From early childhood education children transition to the primary school education. This transition is supposed to be managed by parents and guardians. However most of them are not always fully equipped with knowledge in human development concepts. For some, it is sufficient to find a primary school to send the child to. There is no attempt to link early childhood center education to the new primary school. As a result there is no seamless continuation in the education of the child. This is destabilizing the education of the child. A specialist mentor is required for this transition.
Children transition to different kind of primary schools, namely residential schools where they live at the school residences and only see their parents during school holidays, day schools where they go and come back home every day, combination schools where the children leave for school on Monday and come back home on Friday, and during the week they live at the school residences. There are those who may be registered with home based primary education. The parents educate their children themselves or hire a private tutor and educationist. Those parents whose careers involve extensive travel from country to country, like diplomats or sportsmen, they may enroll their children for mobile schools wherein the children are taught on the go. All these different types of schools have different demands on the children and require different approaches in supporting them. All of them will benefit from a specialist Primary School Education Mentor.
At the primary education level children must enjoy their education, irrespective of the type of the school they are attending. That is, having fun at learning is key determinant of their success. Parents and mentors must go all out in ensuring that the children experience fun. One source of fun is being introduced to other children that they learn together with. At the same time the teachers, mentors and parents must guard against bullying by other children. Bullying takes away fun from the children and must be rooted out as soon as it is identified. The difficulty is that children are often not able or confident to report it. It often takes long before it is picked up. When it is picked up, the child would have already suffered emotional hurt. This is where a primary school education mentor is valuable. Mentors purposefully look for symptoms of any interference in the education of the children.
We should not forget to integrate the child’s community activities into his or her education programme. Children do not know which community activities they would like to participate in. They often have multiple interests and should be given the opportunity to explore as many as possible but be assisted in achieving a balance. Such activities could include sport, music, art, dance, etc. They are often dictated to by what is available in their neighborhood. However, the mentor and parents must source centers that offer what the child likes doing. There is a potential conflict between extramural activities at school and in the community. This could be confusing to the child. The mentor and parents must strive to close such a gap as it could bring disturbance in the education and development of the child.
The school subjects that are offered must be well researched and interrogated in the interest of the child. Alignment and continuation of what the child learned at the early childhood center must be used as a baseline in the development of the child. In principle the development of the child must be built on what he or she has been exposed to. At the primary education level the child must be exposed to as more diverse subjects as possible. Over time the mentor, teachers and parents will find out the talents of the children and guide their transition into high school accordingly.
The private schools tend to offer more diversity of subjects and activities for the children than public schools. However, private schools are more expensive. The advice for parents is that a balance between costs and interests of the children as determining factors must be achieved. The education of the child, especially at the primary level cannot be compromised as the future implications of poor quality education could be dire.
Identification and observation of children’s talents and interests at this stage of their education is a special project on its own. The primary education mentors are qualified to assist the parents and teachers. A talent missed at this stage may be lost forever. This is one of the main reasons why mentors are required. They provide mentorship to both parents and teachers. The schools that do not have mentors available must engage independent mentors specifically for this purpose. However, the parents must be wiling to invest in this additional intervention as it cannot be the responsibility of the school. The school can only assist in sourcing and recommending organizations and enterprises providing mentorship. Parents and guardians can book once off session or register for short-, medium-, to long-term mentorship programmes for their children. Children whose parents have mentors specially for their primary education stage do very well, even in the future levels of their education and holistic development.
Sometimes the parents’ own careers interfere with their children’s education. At this level it is not recommended that the children change their schools too often. If there are no options but to keep on changing schools, either home or mobile kind of schools should be considered. However, the downside is that the benefit from collective learning and development is forfeited. The save bet is to be as consistent and stable as possible during the primary school education level of the children.
