The first Chemistry chapter of the year lands with a thud. Your Sec 1 child comes home with a notebook full of particle diagrams, a periodic table pinned to the front cover, and a puzzled look about what any of it is supposed to represent. Primary Science felt tangible: things that float, things that grow, things that heat up. Sec 1 Chemistry does not always feel like anything at all, at least not to begin with, and that is the shift a lot of new secondary students find hardest. The good news...

For a P6 family, the last stretch before the PSLE Science paper rarely feels calm. The final revision list is either much too long or suspiciously short, the school prelim result is fresher in the memory than anyone would like, and the walk to the exam hall on the morning of Tuesday, 29 September is only a few weeks away. Marks are almost always still there to be won, but they tend to be won by a child who paces themselves well, not by a child who knows one more fact. Timing is the one factor...

The school bag comes home a little lighter in September, and by the second morning of the break, the first question tends to arrive with breakfast: what are we doing today? For lower primary parents, that stretch between term openings is both a gift and a small logistical puzzle, especially when everyone in the family is trying to spend a bit less time on a screen. The good news is that science makes an easy holiday companion. A P1 to P3 child is at the age where curiosity is loud, patience...