Starting School Around the World

As you know, the Hong Kong education system places a lot of emphasis on academic results. Revision, dictation, and homework are part of daily life. Every day, there are around eight to ten pieces of homework, with two or three tasks each for Chinese, English, and Maths. Basically, every week there is Chinese dictation and English dictation. There are also three exams each year. Looking at the situation now, it has only been about two months, but the workload is already increasing. For him, it really feels a bit overwhelming.

Maybe in another place, or in life overseas, things might be easier for him. But in the broader environment of Hong Kong, I feel he is at more of a disadvantage. His mother or his grandmother tends to compare him with other children. As a result, he has to sign up for many Chinese, English, and Maths classes, as well as other interest classes. People will say things like, "So-and-so's classmate has signed up for this," or "So-and-so's son is going to that class". So I feel that children in his generation really have much less time to play compared with when we were young. Take the summer holiday, for example. He can start his holiday in mid-July, but it is quite tough for him. Because his English is not good, he has to do intensive catch-up classes. He has to enroll in some summer courses and study until mid-August — English, Maths, and things like that, all for extra practice. Of course, on our side, we have also bought him many exercise books to do.

He has just started primary school, Primary One. I can see that he is very focused on his own academic work and learning, especially homework, dictations, quizzes, and exams. He really cares about his results. He is a child who has very high expectations of himself. He wants to get 100 marks in everything. Because of this, it has put a lot of pressure on him.

Now that he has moved up to primary school, the school does have academic expectations. So he is clearly finding it challenging. The teachers are also stricter with him now. But there is not much we can do except give him time to work hard and adapt. Within his class, he is considered one of the younger ones. He is only five, and his birthday is in November. Some of his classmates may be almost a whole year older than him. So I also remind myself that I need to give him time to adjust.