why is the school discouraging students from taking hChinese
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Why is the school so discouraging ? First , the teacher talked to the students , telling them to consider either giving up totally, or take it as a non-exam subject , ie attend the lesson, but no exam.
Then , the school called my husband , asking him to consider letting my son give up. When my husband said no, she kept saying things like : should give up so that can spend more time on other subjects ?
Why , why ? Why ? Shouldnt the school be very happy that the parents and the students would like to learn ?
They only want the best students to take that subject.
already , my son has been talked into wanting to give up, and we have to try our best to undo the damage done by the school.
What is the purpose of education ? What is happening to the spirit of 有教无类
Oh, has it got something to do with … K!P!I! ? -
hihi,
from what i heard, as HCL is an additional paper and unless the student is going to try for SAP sec schools, it will divert time commitment away from other subjects.
and HCL offers distinction 3 bonus points for entry into SAP sec schools, so bonus applicable if you are eyeing for SAP sch.
and even if one does not take HCL for psle, if can hit a certain score, still can take up HCL (if interested) at Sec 1 level.
what i was told is that some schools discourage students from taking Higher Chinese if the student is taking more than 1 tuition/enrichment/tutors just to manage HCL. it is going to be stressful to the kid unless the kid is already breezing through other subjects.
personally, i feel that if parents wish to let their kid take up HCL, just make that stand and talk to the kid (discuss which sch the kid is hoping to get into, eg SAP or non SAP etc). if not, at least the sch is not pressurising the students to take it. (i didn’t know can take as non-exam subject! is it or certain schs only?)
JMHO. -
Whether we can use the hcl marks to get extra 2 or 3 marks for entrance to SAP school is actually not important to us. Our purpose is to expose him to Chinese language as much as possible.
And we don’t want him to think that Hcl is a subject that he can give up easily.
We don’t want to take it as a non-exam subject because then there would be less motivation to do it well.
Doesnt government policy gearing towards having our kids to be bilingual ? But some people in the education industry, they are just looking at their own KPI. -
curious to know which school is that ?
I know NYPS under Mdm Heng encourages everyone who meet the school’s criteria to take HCL, NOT to give up. Hence NYPS always have a large cohort taking HCL. They got 92 distinctions, 185 merit, and 115 passes in 2010 PSLE -
znzyzyzx:
The idea behind offering HCL is to allow students to learn more, but only under certain conditions. The student must be able to do quite well in it and he or she must be doing well in the other subjects.
Why , why ? Why ? Shouldnt the school be very happy that the parents and the students would like to learn ?
They only want the best students to take that subject.
already , my son has been talked into wanting to give up, and we have to try our best to undo the damage done by the school.
What is the purpose of education ? What is happening to the spirit of 有教无类
Oh, has it got something to do with .... K!P!I! ?
If your son is not performing to expectations, the school might be worried that taking HCL would affect his grades. It's a realistic consideration, because the syllabus for HCL is much more difficult than that of CL. Your son may be struggling with HCL, but he could be getting an \"A\" for CL.
The school can suggest, but the decision-making still lies with you. As for the spirit of 有教无类, the teacher did suggest letting your son take it as a non-examinable subject. That's worth considering. In my opinion, having an \"A\" for CL on the cert looks better than a mere \"Pass\" or C5 for HCL. -
My son gets 99 for his math and 86 for his science (p5) , I think that is quite a decent score.
Anyway, for ourselves, we definitely want him to continue doing hcl, just wondering why is the school discouraging it so eagerly. I am sure a few of the other parents.students, when faced with this relentless effort by the school to discourage , will give up. -
znzyzyzx:
I think schools will recommend a student to take HCL based on their Chinese results, not other subjects. If your DS has been having consistently high results for Chinese (at least 85 & above), I really don't see why the school will discourage itMy son gets 99 for his math and 86 for his science (p5) , I think that is quite a decent score.
Anyway, for ourselves, we definitely want him to continue doing hcl, just wondering why is the school discouraging it so eagerly. I am sure a few of the other parents.students, when faced with this relentless effort by the school to discourage , will give up. -
Hi znzyzyzx,
I can think of a few reasons why the school is discouraging students from taking HCL.
Reason #1
HML doesn’t contribute to the T-score. A PSLE kiddo really doesn’t need to take HML in order to do well in their T-score. Instead, they can spend more time and stay focus on the MT paper and get a good T-score.
Reason #2
HMT bonus points will only be applicable if the kiddo is aiming for a SAP school and very importantly, he must also be among the top 30% of the entire PSLE cohort in order to be eligible for the HMT bonus point.
Reason #3
I notice that these days, schools presenting PSLE achievements based on percentage of passes is no longer good enough. More schools are publishing their PSLE achievements based on the percentage of quality passes. As such, if they are unsure if a child can obtain an A or a A*, it is better to stop the child from even attempting to sit for the exam. Any student who sit for the paper and can’t score an A or A*, will just pull the school’s PSLE achievement percentage down. As such, school probably will only recommend those students whom they think can obtain for sure at least an A to take HMT. The smaller the pool of base population, the better they can control the quality passes. In addition, it is relatively easy to just take another step further by only allowing those who can do extremely well to take the subject in the first place. For example, if the school only picks the top 5 kids take HCL, the chances getting 100% A* passes is definitely much higher than if the school allows top 10 kids to take the paper. -
DS sch is the opposite - encourage the top 3-4 classes to all take HCL. If kid does not want to take HCL, will have to drop from the top classes to join the subject banding classes (based on strengths and weakness of subjects). Of course kids want to be in the top classes, so no choice but to take HCL.
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Pen88n:
DS sch is the opposite - encourage the top 3-4 classes to all take HCL. If kid does not want to take HCL, will have to drop from the top classes to join the subject banding classes (based on strengths and weakness of subjects). Of course kids want to be in the top classes, so no choice but to take HCL.
Let me guess, it is one of those schools which do not need to prove themselves or are already magnets of high ability students.
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