Good Progress Award

After watching so many people post pictures of their children going to collect awards, we finally got a chance to go and watch Ace collect his award too:)

When Ace finished P3, I noticed in Dec/Jan, there were many who posted pictures of their children getting various edusave awards and I was thinking like.. wah.. these awards look like they are so easy to get wor.. how come Ace dun have any ah?

But then I guess he only did P3 for half a year here... so leh, in P4, I told him that since he has a chance to do P4, he will get a chance to get the awards and encouraged him to work towards that...

Few weeks back, lots of people started posting pictures of them getting letters of their children receiving various awards again and when I looked at the awards criteria, I was thinking how come Ace did not at least get the Good Progress Award... cos he actually improved by almost 10 points for most of his subjects.. which to me is not an easy feat....

I think Max was also wondering the same thing cos during the end of the school term, he kept asking Ace when is the prize giving and whether there are any details and whether we will be invited to go:) hahahahaa...

But leh, I let it go bah... Maybe this improvement is not large enough. My friend said her daughter who has always done well in school has never won any award too.

But leh, right after I let go of the idea that Ace should have gotten an award too, we get a letter saying that he has won the Edusave Good Progress Award and that we will get more info later.

So the other day, we went out for dinner and Ace was so happy that when he ordered a coke, he got this particular one...

 Few days later, THE LETTER came in the mail...

 When Ace say his name on the letter.. he kept giggling and laughing when he opened the letter....

 He was happiest to find out he will get a cheque and the money will not quietly go to his Edusave account...

So leh on the awards ceremony day, I told Ace he has to  come back immediately after his swimming lessons and then hor, times up and he is nowhere in sight. I went down and he is still playing gun with his friends lor... sigh..

He said he looked at the clock and saw there was 5 min left and so he play for 5 min lor....

His swim coach Mr Tang saw me and asked me if Ace is a gun fanatic.. he said he met Ace once when he was on his way to tuition and asked him why he has a gun in his bag and Ace told him, "I am bringing to tuition!"

When asked why he needs to bring guns to tuition.. he says that is the norm.. if he did not bring, people will ask why!:) hahahahaha

(Chances are, actually, that if you see Ace with a bag, there is a nerf gun inside.... size of the bag will give you clue about the size of the gun:))

Anyway, we reached the ceremony registration counter and they registered us and even gave us cake and drink in case we are hungry!:) Heng ah! Cos Ace is always hungry after swimming:)

 So we open up and eat lor.. Ace wanted the chocolate one.. but when he tasted the cheese flavoured one we had, he said he wanted to eat ours too:) hahahaha

 Max laughing at Ace about why his hair so messy and why he eat till so many crumbs round his lips:) hahahaha...

 Time to move to the hall and when we arrived, had to sit down and wait a little...

 Then Victor Lye, the grassroots leader of the RC in this area appeared and gave a speech..

It was like.. well.. a mini  and subtle advertisement for why you should vote for the current government cos of all the wonderful things they have done and how they actually specially arranged the session according to address such that we get to mingle with our neighbours...:)

 Never met this guy before but he is not bad... quite down to earth and can carry himself well.. sorry mate, I dun vote in Aljunied GRC:) hahahaa

 They very thoughtfully prepared paper and markers for the young children in case they got bored while waiting.

I must say the event is quite well organized with an exception to ONE detail. They did not state event start and end timing in the letter.

 I noticed there are alot of banners here in the school hall...

 And this one caught my eyes;)

"We must uphold meritocracy and prevent corruption.." I thought it was so wrong on all accounts and wondered what is this banner doing here in a school. I mean, to prevent corruption, I think the more accurate thing to say is to uphold INTEGRITY... right?

Plus, meritocracy... is sooo passe.. even the government realizes now that everyone can have a part to play and are important regardless of how "good" they are in their studies. So I felt like the banner is like so so wrong...

There was another banner that said, "No one owes Singapore a living!" Like so Ah beng or wat right... really had me scratching my head...

But i did some research and realized these phrases came from the National Education program they had and these are famous phrases uttered by the late PM Lee Kuan Yew during speeches.

While they may apply when Mr LKY made them.. I think maybe the current Singapore needs something  more up to date for their children today....

 Ace got bored.. and so.. after looking at the other kids having fun drawing, he said he wanted to draw too:)

 Finally time for us to go up.. parents were invited to go and get the award together. Initially Max did not want to go up the stage but Ace wanted him to go.. and so he did:) We even got a free photo after with Mr Lye's greetings lor! hahahaha...

 While queuing up.. I realized that the flowers at the podium are made of paper! So pretty leh!

Ace asked if he can spend some of the money he got.. and I told him of course he can spend but he can only spend 20% of it..... IF he works out mentally how much is 20% of the $150 he got:) haha...

Anyway, very proud of Ace that his hard work paid off and showed results:)

Meanwhile... Ace said that his picture is in this year's Handbook.. so I told him to take good care of it keep it as a souvenir ;)


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