Nature vs Nurture ability

Though che-che is strong in her Math since primary school, I saw her struggling abit in secondary school. 

It has come to the point that I realised in the class chat group parents were complaining about the incompetent teacher. She was at the disadvantaged when her classmates are all having Math tuition and that they credit their marks to their tutor instead of the school teacher. Ha! So much of conviction from the Ministry that "all schools are good schools" and "why stress kids with tuitions outside, they don't need tuition because teachers are well trained blah blah blah" BULLSHIT! 

I grouched the fact that my girl apart from her genuine mistakes had also lost some marks coz teachers wanted to see a certain format, which my girl don't do sometimes. She has the answer but worked in a different way. Which explains why in primary school I can't rely on answer sheet to mark her work but wrecked my brains on why she did that method. My hair turned white real fast. Lo and behold, I wasn't aware of a spy planted inside the chat group. An admin staff. (OMG! Luckily I wasn't scolding the school) In less than an hour, Math HOD called me to clarify. Coincidently he was her teacher in the second half of Sec 1 and I did see improvements under his guidance. He talked to me about her and said yes they need to see certain format. Sigh... what to do when I have a stubborn girl who refuses to listen to us?! Then her marks dipped in Sec 2. Scary..I don't even feel so nervous when it comes to seeing the bearish unit trust value. 

A parent who thought I was still residing in Punggol messaged me and offered to help che-che. It was really nice of her to offer me help despite the fact that we've never met before. 

And so the journey of getting her a Math tutor started in Sec 2. I hope my husband reads this coz he always have the belief of "not having tuitions last time and I survived" - great! I saw his O levels cert. Ahem....

She scored better definitely after the tuition and I ponder .... what do markers look for. Naturally capable mathematician or a programmed nurtured mathematician? 

For the first time too, she scored full marks for her paper. Something which she keeps quiet but one day she came into the car and said somebody from her class must have spilled the beans coz people from other classes came to know of it. And she was quite frustrated coz she wanted to keep it under wraps. Well, of course I'm happy for her and hope she'll maintain this.