Significant topics for parents and interesting workshops for children

On Saturday, 13 April, Primary School Savremena organised the first in a series of public parent-teacher conferences at Primary School Savremena, where parents of preschool children had the opportunity to learn all the relevant facts about their children’s enrolment in primary school.

The parents learnt how to best prepare their child for preschool evaluation, enrolment and the first day of school, and become acquainted with the most state-of-the-art environment in the region for learning, recreation and friendship – Primary School Savremena.

Pre-school evaluation tests maturity, not knowledge

School psychologist at Primary School Savremena, Milena Tarbuk stressed that enrolment in the first grade is one of the most important events in a child’s life, and a huge turning point for the entire family. She described the evaluation process for enrolment in the first grade in greater detail:

“Examining different aspects of the child’s maturity through a conversation between the counsellor and the child mostly involves things the child is already familiar with, because they acquired them in the preschool programme. We do not examine levels of knowledge, such as reading, writing or calculus, but the child’s potential to acquire different knowledge. We examine the way in which the child perceives the world, reasons, uses language, understands the concepts and phenomena from everyday life, and then talk about the child’s affinities, interests and talents.

She emphasised that preschool evaluation is the child’s first contact with the future school, which is why we need to approach this step with utmost care.

“It is crucial that the parent who brings the child to the interview should be calm and collected, because parents often unintentionally transfer their emotions to the child, triggering undesirable emotions, or even a block in the child. If the child is hostile toward the idea of the interview, if they cry or feel scared, it is crucial that the parent stay calm and shows understanding for the child’s insecurity, and the counsellor will find a way to approach the child and get them to relax”, underlined Milena Tarbuk.

The biggest concern for parents – prevention of peer violence

One of the issues parents were most interested in was the prevention of peer violence at Savremena, as a private primary school. The Principal of Primary School Savremena, Jasmina Franolić, explained that school must be committed to preventive activities all the year round in order to prevent the development of violent behaviour.

“The most important factor in the prevention of violence is the cooperation between school and parents, and our school will provide advice and support to parents, and include them in preventive activities. The main advantage of private schools in that regard is the size of classes, the mentorship of the members of the Violence Protection Team, as well as stronger cooperation between students’ parents”, the Principal pointed out.

Vladimir Novicki, the manager of the “Malac genijalac” school, partner of our school, spoke at the first public parent-teacher conference presenting the programme of mental arithmetic and demonstrated how to use the abacus. The school announced that parents and teachers would be able to learn interesting and useful information from various partners of Savremena, leaders in the field of non-formal education, child’s creative development and family support at each next conference.

Engaging workshops for children

While parents attended panels on the topics mentioned above, their children had fun, socialising with their peers and learning through play in interactive workshops which helped them to learn the fundamentals of robotics and programming.

In addition, the attendees of the first parent-teacher conference had an organised tour of the most state-of-the-art school in the region, Primary School Savremena and Savremena Gimnazija. They visited the intelligent classroom, which utilises the latest technologies and where multidisciplinary classes are held.