Q&A - P2 English

[KAN]

Hi Yong HL


Sorry if I sound blunt in my last post. DD is in p1 and i am still not use to and cannot agree to the "teach less, learn more"…

[Yong HL]

no problem KAN

my DD is also in P1 this year. from her tests papers, i do realise that she needs the exposure on the type of questions set so she will have the \"experience\" to tackle them. In order to have the experience, assessment books and enrichment centres comes into the picture. This also explains why parents buy past year top schools tests/exam papers for reference too.. to have a feel of what kind of questions can be expected for the level.. Like it or not, we begin our journey in this amazing race now. sigh...

[nms1]

It’s very interesting to see how this is all this is panning out.


I didn’t go to school here and come from a country where no-one has tuition or does assessment books at home. I could never understand when I first moved here why so many mothers work when their children are very young (because they have access to maids & grand-parents) then give up work or cut back when the children are in primary school. I even know people who gave up work just for the PSLE year. In most countries it’s the other way around, you stay at home when your children are very small then go back to work once they start school.

I am trying very hard not to get caught up in the whole thing but we do send our daughter for Chinese tuition. Actually I think for my daughter’s school they are giving too little homework; she has maths less than once a week, English occasionally and never any Chinese. The only regular thing is spelling and ting xie. I do think it would be helpful to give them more to do at home - especially when they have so much free time in the afternoon. It will be much harder for them to get into the habit of doing homework later if they haven’t been doing it.

[shurley197323]

My boy (P2) was doing Stellar Worksheets.

But I found it very different.
The sentence : I am so hungry I could eat an elephant.
Does'nt it sound funny ? Why it is not : I am so hungry that I could eat an elephant?
I don't tink this is proper English. What if they write the same sentence in the composition next time?

[optimistforum]

Hi there


Apologies but I am asking a K2 Vocab question - as I could not find a K2 sticky. Please help on a question from the EPH K2 \"Vocab, Preparing for Primary 1\" Book:

Does a mangosteen have \"one\", a \"few\" or \"many\" seeds?

Not having seen one, here in the UK, I Googled it and found that each segment has seeds but I am not sure on what amount?

PS, note to mods, It would be good to have sticky's for N,, K1 and K2.

[laughingcat]

optimistforum:

Hi there


Apologies but I am asking a K2 Vocab question - as I could not find a K2 sticky. Please help on a question from the EPH K2 \"Vocab, Preparing for Primary 1\" Book:

Does a mangosteen have \"one\", a \"few\" or \"many\" seeds?

Not having seen one, here in the UK, I Googled it and found that each segment has seeds but I am not sure on what amount?

PS, note to mods, It would be good to have sticky's for N,, K1 and K2.

Hello.....it should be \"few\" as it is countable.

To avoid picking mangosteen with too many seeds, a general rule is to choose the largest number of lobes, and hence, the largest number of segments.

[corneyAmber]

optimistforum:

Hi there


Apologies but I am asking a K2 Vocab question - as I could not find a K2 sticky. Please help on a question from the EPH K2 \"Vocab, Preparing for Primary 1\" Book:

Does a mangosteen have \"one\", a \"few\" or \"many\" seeds?

Not having seen one, here in the UK, I Googled it and found that each segment has seeds but I am not sure on what amount?

PS, note to mods, It would be good to have sticky's for N,, K1 and K2.

A few seeds.
Many seeds would be something the likes of papaya, water melon and dragon fruit, usually one would not try to count the seeds they have. This is typically a Science understanding over here.

[optimistforum]

Hi


I need advice on seeking a demanding P2 paper from the MissKoh website.

DS2 (8 in July) sat the SA2 Raffles P2 Paper (2004). He attained 45/53. Not a great score, but I identified weakness with verb tenses and use of connectives; which we will work on.

My questions are:

1) Is 45/53 a good score for such a paper, and I assume Raffles is an institution with a reputation for academic rigour.

2) Which other insititutions’ papers should I use? Nanyang is one option. Is this so? If not, can you recommend any other?

[ridcully]

optimistforum:

I need advice on seeking a demanding P2 paper from the MissKoh website.


DS2 (8 in July) sat the SA2 Raffles P2 Paper (2004). He attained 45/53. Not a great score, but I identified weakness with verb tenses and use of connectives; which we will work on.

My questions are:

1) Is 45/53 a good score for such a paper, and I assume Raffles is an institution with a reputation for academic rigour.

2) Which other insititutions' papers should I use? Nanyang is one option. Is this so? If not, can you recommend any other?

As you know, there is no entrance examination to primary schools in Singapore, that is there is no pre-selection of students on the basis of academic ability. Most of the students who are admitted to P1 at Raffles Girls Primary are rather ordinary. I would not consider RGPS at P1 to P3 to be particularly academically rigorous. Indeed, I privately tutor students from several schools, including RGPS, and wonder what the fuss is all about concerning its reputation. Yes, it is a GEP school at P4. So what? A school has to cater to the needs of the majority of its students, not just a bright few.

I do not know which paper you are referring to. However, most P1/P2 papers in Singapore tend to be MCQ and cloze passages with helper words. A truer test of English ability is to ask a child to write a composition.

From other postings, I notice you are in the UK. There are many private schools which do have entrance examinations; the standard of English is much higher at many of these schools than you would encounter in Singapore. There are even one or two state schools which are rather excellent, but do not pre-select. You might like to approach these schools for advice about suitable material.

I notice also that one of your postings was about secondary schooling in the UK and the entrance standard. Again, some of the private secondary schools in the UK are of excellent standard. There are sample admission papers online for the Perse School at Cambridge, to name but one school.

Rgds
R

[optimistforum]

Hello Ridcully


Thank you for responding to my post.

DS1 scored highly in his end of Year 3 (your P2) English and Maths exams. If you saw the exam papers, you would see how they lack substance. In fact the P1 to P6 syllabuses (science excepted) reflect what I was taught in the 70s and early 80s.

I choose MOE materials as they build and entrench solid foundations in Vocab and Grammar. You will not believe how much scant attention this is given in the UK. It comes as no surprise to me that the UK Education Secretary has announced that he is seeking to benchmark with many high-performing countries; Singapore being one. DS1 has been doing this for 3 years whilst DS2 has been doing this for one year.

In relation to the schools that you mention in the UK, they only provide one to 3 papers. Using Singaporean text books saves me time, as my children have to complete their school homework, as well as the more important Singaporean work. SATS education in the UK prepares children for the National Curriculum, and does not cover much substance. A more rounded traditional education in Eng and Maths is needed to prepare them for the selection exams to State Grammar Schools and the top-rated Independent Schools. My children normally chomp at the bit to study the Singaporean books.

I also use text books from India and Australia (New South Wales).

I am a former school governor in literacy and numeracy, at state secondary school, and so I am cognisant of not relying on the (lack of) rigour in the National Curriculum Eng and Maths content.

Back to my earlier posting, I will now use Nanyang materials.