My Daughter Has A 10 For Her Second Spanish Exam This Year - Proud!

The second year at Spanish public school

Last year, my daughter started the first grade of Spanish public school. We put her in public school not only because private is too expensive, but mainly because we want her to integrate first and be surrounded by locals mostly for now. We believe this is the way to learn Spanish faster and for now, I'm very pleased that we did it this way.

Last year, she started with knowing just a few words Spanish and struggled a lot to understand the exercises in the books as for me it was not easy to explain while having to translate most myself. Until that moment where I found this gem of a girl who I asked if she wanted to help her by tutoring her. The second best decision (after moving back to Spain, lol) of 2022!

A huge difference

While she started her first report card in the first class with a 5 for Spanish (which was generous because she also had lower grades), she managed to up it to a 7 at the final report of the year. We are proud! And we were super thankful for all the guidance of her tutor who is such a great team with her.

A new year

I was curious how she'd start the year because you never know after a 12-week holiday if they remember things or have to sort of start over. This year there was a big difference though, the year started with the guidance of her tutor so she started reviewing the old stuff from the first class during the first weeks and then slowly picked up the current material.

Exams started some weeks ago, and the first Spanish exam was already a great result: an 8! She was super proud, so are we, clearly!

Catching up

After missing a few days of school, she had to catch up on two exams, English and Spanish (lengua), while the English teacher was now absent herself, she only took the Spanish exam today and walked out of the school with the biggest smile. She said I have to tell you something. I have a 10 for my exam!

Hard work pays off

It's not by default as most weeks she has 3-4 days (1,5 hours each) of tutoring in the afternoon, depending on the needs and if there are exams. Where other kids may be spending that time to play outside or go to a sport or something, she is working on her school stuff. I think it's important to do this though because being foreign, this will give her a solid base for when the tutoring stops. It also gives her a lot of confidence in her abilities to do well in school, which I see is very motivating.

No expectations

It was never going to be an issue if she couldn't keep up with the Spanish kids though, we had 0 expectations and always told her that if she can't keep up or has lower grades, we will not be angry as long as she's trying. But as she's doing so well, I'm now already thinking about what to give her once she gets her report card in December. I remember those times in my childhood where I received gifts of money after a good report.

Rewarding good report cards

Is that a thing in your household too? Or when you were a child? I really have no clue if other people do that, I just know we did in our childhood and because it's an extraordinary situation for her being in a Spanish public school as a Dutch kid, I think she deserves to be rewarded.

Let me know in the comments if you reward good school results... Have a great weekend!

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