P1 and P2 exempted from examinations
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Please cast your votes. thanks
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Actually the answer is not simple as good and not good for me.
Personally I find that there need to be an alternative effective way of finding out if a child is progressing and on track in their learning process. If there is, then exams will not be required to perform that task. If there is not, then exams should remain until a better method is introduced to replace it.
Learning is not about scoring, but we need to understand if the children are processing and digesting what they have learnt at an individual level. If it is groupwork, it will still not be clear if the learning outcome can be determined at an individual’s level.
Why do we need to know if they have progressed? Simply put, because we need to understand if they can cope with the next level’s topics covered. So if there is a competency scale where children can ascertain that they have reached their competency level and able to move on to the next, then exams can be disbanded to remove the unnecessary stress at one single major sitting of regurgitation of knowledge acquired. However, some parents may become stressed for every competency level assessment.
If they can adopt an e-testing approach(do at own leisure but by a certain deadline), after every topic to have an e-testing to reinforce the concepts, then they can move on to the next level of learning, then at least as parents we are assured that the child is progressing. However, this approach requires both child and parents to be disciplined. Child’s discipline is to complete the test on time and parents’ discipline is not to guide them for such e-testing otherwise it will affect the outcome.
The horror of realising this in a P3 exam will be too late to rectify a bad situation if there are no intermediate checks. just my 2 cts worth. -
It’s true that there are 2 schools of thought for this issue.
Let me share my view. When I first realised last year that the school I registered my gal in does not conduct any exams at all in P1 and only SA2 in P2, I was shocked. Well, that’s the consequence of not being kiasu enough by doing enough homework on schools selection, I guess. Those people I talked to, most of them told me it’s not good, how do you know if your child understands what has been taught, how the school gauge the kids if there’s no exams. I even have the silly thought of changing school for her and started a thread here to ask for opinions on schools with no exams in P1 and P2. The replies I received here is more objective, listing the pros and cons.
Anyway, my gal is into term 2 now and after reading posts here and other forums on parents stressing over SA1 with their kids, I’m glad that her school has no exams. I’ll get another 2 years of honeymoon before getting the exam tension when she’s in P3. Of course, I’ll not be able to tell by that time will I have a tougher time preparing her for exams than those parents with kids going through exams in P1 and P2 but I’ll just enjoy my fruits now. I think it’s good when they make it nation wide so that everyone is on par. Now that it’s not ‘regulated’ different schools have different practices and you therefore there’ll be many different views. -
i’m all for no-exams.
ease them into the system. exams are just an artificial rigid form of testing. we all been through that and know that it is not an accurate reflection of whether our kids learned or not, it is more a reflection of whether they can show what they learned in a stress situation or not.
nevertheless, i believe that our kids should still be gauged to see whether they have learned although there are no exams. the occasional class quiz, answering questions in class are maybe some alternatives to exams per se. -
ghostz:
Our Singaporean mentality has become so fixated with performance measurement that we don't feel we are making progress if we have no means of quantifying how much we have learnt. And even as we find ways of measuring our progress, we keep ourselves worried about how fast we are progressing compared to our peers.i'm all for no-exams.
ease them into the system. exams are just an artificial rigid form of testing. we all been through that and know that it is not an accurate reflection of whether our kids learned or not, it is more a reflection of whether they can show what they learned in a stress situation or not.
nevertheless, i believe that our kids should still be gauged to see whether they have learned although there are no exams. the occasional class quiz, answering questions in class are maybe some alternatives to exams per se.
This kind of thinking permeates through our entire culture and psyche as a people. It's in the air, all around us. It's in our blood, and it's an underlying principle that we Singaporeans operate in. We are more interested in outcomes of education than the education process itself. As long as our children can do well enough to get into good schools, we feel like we have done our jobs as parents and educators. We treat schools as cookie factories which take in our raw talent as dough and simply press them into the molds that the system has prepared for them. Whoever fits the mold best will be given the greatest opportunities to excel in life. This is how meritocracy works in Singapore.
It has worked before, transforming Singapore from backwater village existence to the metropolis it is today. Nobody wants to change it... correction, nobody dares to change it for fear of killing the goose that lays our golden eggs. It takes great courage for whoever mooted the idea of doing away with the Lower Primary school exams to refocus attention back on stimulating the joy of learning again.
My fear is not whether our children will have exam \"culture-shock\" when they go to P3. It is whether the schools really understand the intent of the committee who came up with this directive, or if they understood it, are they willing to follow the directive to the letter, risking their ability to produce students that can score in exams? Personally, I won't worry so much about my kid not being exam-prepared without \"exams\" in P1 and P2, because there will still be exams, except you don't call them CA1/2 or SA1/2 anymore. If you recall, these terms themselves were totally unheard of during our time. We simply had \"mid-term\" and \"final year exams\" then, instead of the fanciful \"continual assessment\" and \"semestral assessment\". -
Just to share my experience about my older boy who is in P3 this year. He had no CA1 and SA1 in P1 (but somehow he had a mid-year result shown in his report book though it was not counted in the final year results). When the CA2 came along, he was very stressed and behaved strangely for a few days after the tests. He insisted that he was ok although we observed that he was not because he lost his appetite, sobbed for no apparent reason etc… He only got back to normal after he received his results a week later and did quite well. Then he confessed that he was worried because he felt that he had not prepared well enough for the exams. He learnt his lesson after that and now he treats his exams more seriously.
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[Moderator's note: Topics merged.]
MOE released news that there won't be any examinations for P1 & P2. Does this going to take immediate effect or next year 2010?
Can anyone let me know whether Radin Mas & River Valley do they have exams like CA1, CA2, SA1 & SA2? -
are you referring to the PERI recommendations?
similar thread http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2743&highlight=.
to check if a school has CA or SA, you can go to their website and see their calendar of events/exam schedule. -
jedamum:
http://school.radinmaspri.moe.edu.sg/calendar2009.htmlare you referring to the PERI recommendations?
similar thread http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2743&highlight=.
to check if a school has CA or SA, you can go to their website and see their calendar of events/exam schedule.
Notice that there is CA & SA but wonder does it extends to the lower primary like in P1 & P2? -
titank:
if you are really interested in the school, spend some time to scrutinise the website. i found the info that you are looking for in less than 5min.
Notice that there is CA & SA but wonder does it extends to the lower primary like in P1 & P2?[/color]
happy surfing!
clue: it's on the homepage...you just need to dig further..you can see alot of the schools programmes from there too.
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