Sleepless on the Eve of PSLE Result Release

Tomorrow is THE day. Technically, it is 'Today' as it's past midnight, but since it is 1am of 21 November, and I haven't slept yet, I will call it 'Tomorrow'.

The day when PSLE results are released.

Strangely, ever since Coco sat for her PSLE and received her results two years ago, I have developed a 'habit' of losing sleep over PSLE result release, even if I don't have anyone in the family who sat for PSLE that year, like this year.

I am not sure what the feeling is called. It can't be 'excited' because PSLE results can be unpredictable. I am not rooting for a top scholar in the country. There is no expectation of any sort for anyone. Or perhaps, there is. I happened to tutor a motivated boy for a few sessions about two or three weeks just before PSLE. He has been placed on the waiting list for a top boys' school through DSA, and it's no secret that the waiting list offer will be converted to Confirmed Offer (Then why go through the hassle of offering a wait-list?). He didn't need to do any better than he already was. He just wanted to get a better score. I was moved by the boy's intrinsic desire to do well. Two or three weeks was too short a time to do anything substantial, but I was willing to give it a shot if the boy was that motivated.

However, I don't really have anything huge to look forward to. The mother understood that time was a constraint and she didn't expect too much of me. She was happy that the boy managed to learn something new within a short span of time. To claim that I could push up his score by a large margin would be too optimistic. We hope for the best though.

Back to why I lose sleep over PSLE result release, it can't be 'anxious' since I have no one close to me straddling between 'pass' and 'fail' or 'express' and 'normal'.

I am not a Primary 6 teacher who looks forward to receiving her report card, as indicated by the performance of her students, tomorrow.

Maybe I am just a kaypoh.

Or maybe I am indeed 'excited'. I learn more about judgement of standards with each PSLE result release. I learn how to gauge possible T-scores of different students.

Maybe I hope to be surprised.

Whatever it is, I hope that no parent will show his or her disappointment should the child's T-score falls below parents' expectation.

That is the least we can do for our children we claim to love.