After the Paper: What to Say, and What Not to Ask
English was yesterday. It is finished, it cannot be changed, and there are more papers this week and next. The question is not how it went. The question is how the child walks into the next one.
The question not to ask
“How was it?”
It seems harmless. What it does is make the child re-live the paper and hunt for things that went wrong. Every child who has ever been asked this has found something. Then that something sits on top of the next day’s paper.
What to say instead
- “It’s done.” Then change the subject. Food, a walk, anything.
- If they want to talk about it, let them — briefly — and do not analyse. “Sounds like you gave it a go” ends it kindly.
- If they are upset about a specific thing, one sentence: “One question doesn’t decide a paper, and one paper doesn’t decide the PSLE.” Then move on.
The rest of the week
Same bedtime. Same breakfast. No post-mortems at dinner. The routine is the thing that carries a child through a week of papers, and it is the thing that breaks first when adults get anxious.
The results are in November. There is nothing useful to be done about English between now and then. There is a great deal that can be done about tomorrow.
Read next
- PSLE Composition: How to Choose Between the Three Pictures
- The Last Four Minutes: What to Check Before You Hand In
- Five Ways to Open a Composition
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