Preparing for Primary One

Assalammualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.

As a mother of two daughters and one of them is a 6-year-old, I wonder how early do parents plan and decide on the educational route their children will be taking? There are so many considerations to factor. For someone who went through the secular education in Singapore, I never thought that I would consider a madrasah education for my child.

Firstly, it is because both my husband and I do not know what to expect since we did not go through a madrasah education. Of course, we were sent to part-time madrasah classes as children but this is a full-time madrasah that we are talking about here. A child in primary school will be juggling eight subjects instead of four subjects like those who are in government schools. Are we equipped to support our child through this journey?

When our firstborn, Azeen was turning three, I knew that I wanted her to go to a kindergarten with an Islamic environment as I believe that habits need to be cultivated from young. I had slowly built up her vocabulary in English, Malay and Arabic from the moment she could start talking at 2 years old.

When she was three, she progressed to memorising daily duaas and surahs.
When she was four, I started finding out more about the requirements to enter Madrasah by speaking to other parents and researching online.

For parents who are keen to start educating your child in Arabic language, even if you are not planning to enrol them for a full-time madrasah education, I highly recommend that you visit this website to get educational resources and worksheets. Websites like this, YouTube Videos on islamic stories, apps like Miraj Stories are some of the useful tools to cultivate the love of Allah and Rasul in young children. It is also helpful that there is an increasing number of learning resources that supports Islamic learning available readily in online stores now.

Here are some online shops in Singapore that sells Islamic educational resources and materials:
- Hayyan Kids
- By Little Ms Rainbow
- Swing by Suhaim
- Buat Si Manja
- Eva Fun Learning

I have always loved enrolling both girls in literacy programs or programs on arts or science that integrate Islamic values. I religiously follow instagram accounts like @ourgreatatfal, @littlefikra, @littlequrankids @zazuartz for updates on short workshops for the girls to play and learn.

Anyway, back to my story... Last year when Azeen turns five, I asked her if she wants to go to a madrasah or national school. I explained to her the pros and cons and her response made me more certain than ever that I want to enrol her in a madrasah. We worked hard together, printing worksheets, practising penmanship, reading, memorising but of course we played hard too. I stopped taking freelance projects from November last year until her test in April this year to focus on her preparation for the Madrasah Entrance Test that all madrasah hopefuls need to go through.

We made lots of supplications and whenever it rains, Azeen will run to me and remind me to make a specific duaa together with her for her to enter Al-Ma'arif. Aaah.. this brings us to another topic. Now that we know that we want to enrol her in a madrasah, which one will it be?

For primary school, there are 4 madrasahs that we can apply for: Al-Ma'arif, Wak Tanjong, Alsagoff and Al-Irsyad.

So... what is the difference?
Basically, the difference lies in the school's mission, location, number of intake and the gender of students. Al-Ma'arif and Alsagoff are girls' schools while Wak Tanjong and Al-Irsyad are mixed-gender schools. The highest number of student intake will be Al-Irsyad as the school is bigger compared to the others. We attended open houses and forums to have a better understanding so that we are able to make an informed choice. You can also follow @sgmadrasah on Instagram to learn more on the different madrasahs.

I prefer for my girls to be in a girls' school for a number of reasons. Coming from a girls' school myself, I feel that the absence of boys contributes to increased confidence in girls and they are not shy to speak up. There are more reasons for this but this will just make me digress further.

Once we had decided on the school, we had to wait for the information on when to apply. It is a short window period to apply and we were stalking the school's website and social media almost daily when the period was drawing near. Sometime in April, we had to submit an online application. Some of the questions really made me pause and ponder e.g. what do I want my child to work as, which route do I want her to take at tertiary level, which university that I want her to go etc

We had to wait for around two weeks and once shortlisted, we received an invite for the Madrasah Entrance Test. The test that we have all been anxious about. It is time for tawakkal and lots of duaa since we have already done our part in investing much time and effort to prepare ourselves and our children. The test for the children has both written and oral components. For English, Malay, Mathematics and Arabic, they are required to do written papers. The questions are actually basic questions that they would have studied for in kindergarten but there are some parts that would have required advance learning. For oral, they are tested on the memorisation of surahs and short duaas.
Parents are also needed to attend an interview session so that the school can assess if the values and mission are aligned. Due to the high demand, the schools need to have all these in place to filter accordingly. This is also to manage expectations and to ensure that both children and parents do not have skewed expectations of a madrasah education system. Most madrasahs are oversubscribed twice the available capacity. e.g. intake is 70 but there are 150 applicants

A madrasah is a private institution and therefore do not have as much funding as a government school.
In addition, a madrasah student needs to juggle more subjects and thus, there would be certain values and discipline level to adhere to in order to excel. Honestly, I feel that the number of subjects is not a major cause of concern for me as it is comparable to students in secular schools who have to attend enrichment classes, piano lessons, swimming lessons after school.

Now, some of you may ask... how to prepare?
We are lucky now that there are centres like As-Souq Arabic Centre that designs P1-Preparatory Programs to alleviate the stress for parents. The program is structured and the students get to be prepared on all 4 subjects under one roof. There are also some parents who hire private tutors for a personal session in the comforts of their own home.

For Azeen, I prepared her on my own through consistent practice. There was much discipline needed on my end to keep to the routine. There were times that I falter and times that I question myself if I was doing enough. I was tremendously fortunate that Allah bless me with Azeen who loves to consume new knowledge and has a good attention span. Occasionally, I will sign her up for programs to excite her further on learning. The key word is consistency. Being self-employed allows me to plan my schedule and cater to the kids' learning accordingly. Honestly, she memorises more surahs than me and whenever I am teaching her a new surah, it gives me the opportunity to memorise together with her and it became an enriching parent-bonding activity as we go through line-by-line analysing the meaning and reading the tafseer together.

Alhamdulillah, we got the results for the application in May and Azeen will be starting her journey in Al-Ma'arif in 2020. There is an 8-weeks preparatory course that is compulsory for the students so that it will be a smooth transition to Primary One. Parents can also sign-up for an optional Arabic workshop organised by the school with the intention of guiding parents to assist their children in their homework. Education is really a partnership between the school and parents.

It did cross my mind on the what-if(s). What if we were not successful?
We had prepared ourselves mentally and talked to Azeen that even if she were to go to a secular school, we will still strive to practise the habits that have been cultivated since young. In Iman Kindergarten, she is used to reading the daily duaas, Yassin, Asmaul-Husna during assembly and  naturally it was a concern for us that the daily routine and good habits will be affected.

I believe that with the right intentions and lots of supplications, Allah knows what is best for all us and we just need to trust in Allah's plans for us. I hope that this sharing will not be taken out of context. My primary intention is to share with other parents who might have little or no idea on what to expect if you are keen to try your child out for a full-time madrasah education. No one school is better than the other. Every parent wants the best for our child and may we be guided to always be on the righteous path.

And those who say: “Our Lord! Bestow on us from our spouses & our offspring the coolness of our eyes & make us leaders of the God-fearing.”

{Surat Al-Furqan 25: 74}

Below are some video clips of the Azeen's progress over the years that I managed to document.






Now, it is time to prepare playful Ayra for her entrance test next year. Her learning style is very different from Azeen and I am still figuring out the best way to cater to her learning style. Parenting is a lot on figuring things out as we go along, isn't it? Please make duaa for us.

Magic! Magic! Magic!

Nowadays, there are many seemingly harmless cartoons on free-to-air TV or cable TV such as Shimmer & Shine, Vampirina, Ben & Holly and many others. The characters in these programs make magic seem cool and if we are not careful, our children may grow to rely on making wishes and turning to magic as a means of problem-solving instead of having Allah Al-Fattaah The Ultimate Judge, The Opener of All Portals, the Victory Giver. as the only One that we should turn to for anything. These characters look so adorable that it is easy for kids to relate to and be attracted to them.

I make it a point to sit with my kids as they watch cartoons and take my time to reflect and explain to them on the learning points. I feel that as parents, we should guide them in this journey instead of just banning them from watching totally. As they grow and slowly fly out of the nest, they will be exposed to many things in this world. It is not possible for parents to sanitise the world or keep our kids in a bubble so the next best thing would be to equip them with the power of knowledge and hone their analytical skills.

I will usually bring them back to basics and analyse with them first on who the creators of the animation series are. At times, we will go through the credit roll and try to guess from the names if they are Muslims or not although sometimes it might not be outrightly obvious from the names if they are. Non-Muslims might not understand the principles of our faith and therefore genuinely have created those characters without intending to lead a Muslim astray. In fact, we must be careful even when watching shows produced by Muslims as there are some shows that might influence akhlak and aqidah or promote non-ideal moral values. We should always reflect and analyse the ideologies revolving around the show we are watching and focus on the learning points.

An example is when a genie grants someone his or her wish, I will probe the girls had it been them, who would they ask from and why? Then I would ask them on what they think on how genies look like in real life? 

Next, we can relate back to instances when magic was used according to stories in the Quran. One that is popular with the children would be when the Jews cast a magic spell on the Holy Prophet (S.A.W.). By virtue of the divine protection given to him, no magic could refrain  or divert him from discharging his duties as a Prophet. However, the spell cast by the Jew made him to suffer from some disease. On that occasion, the two surahs Al-Falaq and An-Nas were revealed, and the Holy Prophet (S.A.W.) was directed to recite them, after which he was freed from the influence of the witchcraft. Then the Holy Prophet (S.A.W.) used to recite them every night before going to sleep. I take this opportunity to remind them to practise the Sunnah and recite these surahs before they sleep every night and rub all over their body after blowing into their palms.

We can focus on the values taught in these shows like friendship and loyalty and teach our children to be conscious on ideas that can be caught in their sub conscience should they be not careful in taking charge of external factors that shapes our thoughts. 

Even as adults, most of us are still struggling to battle our nafs and to be conscious of our thoughts and actions. If we train our children from young to filter their thoughts accordingly and while at it, we  remind ourselves too, I am sure insya'allah we will work towards building a better ummah. والله أعلمُ بالـصـواب