Maha Bodhi

[Wolfgirl]

My girl’s class top 3 pupils got into 3I so can quite safely say 3I still best class next year.

[MMM]

csb:

Thanks for this, MMM! Do you find the t-score computed a fairly accurate estimate for your secondary school child's psle result?

In our case, no. Let's see the PSLE results next friday.

It is really subjective as too many variables that goes into actual PSLE tscore. Eg. child's motivation at the end, the kind of questions that is being asked at psle, their actual day performance (eg. were they in tip top condition), the paper standard that was being set at PSLE and how the entire cohort view it. In a freak year like last year, the usual tscore computation don't seem to be representative.

But in any case, it serves as a good guide on where the child stand versus the 300+ other children in the school. But I personally feel it can swing either way. In our case, we used this info to tell dc that his estimated tscore is XXX, to get into his dream school, he need to do XXX, so he needs to work harder, etc... we started this in P5.

I personally think it's good to educate our children on estimated tscore and what the sec school tscore looks like as a form of target setting. But of course set realistic target and determine what are the suitable choices (which may not necessarily be top choices). Looking at my ds's peers this year, they/ their parents seemed to believe schools with tscore 23x/24X/25X are easy to get into... when alot are struggling at overall 50%-60% level. Either the parents are too optmistic or unrealistic. ds told me that some of his classmates has a sudden realization recently....

[Wolfgirl]

Our Minister says, "All schools are good schools".


In fact in many Secondary schools with lower T scores like 200… the teachers work doubly hard to ensure the students do well for their O levels.

And sometimes I wonder, is it better to be a big fish in a small pond (e.g. a 220 in a 188-220 school) or a small fish in a big pond (220 in a 220-240 school).

Sometimes we must look at the value-addedness of the school.

Anyway all the best to parents and students getting their results next week!

[MMM]

Wolfgirl:

Our Minister says, \"All schools are good schools\".


In fact in many Secondary schools with lower T scores like 200.. the teachers work doubly hard to ensure the students do well for their O levels.

And sometimes I wonder, is it better to be a big fish in a small pond (e.g. a 220 in a 188-220 school) or a small fish in a big pond (220 in a 220-240 school).

Sometimes we must look at the value-addedness of the school.

Anyway all the best to parents and students getting their results next week!

Yes even for us, we wonder. My dd1 is now in a what people would label as \"good\" school and from a peers, school programme, subject combination perspective, we think she is really lucky to get a place there and we are assured she is in good hands. We are counting our blessings. But she is a small fish in a big pond. Seeing some of her school mates who used to struggle in MBS but now doing well in a \"neighbourhood\" school we start to wonder which one does wonder for self esteem... But in any case, yes don't get fixated on top school, it is more important to get into a suitable school. So parents knowing our kids' strength should be in a better position to tell.

Actually the biggest concern for most are behavioral aspect/ peer influence when they go to sec school. We usually think students in higher cop schools are potentially better influence as they will probably channel their energy on studying? Subjective right. But observation for my dd's classmates are not many after school/ weekends outings though their school is near malls.

[Wolfgirl]

Yes. Agree.

Just my humble opinions: these are the main factors I will consider when my turn come to select sec sch for my child.
1. Distance from home
2. Programs they offer
3. CCA
4. Cut off point

Of course always secretly hoping DD will go to my alma mater. Heheh

[FantasyLandDreams]

Hi

Any P1 parents here? Anyone has already been informed of the CL class allocated for your child for next year already? Anyone knows when will this allocation/banding for Chinese be made known ( first week of P2??)?

[lil flanders]

Hi

Any P1 parents here? Anyone has already been informed of the CL class allocated for your child for next year already? Anyone knows when will this allocation/banding for Chinese be made known ( first week of P2??)?

My son is currently in P2 only knows about allocation by P2 1st week.

[csb]

Yes, MMM, I do understand that the t-score based on school results won’t be highly predictive of PSLE t-score. I’m hoping to have a feel of the standards of the school exam papers. Are they fairly close in terms of level of difficulty to PSLE’s? Now that my child is in P5 going on to P6 next year, I’m hoping to set my expectations more realistically.

[csb]

lil flanders:

FantasyLandDreams:

Hi

Any P1 parents here? Anyone has already been informed of the CL class allocated for your child for next year already? Anyone knows when will this allocation/banding for Chinese be made known ( first week of P2??)?

My son is currently in P2 only knows about allocation by P2 1st week.

Yes, this is true for all the past few years for my child. They'll know their banding class only in the new year.

[MMM]

csb:

Yes, MMM, I do understand that the t-score based on school results won't be highly predictive of PSLE t-score. I'm hoping to have a feel of the standards of the school exam papers. Are they fairly close in terms of level of difficulty to PSLE's? Now that my child is in P5 going on to P6 next year, I'm hoping to set my expectations more realistically.

If we look at this year PSLE, most kids said that PSLE is so much easier than school papers. That means we've to see the school overall performance.

But if you were to read those answers sharing thread, as parents we realised that while the paper seems \"easy\", it was tricky too. So we are :roll: :xedfingers:

In addition,tscore is based on cohort performance. So if everyone found it generally easy and it's really easy, then the gap is narrow so it will be difficult to score as well. So seems like a double edged sword.

For maths, I recalled sending my dd1 for those costly onsponge holiday camp last year to realise that the maths paper was \"easy\". She said she didn't even need to apply any of those \"techniques\". She scored A* but also heard from my P6 this year that level manager did comment that alot score A* in maths during PSLE last year. Actually those kids who usually find math challenging also came out feeling confident. So it set me wondering if we are \"overpreparing\" our child sometimes. But yes, we always need to prepare for the most challenging situations... just in case.

For the last 2 years, it appear that school paper is usually tougher than PSLE but tscore is unpredictable due to cohort performance. In fact, sometimes we wonder why the school set such tough papers as it might not do justice to the kids who intend to DSA since the sec school will look at their P5 and P6 SA1 results. We usually buy those top school papers which the kids will do as regular practice as well. This will give us a guage on where the child stands.

Science paper to me is more unpredictable. PSLE have a tendancy to ask very general questions which might caught students by surprise eg. this year there was a question on impact of global warming on sea turtle population. ds thought of saving gaia, rising sea level, eggs got submerged in water, etc... But some of his friends were really caught and stuck and end up giving really \"humourous\" answers which would make parents :yikes: In this case, reading those young scientists magazine seems to help.