think they've forgotten all about it! Anybody want two snails?

Tea for naughty

24/5/2020

Exam results from JD's first week back at school saw scores in the bottom five of his class. So, when JD's teacher rang Jiajia for "a chat", we feared some sharp words. But when she called, she said she was just genuinely surprised, as we had completed more of the home-schooling work during lockdown than any other family and so she expected JD to return to class ahead of the other students. She suggested a few exam tips to teach JD (like not overlooking questions and checking his answers) and promised to move his deskmate (the naughtiest boy in the class) to another seat and keep an eye on JD's focus. We also worked through a few homework tantrums with JD in that first week, and have tried various punishments (banning his iPad, limiting hamster play etc), rewards (cup of tea, workpoints leading to a toy, timed competitions to complete work, etc) and scheduling changes (40 mins on, 10 minutes off, etc).

This last week has seen a big change (although we are not so naive as to believe it will last forever) with homework done more quickly and with less of a fight. He has apparently been focusing better in class and has now had a couple of exam results in the top five of his class. JD has also got 7 good behaviour stickers towards the 15 needed to become a "Young Pioneer" (i.e. a junior member of the Communist Party). Not quite sure how pleased to be about that one!

Term returns and germs

6/5/2020

JD finally returned to school today after four months of holidays and home-schooling. I've quite enjoyed teaching him English and Maths most mornings, but Jiajia has found it difficult to get him to focus on his Chinese (a subject he finds difficult) and there have been quite a few stressful moments. So we're happy to see the professionals taking over again!

Some schools in China are helping students to understand social distancing by using home-made hats. Fortunately, no sign of JD having to make one, but he does have to take a handful of masks to school each day.

I fort so

16/4/2020

JD and I have taken on a "30-day Internet Lego Challenge", with a new build each day. Yesterday we built "a town" complete with a church, a hospital and a rescue helicopter. Today's challenge was a castle. I don't think we'll be able to keep up the build-a-day pace (and it's sad to have to dismantle each new creation the next day) but it's a little "carrot" to get him to do his homework quickly. He's back to school in 3 weeks.

Work from home

8/2/2020

Being largely confined to the house (while Coronavirus apparently rages everywhere outside!) JD had been keeping up 1-2 hours of homework everyday. I usually do some English and Maths with him in the morning, with Jiajia taking over for Chinese in the evening. In between, he's allowed to play! Usually, the homework is using our own workbooks or ideas, but these two were set by his school, to bring in next term (whenever that turns out to be). One was a display on shapes and their properties, while the other was to make up a game involving (fake) money and transactions.

Cor! Scores!

12/1/2020

After a very stressful fortnight of 3-4 hours of homework every evening, JD's exam scores came back yesterday. He did really well, with "A"s in every subject (except a "B" in P.E.). The 96.1% in Chinese was particularly pleasing as JD struggles a bit with Chinese characters, coming from a family who read/speak a lot more English.

Wire you think?

8/12/2019

JD goes to "basketball practice" every Sunday morning. JD's teacher made it clear that joining the club was technically "voluntary" but that all the class were really expected to sign up. Bizarrely, though he's been 12 times so far, he has yet to touch a basketball!? It's an odd school.

While waiting for him last week, I noticed these wires which run up the walls, but made a wild outward bend for no apparent reason. Strange.

And I wonder if the rounded columns sandwiched between the square pillar sections are an earthquake-dampening measure?

Top score galore

4/12/2019

Sometimes the Chinese education system drives me crazy!

What exactly is the diagnostic value of JD's English exam today when 32 of the 45 students scored over 98% and nearly everybody got over 90% (JD got 100%)? Surely an exam like that is simply too easy?

And why did we get a text from JD's teacher last week saying he "needs to work harder on his Maths" because he 'only' scored 98% on that test?

And maybe I should give his teacher my own grade for texting today's homework through at 8pm? She won't be getting 100% from me!