The journey in preparing for primary 1 can be such an exciting yet bittersweet moment for parents.
This is the start of your children’s journey into the big crowd with older children. The challenges that they face in primary school will be vastly different from what they face in a preschool environment.
Naturally, it can be rather daunting in preparing for Primary 1 as you think of ways to ease your children into their new school and the routines.
There are many tips that have been shared to help your children in preparing for Primary 1. However, not much has been mentioned about the mindset of both parents and children.
As parents, you want the best for your children, but sometimes, it can be difficult to know how to equip your children with the right skills for their future.
How can you help your children to develop holistically such that they can survive without your constant intervention and supervision? Turns out, the Champion Mindset will help you bring your children to an elevated advantage in schools.
Read also: To my child: How I really feel about your first day of Primary 1
What is the Champion Mindset?
With the Champion Mindset, you can identify and celebrate your own uniqueness, have the ability to display determination in the face of adversity, gain the confidence to find out about what you do not know and to articulate your own distinctive ideas eloquently.
In its very essence, the Champion Mindset allows your children to develop themselves into champions by putting themselves in the right frame of mind to pursue their goals.
How Can A Champion Mindset Help in Preparing For Primary 1
In today’s world, having a Champion Mindset can propel your children towards a successful future when they learn to find the confidence within themselves to be the person they are meant to be.
As you and your children are preparing for Primary 1, the new environment your children will be entering can be quite intimidating.
By adopting the Champion Mindset, your children will learn to look for solutions to the problems they face and build the confidence they need to succeed at their primary school journey.
Let’s take a look and see what some aspects of the Champion Mindset are and how you can inculcate them in your children when preparing for primary 1 and beyond.
Persistence
A Champion Mindset fosters motivation, resilience and persistence. Children with the value of persistence believe that all that stands between them and success is just some effort on their part.
As they embark on their primary 1 adventure, your children will come across topics that could stump them in their learning process. To tackle these obstacles, your children will need to work hard to comprehend the concepts by asking their teachers or seeking help from external avenues.
Through sheer determination, they will be able to conquer the difficulties they face. And when they have accomplished that, they will feel a sense of achievement and pride in themselves.
Confidence in preparing for primary 1
Joining a new school without familiar faces can also be very terrifying for some children.
Having innate confidence can help a child to adapt quickly to his/her environments as a confident child is able to navigate the sea of unfamiliar faces and build his/her network of friends within the first week of school.
Other than networking as part of their social acceptance in the new school, your confident children will also be able to speak up in class and participate in discussions. This allows their teacher to gain a deeper insight and understanding of your children’s thought process in their learning.
Preparing for Primary 1: Embracing challenges
Naturally, being in a new environment is not without its challenges. For starters, the timetable your children face is more intense compared to what they are familiar with at preschool. Most lessons are run in 30-minute blocks. Other than recess and a short break in the day, they do not have much time to play.
For most parents, perhaps this is viewed as the norm because “It is what it is”. However, to a child, this adjustment is a challenge. Rather than brush your children’s worries aside, you can turn this into a positive experience by getting them excited for their next adventure in their academic journey. Sit with them and guide them through their timetable. This allows them to set their own expectations of their week at school.
Other than familiarising themselves with new schedules when preparing for primary 1, another challenge they can take on is to pack their own school bags. This also reinforces the need to be responsible for their own belongings. After all, your children are the ones who should know what they need to bring to school!
Seeking Help
Champions are not people who are born into this role. They have faced stumbling blocks along the way to reach their goals. Ask any top athletes in the world and they will tell you their journey had been met with arduous periods as well.
Your children should not be made to feel that asking for help is a shameful thing. In fact, asking for help reinforces their confidence to seek clarification and it builds their responsibility to take charge of their own learning. Teach your children to seek help at school, especially in uncomfortable situations that they may find themselves in, like bullying.
Read also: 5 Basic Skills Your Child Needs to Have For Primary 1 Maths
How Can You Help Your Children to Develop Their Champion Mindset?
While it may seem easy to inculcate the Champion Mindset at home with your children, sometimes parents are not able to be consistent in execution. Enrolling your children in a structured programme that caters to developing the Champion Mindset would be helpful in preparing for primary 1.
Our MindChampion Junior programme is tailored to Primary 1 and 2 children with two options available – integrated English and Math, and Chinese. In the fifth lesson, your children will have the privilege of attending a two-hour long session by Paralympian and neuroscientist, Dr William Tan. This is an opportunity for your children to learn and be inspired by the journey that has brought Dr Tan to where he is today.
If you are interested to enrol your K2 children ahead of their primary 1 journey, we have a series of workshops called the Learning Mind Masterclass. This programme is a pre-requisite before they embark on their MindChampion Junior journey and runs on 10 two-hour sessions for K2 children.
Register here for this opportunity!
Written by Danielle Hee