Guangyang Primary

[Marzuki]

[/quote]

Wow! You got quite a piece of news here! :shock: Anyway, this year, my child is also in the 'tutoring' group of the Principal in gyps! And i was looking though some of the work that she gave, its of quite a high standard. So i supposed its more of a publicity work ba.....

Anyway, back to the school, i supposed as long as the school is moving forward, children are happy learning and making friends, i think how the Principal is like, is not too big a concern right? :xedfingers:[/quote]

How come our news so different? I heard one set of news from a few parents and overheard from teachers and I hear a different set of news from online community. If the Principal is really teaching the class consistently and spending a lot of time with them to prepare for PSLE, I think probably some parents whose children that are not in PSLE cohort probably don't know. In my mind, the principal need not do that. Her job is to manage the school and make sure that the teachers under her charge deliver high quality teaching. If she is spending time teaching at the expense of motivating the teachers to do a good job, I think she is not using her position and her time productively.

I deduced from the negative feedback about the principal as a signal that morale is an issue in the school. Disgruntled teachers cannot deliver good quality education. I hope that the principal will spend time talking to her teachers to motivate them. This would also help to dispel the perception that she is unapproachable and useless. I certainly hope to see the school grow and become more popular.

[kkan99]

Marzuki, I am very surprised at your comments abt GY. I live close to the school and my neighbours are parents there. They are ok with the school, teachers and the Principal. Honestly, I have seen the changes in the school and am glad that a neighbourhood school like GY is making progress in their PSLE result. Shouldn't we be gracious, give GY a pat on the shoulder and cheer them on?

[Marzuki]

kkan99:

Marzuki, I am very surprised at your comments abt GY. I live close to the school and my neighbours are parents there. They are ok with the school, teachers and the Principal. Honestly, I have seen the changes in the school and am glad that a neighbourhood school like GY is making progress in their PSLE result. Shouldn't we be gracious, give GY a pat on the shoulder and cheer them on?

Hi kkan99,

I am only sharing the feedback of what I heard from the teachers and parents. It seemed so long ago that I heard good things about the school, though I see lots of good feedback postings in the forum.

I am happy for the school if it is really progressing well and living out its potential. I certainly hope that the enrolment will rise to least what it used to get when it was an old and quite run down building. While the school has done well to improve the score for a very small cohort of PSLE students in one recent year, I think it should not lose sight of the bigger picture. The school has undergone some upgrading and now, with further major upgrading, with the neigbouring popular schools cutting back on enrolment due to the one session policy by MOE and more people are shifting into Bishan, it is common sense to believe that enrolment numbers of GY will naturally go up even if there is little effort from the school.

I am only writing based on the feedback I received from a few parents, what I overheard from teachers' negative feedback about the principal and my analysis of the school enrolment and performance based on the favourable changes in MOE policy, the upgrading of the school and the increased in population in the estate.

If the enrolment numbers don't rise, I think some serious and honest soul searching needs to be done. Very urgently, the principal needs to address the ground concerns of these disgruntled teachers instead of spending time teaching students. Leave the job of teaching to the teachers so that she can concentrate on school management and motivation of the teachers. After all, there are already so few students doing PSLE and if the Principal needs to neglect other duties to teach, I think the system in the school is not working well.

I shall not write further on GY as enough has already been written and I would rather say niceties like what some forumers are doing. Niceties are good motivators and people are happier when you pat their back. Besides, I have a preference to support GY because it is the only government school in that part of the estate. At the same time, I am also a realist who cannot help but to call a spade a spade and will not sugarcoat my words. I hope to see GY succeed and can truly pat GY from the bottom of my heart when I see this - high enrolment numbers, high morale from teachers, happy students, supportive parents and Strong PSLE results from a large cohort of motivated students year after year.

Cheers to GY and all GY supporters in this forum!

[ngkokeng]

Dear Marzuki,


I thought I should jump in to share my perspective because I am also a supporter of GY.

I have one nephew who studied at GY who graduated several years ago with fairly good PSLE score. He is now doing his National Service and will be going to university next year. His parents were very thankful to the teachers and the Principal. At that time, GY was not only very strong in Maths and Science, the students were also very discipline and innovative. Many parents opted to choose GY as their first choice school despite competition from neighbouring schools offering double session.

My current niece who is studying at GY hasn’t graduated and the school is in a temporary holding school at Ang Mo Kio. I think this explains why the enrolment is much lower. Maybe, there are not enough facilities in the holding school to accept more students and probably kiasu parents like us may prefer our children to join a school with a permanent premise. When the school shifts back to its brand new premises, I am sure there will be many more places available for students and teachers could also be happier as they are able to do their teaching more effectively with the new facilities.

Although I agree with you that GY overall results recently have not been satisfactory, I think this has to do in part with the poorer facilities. I think this could be the reason why the Principal has to take the lead to teach in the classroom, probably to show the newer and inexperience teachers how to do better. I don’t think the Principal will neglect her duty to manage the school at the expense of teaching.

The principal is probably unaware of the negative feedback by some teachers because, my sister recently shared with me that one of the teachers blackmouth the principal as useless and unapproachable on one hand and on the other hand, some other parents saw the teacher curry favour with the principal. I don’t think it is true that the principal is so useless. If she is really so useless, she would not have been appointed Principal by MOE. I have confidence in MOE’s selection of principals.

As parents, let us compliment what is not done well at the school by giving more home support and tuition for our children. I believe things will get better as the school re-establish itself in the neighbourhood with a spanking new premise.

[phtthp]

so it’s some internal politics going on inside the school …

[ngkokeng]

Maybe but it is none of my business as long as the school do their work to deliver results for the students.

[Amethyst11]

I always believe happy teachers will in turn be happy teaching in the school. If they are not happy or even disgruntled, they could affect the children under their charge. Not my problem really, my kids will not be going to the school.

Anyway, I was trying to find out more about GYPS for a relative. Not needed anymore.

[Amethyst11]

Thanks, Marzuki, for sharing. Think what you mentioned is real. I also heard from my neighbour whose children are in GYPS that some of the teachers are complaining about the P after one of the recent school events. My neighbour is thinking if she should transfer her kids to another school ever since a few of the best teachers in her opinion have transferred out/ are thinking of leaving. Maybe those parents in this forum monitor for another 1 or 2 years to see if really more teachers are transferring out?

[Amethyst11]

Can anyone share how we have our replies threaded? I was trying to reply to Marzuki in my earlier message. Click "pm" and it’s "send private message".

[Rafy]

just chanced upon this forum, and just want to comment that teachers who blackmouthed their (new) principal, esp. within earshot of parents or members of the public, perhaps shouldn’t be entrusted with the great responsibility of teaching young children, they seem to me to be bad examples.