It’s All in the Family
— By Ann Peters
When the phone rang at 12-year-old Ahmad Zaki bin Iskandar’s home on the morning of the PSLE results, little did he know what was in store for him.
His mother tongue teacher was calling to tell him that he had scored an A Star for Higher Malay – a rare distinction. Then he added before hanging up. “And there’s something bigger!”
Mum – Mariati binte Yusoff – and Ahmad rushed from their Tampines home to Tampines North Primary School nearby. The top students’ names were announced backwards, but when they got to the second top student, Ahmad said, “I thought I didn’t make it.”
Then his name was called – he was the top student in the school with an aggregate of 272.
Meanwhile Mariati had, minutes before, accidentally seen the results upstairs where the parents were called to. But she didn’t tellAhmad, who just couldn’t believe his ears. “I thought I didn’t do well. I was fifth in the
prelims and everyone was saying then how I didn’t perform up to expectations. I made a lot of careless mistakes,” he said, but added, “The finals were easier.”
He credits his good results to his mum’s enduring hard work since he was young and his form teacher, Mrs Gan Foo Mei Ping, who moti- vated him and taught him how to time-manage.
With his results, Ahmad joins his elder brother and sister – both in the IP (integrated programme) – in the ranks of high flyers. His brother, from the gifted programme, now in Raffles Institution, had a PSLE score of 279 and was Ahmad’s inspiration for doing well. “I worked hard because I wanted to beat him,” said Ahmad.
The competition at home is friendly. Ahmad also has two younger brothers who are also doing well in school. The youngest at six, is already a voracious reader.
Mariati is directly responsible for the children’s good performance in school. Despite a Poly diploma, she gave up her job as a fac- tory supervisor and part-time teacher after the children came along. “No regrets!” she says. Since very young – even before they could walk and talk – she engaged them in conversa- tion and introduced them to books. She isn’t overly strict now but monitors their school-work and computer usage at home.
There are no assessment books. “Too stressful,” says Ahmad who likes going down- stairs to play with his friends, who he says, have now started greeting him as ‘Hello top student’. During his PSLE year, his routine was to return home at about 3pm after extra les- sons in school, sleep till 5pm when he would watch TV and eat dinner, then do his home- work and study from 7pm to 9pm. Bedtime was at around 9.30pm.
He found a way to de-stress – walk! “I like walking and I used to walk from here to Pasir Ris along the park connector.”
A sociable boy with all-round interests, his CCAs included library work, sailing, badminton, the Maths club and Malay dancing (for which he got a gold medal). He says he also got a huge “sense of satisfaction” from coaching class- mates after finishing his work. Now he coaches a neighbour’s child upon the parents’ request.
Ahmad is looking forwards to “exploring” new subjects at Raffles Institution. At the moment, his first choice in career is to become a chemist because he enjoys science. But that might change, he admits.
And what advice would he give his younger brothers when it’s their turn to sit for the PSLE. “Study hard and manage your time,” he says, then adds with a laugh, “and try to beat me!”
