Pei Chun Public

[Precious050911]

All same timing but go to their respective class. They would have already know by now where to go. Pcps no positioning so with banding, you can roughly gauge where your child is. MO1 and MO2 for Math Olympiad(thru invites) and then normal Math, M1-M7. English ~ E1-E9

[muska]

sean wife:

Hi,


Any suggestion how to get good scores for reading section of Chinese oral? My P2 got a 8/10 score this time round…compared to picture discussion or conversation, I though reading should be the most possible portion to get full-marks…especially since we already know the scope of the passages which will be tested..

probaly cant recognise some words during assessment. All I did is just go through few rounds, hide the hypy and let them read through. Just use the text book is enuff.

[Precious2.012911lee]

Yes, all P3 students already know their allocated class.


According to my DS, they are ranked according to their P2 results and cream of the crops are EL1 to EL3 and for Math are the 2 MO classes & MA1. Not sure how true, he said after the EL AS, they need to move quickly to a different classroom for MA AS.
I wonder why Chinese AS is not banded and there isn't Science AS. :roll:

Anyway, I feel ranking / banding in such detailed manner can be rather stressful. The good side is we know where exactly our child stands. On the flip side, it is quite demoralizing for a child if he/ she is allocated to last few classes. Unless the school has 9 different set of materials for the 9 different classes, in my opinion, it is good enough to just split them into 'high', 'above average' and 'average' ability classes.

I heard some kids opt out of the AS. Perhaps, they have elder siblings in the school and their parents find this is not really useful after all.

[Precious2.012911lee]

sean wife:

Hi,


Any suggestion how to get good scores for reading section of Chinese oral? My P2 got a 8/10 score this time round…compared to picture discussion or conversation, I though reading should be the most possible portion to get full-marks…especially since we already know the scope of the passages which will be tested..

Hi sean wife, what I did with DS was I revised with him the specific few topics that will be tested. I will cover the Han yu pin yin so that I know which are the Chinese characters he could not recognize and then revise again to make sure he knows them all.

I find that the expectation from the Chinese teachers is rather high. Apart from being able to recognize the words, the kids also need to be able to read really fluently. Remember to pause when there is a comma or full stop (and vice versa). I remember whenever my DS brought home the AA results to sign, there was always an attached feedback slip where teacher will write some comment.

[Precious050911]

He’s absolutely right, they move abt after an hour of English AS. I never heard of pupils opting out of AS tho. I thought it was compulsory. Do not worry of the banding. If your child does well this year, he will be in different AS class next year. They are reviewed yearly.

[Precious2.012911lee]

Yes, although AS is compulsory, parents can choose to opt out if they find not so useful. My DS told me that we can write in to the school. 2 of his classmates have withdrawn from AS. Majority of the kids already have private tuition or enrichment classes. To compare 10-12 students versus 40 students per class, I think private tuition is probably more effective due to smaller group size. I will let him try a term to see if it is really helping much.

[A reliable source]

Good evening Parents,


Thought I give my weight-in on the Academic Support system in Pei Chun Public School.

Yes, the children are banded accordingly to ability , eg, 3E1 or 3M1 being ranked accordingly to their P2 results. The materials are customised accordingly to their abilities as well (kudos to the teachers for simplifying the worksheets to tailor to each child).

The banding is not made known to the children, other than the Mathematics Olympiad (the sound of Olympiad just makes people goes wow), personally, I don’t think the children can make out that the grouping is based on grades. Some could postulate and clarification with any teacher will not reveal the truth. Most of the time, the children are more interested looking forward to being with their friends than anything else.

The AS will happen all on Tuesday. 1.30-2.30 EL and 2.30-3.30 MATHEMATICS. The groupings have different combination of classmates / peers and teachers.

Nothing in the examination papers will be covered in the AS, but the AS is focused on Heuristics (non-routine) questions, for examples,

A box and 10 pears weights 200 g. The same box and 8 pears weights 170 g. Find the weight of a pear?

Box A has 20 pens and Box B has 15 pens and Box C has 10 pens. If Ali moves 5 pens from Box A to Box B and 3 pens from Box B to Box C and 8 pens from Box C to Box A, how many pens are there in Box A after the pens have been moved?

Unless there is someone at home or tuition to go through school work with your child, I think you can allow your child to proceed with the AS. Have a look at the worksheets and you can better gauge what your child requires.

Have a wonderful holiday!

:B

[Precious2.012911lee]

Hi A reliable source, thank you so much for the valuable sharing.

In fact, my friends who have kids in other schools are envy that PCPS has this AS starting from P3. I understand many schools only start compulsory AS from P5. I will let my child try out for a term, at least to gauge how good are materials as compare to outside enrichment.

Actually, it is not true that the banding is not made known to the kids. It is pretty much transparent, I feel. My DS told me that the smaller is the class "number", the better is the class. Most of the top 3 in P1/ P2 that he knows of are in the same grouping as him. They are also in the same MO class.

He said some of his classmates are upset because their class numbering is way behind. I hope it does not affect their morale. These days, kids are bright. They know more than what we think, can’t underestimate them. This is quite sad and I am kind of worry for my 2 younger ones.

The only part I am curious is based on what criteria are the students invited to join MO because I remember my DS signed up since last year, term 3. 4 kids from his class received the letter. My neighbour’s child did very quite well for her Math too. In fact, her full year grade was slightly higher than my DS but she was allocated to MA1 instead of MO class. Her mum perfers her to join MO. I asked her to try talking to her DD’s FT to check on the possibility of switching class since both MO and MA are conducted on the same day and time.

[A reliable source]

Hi there Precious2.lee,


Really?! Oh my.. I have always share with my children, there isn't such a thing as smarter, only more hard working. I need to reiterate to my children again on the importance of learning. Thank you for notifying me!!!

The students are selected for MO based on something like 95% and above.. And it is payable too. So some parents might opt out, those who are not selected and special request to opt in, I have also heard of before. But here is my take..

In my opinion, I think the MO questions are quite difficult for the children. And it is difficult to \"teach\" the children those questions. It is impossible to apply the strategy to use in another question. For example, I have been through a couple of MO sessions myself and these are the classic questions posed.

In the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4.. .. 99 how many pairs of numbers add to 100?

Then the pattern changes to 2, 4, 6, 8.. 98..

It is really for those who can see the patterns and make the connections really fast.

Most children I see come to me devastated that they are \"top in mathematics\" and yet cannot do the sums. My heart aches every time.

I am a firm believer of the nature versus nurture theory. We can train our children to be examination smart, but more importantly is the being leads to the doing. I think it is important for our children to be examination ready. Just like in life. I also fear making them demotivated and hate learning. How often do we hear our children say they have finished learning, my reply to them is, have you finished learning? I think exposure to heuristics is already a good enough exercise for the brain. I don't want their brains to train for the Olympics, just the nationals can already. :))

Just curious, anyone signing up for GEP tuition?


:B

[sembgal]

No offence to anyone but just curious to know if his daughter studies in this school as what I heard from hearsay?


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