1. Ask your child which subject gives him the most stress. For some children, their anxiety related to one subject spills over to the rest and affects their mood and morale. You can tell from their demeanour - slumped shoulders, defeated eyes
2. ⁠Depending on your child’s character, either ask him to tackle the topic that gives him the most stress (fractions and Compre cloze seem to give students the most grief for maths and English respectively) or tackle a medium-difficulty topic (to garner quick wins as soon as possible to bolster his mood)
3. ⁠I suspect that in the grand scheme of things, English and Mother Tongue won’t feature heavily in terms of stress.
4. ⁠To prepare strategically for oral, give him five mins to do a brain dump in relation to his prelim oral. Write down anything and everything that comes to his mind. No need for good spelling and grammar. If he wants to draw, that should be allowed
5. ⁠Corroborate his brain dump account with the comments given by his teachers during Oral. If he was too nervous (brain dump) to relate personal stories (teacher’s input), make sure he does that next week
6. ⁠Ask him if he feels that his school teachers will be teaching effectively in a way that addresses his anxiety and plugs his performance gaps. You may not need to supplement the school efforts if he is fully trusting of his teachers’ efforts. It boils down to the extent his weakest subject is cluttering his headspace.
7. ⁠Let’s say he needs you to help him with Oral. Be strategic and disciplined about it. Set aside half an hour to enhance performance in one area. One session can include getting him to answer the first question of various pictures. Another session can be centered on reading emotive lines of the passages expressively. He may not know how much energy to inject into a speech - probably because oral exams demand a more exaggerated and theatrical performance than in real life speaking. Make sure he is aware of that.
8. ⁠Give him specific instructions on what to do when unexpected curveballs arise. If he tends to stumble over his words because of nerves, teach him to look at the examiner in the forehead and say “I’ll like to repeat this” and continue confidently. If he doesn’t fully understand a question, he needs to tell the examiner to paraphrase it in simpler terms. Little things like this help him feel empowered.
9. ⁠Boost his morale by saying improving 1-2 marks per component isn’t unrealistic. He needs to feel hopeful about his chances to improve