A Nurse’s Care and Mother’s Love: The Recipe for PSLE Success

Today, we have the pleasure of having Mrs Josephine Tan, a dedicated nurse and a loving mother with us. Jo, thank you for joining us. Let’s jump right into the interview. As a Senior Staff Nurse, what skills have you learned that you find helpful in your role as a mother?

Thank you for hav­ing me. Resilience, patience, and pro­vid­ing emo­tion­al sup­port are some of the key skills I’ve acquired as a nurse that have proven invalu­able in my role as a moth­er. Nurs­ing has taught me to nav­i­gate through chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tions with resilience, and I apply this mind­set when faced with the ups and downs of par­ent­ing. Patience is cru­cial in both pro­fes­sions, as car­ing for patients and rais­ing chil­dren require under­stand­ing and com­pas­sion. Addi­tion­al­ly, being able to pro­vide emo­tion­al sup­port to oth­ers as a nurse has enabled me to cre­ate a nur­tur­ing envi­ron­ment for my chil­dren, sup­port­ing their emo­tion­al well-being.

That’s wonderful. Now, can you share what made you decide to seek professional help for your son’s learning experience and turn to sending them for tuition?

Cer­tain­ly. I real­ized the impor­tance of ear­ly inter­ven­tion in my son’s learn­ing jour­ney to fos­ter improve­ment. As a moth­er, I want­ed to pro­vide the best sup­port pos­si­ble for his edu­ca­tion. How­ev­er, I found it chal­leng­ing to keep up with the cur­rent cur­ricu­lum and address his spe­cif­ic needs on my own. Rec­og­niz­ing the need for spe­cial­ized guid­ance, I decid­ed to seek pro­fes­sion­al help through tuition to ensure that my son receives the nec­es­sary assis­tance and oppor­tu­ni­ties for growth.

Could you share what your TTA experience was like with both your boys?

Being a par­ent, plan­ning for my sons’ prepa­ra­tion dur­ing their cru­cial PSLE year was nev­er easy. The inten­si­ty lead­ing up to it had been a steady build up since he was in Pri­ma­ry 5. I remem­bered hav­ing to switch from a full-time to part-time job so that I could make myself more avail­able to him.  From chauf­feur­ing both of them around to stay abreast of their busy sched­ules, to sim­ply being there for them emo­tion­al­ly to nav­i­gate through the last 2 years in Pri­ma­ry edu­ca­tion, I tried my best to make it as smooth a jour­ney as pos­si­ble.

After receiv­ing my old­er son’s P5 mid-year exam­i­na­tion results in May 2019, I was unsure of how to help him pre­pare for his upcom­ing exam­i­na­tions until the PSLE, espe­cial­ly in Eng­lish, Math, Sci­ence. I remem­ber search­ing through pre­vi­ous email con­tacts for promis­ing tuition cen­tres that spe­cialised in PSLE Eng­lish, Math­e­mat­ics, Sci­ence. How­ev­er, none could ful­fil the need of a one stop cen­tre that could offer all 3 sub­jects. 

That was when I stum­bled upon a com­mer­cial on Face­book from Think Teach Acad­e­my locat­ed at King Albert Park Mall, which was near to my res­i­dence. I took up the offer for a diag­nos­tic con­sul­ta­tion ses­sion with no oblig­a­tion. I also brought along anoth­er of my friend, who was also a par­ent of a PSLE stu­dent that year, to join me and we signed up for the diag­nos­tic con­sul­ta­tion ses­sion just to see if their claim to help stu­dents pre­pared for their PSLE well was true.

We were greet­ed by pas­sion­ate and knowl­edge­able teach­ers at Think Teach Acad­e­my. Dur­ing the con­sul­ta­tion, we were amazed by the tips they shared and how they taught by ask­ing the right ques­tions instead of spoon-feed­ing infor­ma­tion. My son and myself were con­vinced with their meth­ods and we decid­ed to enroll for their tri­al lessons.

We have nev­er looked back since. It was indeed a god­send that we found Think Teach Acad­e­my. I signed my son up for all 3 sub­jects after the diag­nos­tic ses­sion. With­in 3 months after enrol­ment, my son’s grades improved by at least 1 grade or more. He even went on to ace the PSLE exam­i­na­tion the fol­low­ing year. 

Sim­i­lar suc­cess was achieved when I sent my sec­ond son to Think Teach Acad­e­my 2 years apart from my first­born. He was look­ing for­ward to class­es at Think Teach Acad­e­my after rave reviews from his old­er broth­er. 

My sec­ond son was con­ver­sant with his text­book con­cepts, but was eager to find that fin­ish­ing touch to secure his AL1 in the PSLE for Eng­lish, Math­e­mat­ics and Sci­ence. Like his old­er broth­er we enrolled Kay­den for Eng­lish, Math­e­mat­ics and Sci­ence class­es with TTA to secure that elu­sive AL1 for Eng­lish, Math­e­mat­ics and Sci­ence. 

With tar­get­ed chal­leng­ing ques­tions and reg­u­lar con­ducive feed­back giv­en by the teach­ers, my sec­ond one was over the moon to achieve AL1 for all of his sub­jects. Both sons often feed­back that the teach­ers were pas­sion­ate, knew their craft well, and were nev­er judge­men­tal. Each les­son was always engag­ing with near­ly no stress piled on stu­dents. I also took note of the reg­u­lar feed­back giv­en by teach­ers, which were tai­lored for each stu­dent to iden­ti­fy their areas for improve­ment, and words of encour­age­ment that built intrin­sic moti­va­tion to per­form well dur­ing the PSLE. 

Thank you for sharing that so candidly. Shifting gears a bit, how do you teach your children about the importance of wellness and health?

From a young age, I have empha­sized the impor­tance of well­ness and health to my chil­dren. We main­tain a healthy diet, with home-cooked meals and avoid­ing fizzy drinks. Exer­cise is also a reg­u­lar part of our rou­tine, aim­ing for at least once a week, whether it’s going for hikes or engag­ing in phys­i­cal activ­i­ties as a fam­i­ly. It’s impor­tant for me and my spouse to lead by exam­ple, demon­strat­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of main­tain­ing a bal­anced lifestyle and pri­or­i­tiz­ing our well-being.

That’s fantastic. Now, could you share some tips on helping children cope with stress?

Cer­tain­ly. One of the ways I help my chil­dren cope with stress is by empha­siz­ing the impor­tance of sleep and lim­it­ing their device usage, espe­cial­ly dur­ing exam peri­ods. Addi­tion­al­ly, I encour­age them to find cop­ing mech­a­nisms that work for them. Both of my boys have dis­cov­ered that lis­ten­ing to music helps them bet­ter man­age stress while study­ing. It’s about find­ing meth­ods that suit their indi­vid­ual needs and help­ing them devel­op healthy stress man­age­ment tech­niques.

Great advice. Shifting focus to your own well-being, how do you prioritize self-care while balancing the demands of parenting and work as a Senior Staff Nurse?

Bal­anc­ing the demands of par­ent­ing and work can be chal­leng­ing, but I have found ways to pri­or­i­tize self-care. When my boys are away, I make it a point to main­tain a sense of calm­ness and engage in activ­i­ties that reju­ve­nate me. Addi­tion­al­ly, my spouse and I share the respon­si­bil­i­ties and sup­port each oth­er in dif­fer­ent aspects, ensur­ing that we both have time for self-care. By estab­lish­ing a sup­port­ive envi­ron­ment and prac­tic­ing self-care, I can bet­ter meet the demands of par­ent­ing and my pro­fes­sion­al role.

That’s wonderful. As your boys are growing into teen-hood, could you share any tips for helping children develop a positive body image and a healthy relationship with food?

Absolute­ly. I believe it’s impor­tant to start with self-love and accep­tance. Encour­ag­ing chil­dren to smile and love them­selves from the moment they see their reflec­tion in the mir­ror can lay the foun­da­tion for a pos­i­tive body image. Addi­tion­al­ly, hav­ing the appro­pri­ate food choice and por­tion rather than fol­low­ing what your peers choose to have.

Finally, how do you encourage your children to pursue their interests and passions while also prioritising their education and personal growth? 

This has been ongo­ing edu­cat­ing both my boys to seek what they love to do (pas­sions) and focus on what needs to be done (up to expect­ed edu­ca­tion lev­el). Explore new things and stay busy yet ambi­tious now while they are young with abun­dance of ener­gy.

Thank you so much for shar­ing such valu­able insight with us. We wish you and your boys the very best as they move for­ward into a brighter future.

This arti­cle was proud­ly writ­ten for you by the Think Teach Team. Every year, we impact over a thou­sand stu­dents and empow­er them with our smart tech­niques to achieve exam excel­lence in their school exams as well as the PSLE. We want your child to be our next suc­cess sto­ry!