Blog

Score!

10/7/2023

JD has been working really hard these last few months. The pressure to do well (from the Chinese education system, and from his very competitive class teacher) has been immense. A typical evening has seen him (and Jiajia) working until 10-11pm to finish his homework. JD's Chinese has always been his weakness. Unlike his classmates, he operates in a world where language is split - whilst his schoolwork and homework is all in Chinese, his home life and entertainment tends to be in English. Tough.

After recent grades in mock Chinese exams of 44% and 65%, we were simply hoping for something over 70% for his final exam. But, to our surprise, he managed to get 84% in Chinese, and then 93% in Maths. Finally, a much needed reward for all his hard work. Well done, son!

English?

4/7/2023

JD had his end of year English Exam yesterday which included questions like this.... (good luck!)

Work and play

26/4/2023

JD has been maturing quite a lot in recent months. He seems to struggle a little less at school - finding ways to avoid the boredom and do enough to pass his exams (just). His class won the Year 4 Basketball Competition - JD was just cheering - AND the Year 4 Ethnic Dancing Competition (both out of 10 class teams). JD was one of the dancers.

JD's free time has been dominated by fish recently. His two aquariums teem with fish, big and small. But with 1-2 dying every day, we wonder how long it will be before he packs in that hobby! He also has aspirations to be an angler. He bought his third rod and line last week. I get really proud when I see him confidently interacting with "strangers" such as shopkeepers and neighbourhood folk with great confidence and politeness. And all in fluent Chinese, too!

Most valuable supporter

16/4/2023

Last week, JD and his class spent many, many hours taking part in a basketball competition between the ten classes in his year. The teachers take it very seriously with girls, boys and mixed teams, and live-streamed matches. By the end, JD's "Class #7" were unbeaten and destroyed their opponents in the final, 21 v 5. JD didn't play at all, but was awarded "No.1 Supporter" for his enthusiastic chanting and encouragement. As a reward, the students in "Class #7" had no homework to do last weekend. JD got home by 7pm on Friday and slept until noon on Saturday - a well-deserved rest!

Longest sentence ever?

16/3/2023

JD's Primary School sent out a text the other day which, when translated by my phone, read...

"In order to thoroughly study and implement General Secretary Xi Jinping's important statement on education, and cultivate the self-esteem, self-confidence, rationale, peaceful and positive attitude of primary and secondary school students, in accordance with the Guiding Opinions on Strengthening Mental Health Services of 22 Departments such as the National Health and Family Planning Commission (National Health and Disease Control [2016], the Ministry of Education on Printing and Distributing the Guiding Outline of Mental Health Education in Primary and Secondary Schools (Revised in 2012), the Education Leading Group of the Provincial Party Committee, Notice on Printing and Distributing the Work Plan for Preventing and Containing Personal Extreme Events of Students in Yunnan Province and the Notice of the Yunnan Provincial Department of Education, Yunnan Provincial Health Commission and Yunnan Women's Federation on the Evaluation of the Mental Health Status of Primary and Secondary School Students, after research, it was decided to carry out the evaluation of students' mental health status."

Write back to school

12/2/2023

JD's holiday homework and review papers have been ramping up this week as he's back to school next week and looking at taking his end-of-term exams, which were postponed from last semester due to the COVID school closure.

He goes to a private homework class most days and Jiajia gives him extra help where she can. JD only has about a year of Chinese education to go, so it's important to take this opportunity to make his reading and writing as solid as possible before our move to the UK next year.

Christmaths

18/12/2022

With JD's Primary School having been closed for a month now, his schoolwork is all assigned, handed-in and marked online. Up until last week, he has done this though the day at "Cleaner School" - his after-school club attended by 5-10 students, usually just to do homework but now doing classwork through the day too.

But with COVID ripping through the population now, since the removal of pandemic restrictions, "Cleaner School" has closed down too. JD has had COVID this last week but is now back to 90% health and so the schoolwork continues. Jiajia has to do the Chinese and Maths with him (90% of the total) while I pitch in with English and "generally keeping everyone less stressed"!! The holidays can't come quickly enough!

Teach or cheat?

22/9/2022

Yesterday, JD's Primary School class sent out a message requiring all students to create a painting by tomorrow with the theme of "A Chinese Village". The top ten would then be entered into a Provincial Competition. But JD is currently getting home from his Homework Club at 10.00-11.00pm. There really is no time to break open the paints. So JiaJia reluctantly agreed to paint 90% of it on his behalf...

It's taken her many hours to get it finished [see above]. But yesterday, when another parent rang Jiajia for a chat, we found out that the other parents in the class simply pay someone to do their paintings for them. They found it funny that Jiajia actually does it herself! And the school don't seem to care who does it - as long as they get the kudos of winning prizes in the competition. What's the educational purpose of all of this? Maybe just to teach people how to cheat successfully?

Who's the fairest of them all?

26/4/2022

With exams next week, followed by May Day week holiday, last week was the best time for JD's class to have their 6-monthly photo.

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 COP15 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 attack

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 slipped 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.

Skipping 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!