And so, it is now year 2023 and the school term has started. I am receiving messages from everyone asking me which GEP school had XXBB been posted to. Well, he is now… back in his old school. This entire GEP school picking journey felt like a roller coaster ride which ended back at the starting point.

We didn’t expect him to qualify for the GEP.

At the very beginning, we had never expected him to get through round 2 of the GEP exams. When we received the notification that he had been selected for the program, I had to admit that I was feeling really surprised and proud of him, for I have known parents who had sent their kids to GEP preparation courses just to get them selected for the program and he had zero preparation.

He didn’t want to leave his current school.

He was elated that he was selected but he was not keen to leave his school because he was perfectly happy there with his friends, favourite cca and having lots of time to pursue his sports interest.

M : Eh, since you don’t want to go GEP, then why did you go for round 2 and even did well in it.

XXBB : Because you said I needed to do my best for everything, right?? And after that I get more choices and I can decide what I want. I wanted to see if my brain could stretch enough for it. (Hmm… ok, he just regurgitated what I said to him ever so often. Must praise him arh??)

M : Why don’t you just try? The program is very interesting and you wanted to stretch your brain right???

Brainwashing began…

I was trying to “brainwash” him into going for GEP in the 2 days before I left for Korea. The hub continued by showing him the video and sharing how interesting the program was. Finally, he agreed to give it a shot. I was tasked to do homework on the GEP schools and present them to the bosses (what to do? I was at the bottom of the hierarchy. Even had to work on my holiday trip… zzz) So I messaged and spoke to friends and family members who had kids in the program (yes!! FROM KOREA!!!) and presented the pros and cons of the program and various schools to the bosses. (Pro right?!) They discussed and picked the schools together and submitted the form.

Change of mind.

One week before the school posting, he suddenly informed us that he wanted to stay in his current school. For the entire week, we tried to get him to change his mind even until the day the posting was announced. He stood his ground.

Was it really for him? Or for me?

It was such a pity to give up on the program which was so highly coveted for. I had to take a step back and ask myself, was it really for him or for me? I don’t deny that I was really proud that he made it to the program on his own and I would have wanted to go if I were the one to choose. But at the end of the day, I had to remind myself umpteen times that he wasn’t me and what we wanted was different. It took me quite a while to come round to the fact that he really didn’t want to go and i shouldn’t impose my will on him.

Rejection of the offer.

We wrote to the MOE to reject the offer and also to the school principal that he wanted to stay and hoped that his place hadn’t been given away. The principal assured us that he could stay and would be back in his current class.

Back to square one. Look on the bright side.

So, yes, he is staying in his current school. I try to look on the bright side that now I have more “me” time because I don’t need to do so much free Grab driving to ferry him across the island and I have even arranged car pooling with 2 other parents to take turns to ferry them to table tennis training. And XXBB announced that instead of using extra time to figure out the GEP stuff, he can now play table tennis every waking hour.

Oh, that is why I have time to blog now. Because today is not my car pool duty day!