Pei Chun Public
-
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 -
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. -
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 -
No offence to anyone but just curious to know if his daughter studies in this school as what I heard from hearsay?
http://news.asiaone.com/news/singapore/ ... s-teaching -
Hi A reliable source! My neighbour's girl also scored above 95%. Her score was slightly higher than my boy so it is weird my boy is offered the MO but not the girl. Haha.. 重男轻女吗？
The MO questions that you shared are definitely not easy but I heard it can be trained. However,one thing for sure, the kid must have the interest. Otherwise, it's also waste of time to be in that class. Isn't it better to make better use of the time to revise 'real' examination type of questions.
I did not send DS for GEP tuition. He is not a GEP material to begin with so I also couldn't be bothered. I am not sure where he learnt from (maybe from his peers) but recently he told me he does need to be in GEP to be able to do well in PSLE. He thinks it is good enough if he can be in one of the high ability classes in PCPS. He even told me many students in 6A and 6B scored above 250. I am impressed our little P3s are so well informed.
-
Just curious, is this the new streaming started from this year for P3? As I understand there’s no more sport class but not sure the streaming. My boy is P4 this year and he’s in sport class. Understand AS is compulsory too for all P3 students. As for the MO, I also not sure how the school selected as my boy also above 95% but not being selected, so it’s not 重男轻女, haha. Can anyone advice if there’s any streaming in P5?
-
precious2lee,
Actually I agreed with reliable source that learning heuristic question is better than MO. I think he meant it wont come out in P3 pcps exam, but I’ve seen those heuristic question came out in top sch paper ranging from P3-P5, so its likely to be PSLE too. In fact I bought books like on sponge/get me thinking to help ds understand more on heuristic ques to polish up model drawing.
MO in pcps covered too many topics in such short time, if cannot grab, and that particular topic is gone, cos as parent I cant even solve the question to help my DS during his P3 MO times.
And i realised your p3 ds is really well informed, my P4 certainly do not know what is COP for PSLE till now.
jojo77,
did your ds go to MO class in P3? maybe they only invite kids who went in P3?
in fact at the end of P3, I already feedback to the questionaire say I will opt him out of MO for P4…waste time! -
muska,
He didn’t go to MO in P3. Is it really waste time? Thought they wil be given special training? -
jojo77,
In P3, there were 2 test for MO. He failed first and pass 2nd. But for both test he didnt know why he pass or fail. Even teacher go through the wrong question, he still doesn’t know what was happening! Probaly without the basic from P3 MO (which I doubt most kids could remember), its even harder to catch up at P4 MO.
With your ds in sports class, I think he would be quite bz with tournaments n training, its better to let him have AS for normal math to learn more heuristic in preparation for P5/6 tougher math question. You can get a copy of P4 Getmethinking, the math question is really very challenging…after going through it, his undertanding of model will be much better. I think some sch like ACS let the HA kids do onsponge instead of MO. also heard that NYPS also using getmething as supplementary math for P5 onwards.
Then again, I think for P3 MO, can still try it out, never try, then will never know kids ability…It definitely help in GEP selection though. My ds found GEP math paper was easy due to training in MO. -
Hi Jojo77, the only reason I could think of as to why some kids who scored 95% and above are not selected for MO is the \"timing\" issue. My DS received the invitation in Term 3 which means the school base on Mid year results instead of end of year results. Mid year results include AA1, AA2 and MA1. However, if a child did better (less careless) in Semester 2 than Semester 1, will not be selected. I am sure there are also many HA kids in the top 2 ML classes.
Banding applies only to English and Math AS. It is a transparent system where 1st - 40th will be put in E1, 41th - 80th in E2 ... and 320th to 360th in E9. This allows teachers to teach base on ability. It provides a good gauge to a child's positioning but on the other hand, it can be quite stressful too, to keep up with the race. DS asked me what if his banding drops next year.. I told him as long as his grade remains consistent and he continues to be self motivated, it is good enough.
Hello! It looks like you're interested in this conversation, but you don't have an account yet.
Getting fed up of having to scroll through the same posts each visit? When you register for an account, you'll always come back to exactly where you were before, and choose to be notified of new replies (either via email, or push notification). You'll also be able to save bookmarks and upvote posts to show your appreciation to other community members.
With your input, this post could be even better 💗
Register Login