Secret of the Fliers

The Little But Most Needed Attention Every Child Craves For

After long time experience of being a classroom teacher in both public and private schools, as a curious and a concerned individual about the pupils’ success or failure,I tried to find out what possibly made some set of pupils unbeatable and unchallenged as they remain the highest achievers in the classroom. Through critical observation and ceaseless daily interaction with all cadres of pupils on the basis of academic success say the fliers, runners, walkers and the crawlers; I was able to establish the fact that parents, in number of ways, play significant role in the achievement of their wards.As they say a dwarf who brags at least has a shoulder of a giant to lean on.

In Great Heights Academy, the total mark obtainable in each subject is 100. However, the mark is a combination of 40 marks of Continuous Assessment Tests and 60 marks of Exam respectively. The former has four sub units and each carries 10 marks. This is to say that, classwork (10), test (10), homework (10) and project (10) making 40 altogether.

In fact, one similar characteristic of the fliers I have interacted with over the time is that, they attach equal seriousness to all subjects while other pupils only show seriousness in some key subjects like mathematics, English Language, Basic Science and technology, Social Studies, Literature etc. N.B One may think Hausa Language is not as important as mathematic because most parents do not tend to care about it but they carry equal marks of the same importance anyway.  For instance, if the selective child scores 95% in Maths and 55% in Hausa due to less seriousness, the flier will probably score 95% or so in Maths and probably 95% in Hausa Language too due to equal seriousness. The simple arithmetic is that the selective child will at the end of the day have 150 marks while the flier has 190 marks. 40 marks is too much to lose in any examination per say. It will intrigue you to know that such difference occurs in subjects like Hand Writing, I.R.S, Arabic, Qur’an etc. This is one of the opportunities the fliers wisely utilise that makes them consistent prize winners.

It is observed that, parents of the fliers tirelessly follow up all the take home assignments by monitoring and ensuring that the right thing is done regardless of the subject, which is the true essence of homework. As such, the fliers keep standing a better chance of scoring complete marks i.e. 10 while the unguided might probably turn out with very low scores hencethe reason why the wide gap is persistent. Note that homework carries 10 marks in the C.A. and it is enough to boost or shrink the child’s total mark. This is another secrete of the fliers - they seize every opportunity to get the desirable marks. The most impossible thing in Great Heights Academy is to dish out mark. Thereforeevery child reaps what he/she have sown. However, if others will do the same as the fliers, they will have bumper marks too.

In addition, the issue of project is another area of major concern that attracts 10 marks too. The fliers have the opportunity of working with their parents hands in gloves all through the project activities at home. Most times, the parents get in touch with the class teacher via phone calls or social media for more clarification where they have difficulties in the instructions to ensure that their children stop at nothing to get the complete marks. This some parents never do. They rather leave their children to the mercy of their childishness. Such children will naturally never get their project done within the time limit until it is one or two days to vacation where they will be forced to do it at school unassisted, unguided, in haste and under pressure. Consequently, they lose the chance of scoring high marks like the fliers.

To cap it all, I strongly recommend that, pupils should be given sound orientation before every exam by the teachers at school and the parents at home on the reason why they must exercise equal seriousness in all subjects regardless of the simplicity or hardship.Parents should give their pearls that little but most needed attention and assistance they crave for during homework and project activities at home to ensure that they are properly done and submitted as at when due. Lastly, the crawlers today could be fliers tomorrow if we change our attitudes towards them. Obviously, 1 + 1 will keep giving 2 as the result so, to get something higher, the input has to change. A child educated only at school is an uneducated child as they say.

                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                       By: Sulaiman Abdullahi Albaji