2012 PSLE Discussions and Strategy
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After his well deserved rest, I have managed to get my DS to embark on his journey to psle next year;) here are some of the stuff that we have achieved so far…
1. Weaning him off slowing on his "screen" time… He used to jump from one screen to another (from xbox to iPad and to iPhone). I have limited him an hour of screen time a day now. We don’t usually watch tv at home, so that’s a plus.
2. We read through the p5 知识报to beef up his vocab every night before he sleeps. We did some oral and exercises in there and he is more receptive in doing that as there are some interesting articles that he enjoys reading (eg. 破案一分钟）
3. I get him to jump straight to do the past psle exam questions ( his school has given him the old version 2005-2009 booklet). From there I would be able to identify which area is his weakest. Topics that are not taught, I will get him to read up first and try the questions again. I have covered some p6 MATHS topics with him along the way ( algebra, circles)
4. His weakest link is still his languages, hence, I am running through the grammar, s&t, getting him to do a compo per week.
5. Just got the 2011 test paper from Jeremy, my DS has completed some ca1 papers.
I am starting it slowing so to build up his stamina for this long and stressful journey. A lot of encouragement has to shower on him along the way. He will have a very hectic term 1 as he is also in the school team and the national competition is around late march. His coach is expecting him to train 3 times a week when school opens. I just hope that he is able to cope and not stress out too fast;) -
Chenonceau:
I agree that if the kid is going to be tired and not able to absorb much during the extended school hours, it serves no purpose to keep him in school for supplementary classes. If the teacher is not providing much value-added coaching during the supplementary classes, the kid should not put in the extra effort to stay back in school when he does have the choice to spend his time wisely at home.
Yup!! I would... and I have. I do know that Teachers cover parts of the syllabus in these extended school hours because the Teachers told me. Still, because we learn faster and better at home, keeping him out of supplementary classes still made sense to us.
The syllabus is meant for a half day session. If Teachers cannot finish in the normal school hours, then extra time given just indulges the system with MORE time to be inefficient. My son is young. He gets tired, like every other child... and I still want him to have a childhood. If the system is inefficient, I have to step in to protect my son.
But I am not sure if it is fair to say that MOE is being inefficient to allow schools to conduct supplementary classes beyond school hours; I view it as them given the schools the choice to implement it, and the parents also have the choice to withdraw the kids from such classes if they insist; I have a few PRC and Indian friends with kids studying in their own countries, and the kids have fixed long daily school hours that stretch from morning till about 4 pm, and of course, it’s not just for the fifth and sixth year of primary school. In these two countries, the schools and parents don’t have the choice to pull their kids out of afternoon classes as and when they deem fit.fifiyeo:
Home schooling is not for my family even if it’s not unhealthy socially, cos I still rely on the school to give the discipline to cover the topics. Leave it to my own devices, I’ll probably let my kid play wholeheartedly for the first 4 years and crumb the 5.5 years of work in the last 1.5 years leading to PSLE.Actually I would if my kid is in your school. If not for the fact that it's not healthy socially for kids to be home schooled, and results are all that I'm looking at, I'll have my kid home schooled and we can loads of extra time to explore lots of other interesting stuff.
I strongly believe kids can do well or maybe even better just being tutored at home if results are all that we are looking at. My DS come from one of those \"branded\" top schools but over the years I see his teachers changing all the time and often leaving the kids confused!
I also do not have the will, time and resources to read up well in advance to coach my kids. But after DS1 finishes PSLE, I would probably have acquired some necessary skills in the process of revising with him, so that DS2 will not need to attend supplementary classes at all from the start and still strive. DS2 has low energy level as well as concentration span. For kids like him, it is important not to keep him in school for too long unnecessarily.
For DS1, I'll let him attend the supplementary classes and watch who's not there :rotflmao: if the smarter ones or those with discerning parents are not there, then I'll know what to do... -
Picolo:
Oi?? :scratchhead: ... I don't believe I said MOE is being inefficient to allow schools to conduct these classes. I'm sure these supplementary classes work out well for some parents, and the MOE has no business not allowing it. I said that I myself wasn't keen to indulge any inefficiency.
But I am not sure if it is fair to say that MOE is being inefficient to allow schools to conduct supplementary classes beyond school hours; I view it as them given the schools the choice to implement it, and the parents also have the choice to withdraw the kids from such classes if they insist;
...
In these two countries, the schools and parents don’t have the choice to pull their kids out of afternoon classes as and when they deem fit.
...
For DS1, I'll let him attend the supplementary classes and watch who's not there :rotflmao: if the smarter ones or those with discerning parents are not there, then I'll know what to do...
Actually, supplementary classes are compulsory (both for the teacher who teaches it, and the students)... The only reason that I can get away with it is that my DS' turned in better results after we started to skip. We don't have a choice either. I pushed the issue because we were desperate. :frustrated:
For my DS, the results were vastly different BEFORE skipping supplementary classes and AFTER. I didn't look at the smarter ones. I looked at my DS' own results. At first, I was a bit worried. Now, I am certain that it is the right thing for us to do... so here we go again for P6. :evil: -
silverhorse:
Yah.... poor kid. It happened to my dd too: come home 5pm and still have loads of homework. I told her no need to do and wrote a note to the teacher to extend the dateline! Even machines need to switch off and do servicing!! The brains need to absorb the day's learning. This is not how a person learn. I think the MOE and schools need to look into this, there are many research out there that shows that the brain need to rest so as to put the knowledge learnt from the short term memory to the long term memory.smartmummy:
Is any school starts from P3?My son's school has supplimentary for P3.I struggled with him.Cos he too tired and have no time to revision.He had one day for Maths and one day for English.I heard other schools has remedial class.That is acceptable.I feel wast of time for this supplementary.There were four days in a week he stayed back.cos one day CCA,one day MO.
Hi Smartmummy,
DS1 started compulsory Supplementary class in P3. Once a week till 5pm, and after that, he still have homework to complete. I told my son the teachers are being ridiculous. He gets on the schoolbus daily at 6am, comes home from CCA and Supp class at 6pm. its a 12hr day for him. How can a young mind function after 12hrs of work? Even as adults, we will feel drained. -
It’s all wayang because the kids do 1 compo a month if lucky… no one gives them individualized feedback on how to tackle compre… they do hardly enough practice to get skillful. It’s like learning to cook by READING and LISTENING alone. To learn to cook you must DO and RECEIVE FEEDBACK.
Recently, my DS’s school got Teachers to organise a parent fair to showcase innovative teaching techniques. The teachers could have better spent the time marking compos and giving individualized feedback.[/quote]
Yes Chenoceau, I concur that the Critical Variable here is Individualized Feedback. I hate it when teachers give a feedback like "Careless" which really is labelling rather than diagnosis. DS received this kind of feedback at every PTM until I find it a waste of time meeting the teachers.
Each time when I review the papers DS has done, I coach him on where he had specific difficulty and when we review the answers, he reflects on what he has learnt and what he would do differently in the future. This reflective practice I feel is sorely lacking in our BIG classrooms.
Even when I tried small group tuition of 4 kids to one teacher, I found that the tutors also lack observation skills about the child’s learning and don’t have skills to give specific feedback. It’s a rare Teacher who really possesses the curiosity about children and giving feedback that’s digestible to a child, without blame or shame and the child can use that feedback to act differently in the future. -
silverhorse:
I think supplementary classes are necessary because sometimes curriculum time is just not enough to cover the syllabus but I am against excessive supplementary classes. I heard of a primary school that actually conducted supplementary classes for their top P6 students everyday during the holidays.
Hi Smartmummy,
DS1 started compulsory Supplementary class in P3. Once a week till 5pm, and after that, he still have homework to complete. I told my son the teachers are being ridiculous. He gets on the schoolbus daily at 6am, comes home from CCA and Supp class at 6pm. its a 12hr day for him. How can a young mind function after 12hrs of work? Even as adults, we will feel drained. -
[quote]
Yah.... poor kid. It happened to my dd too: come home 5pm and still have loads of homework. I told her no need to do and wrote a note to the teacher to extend the dateline! Even machines need to switch off and do servicing!! The brains need to absorb the day's learning. This is not how a person learn. I think the MOE and schools need to look into this, there are many research out there that shows that the brain need to rest so as to put the knowledge learnt from the short term memory to the long term memory.[/quote][/quote]
Actually doctors say that kids need 9 to 13 hours of sleep. In Singapore if you have kids who are sent to bed at 9.30pm it's considered early. It you send them to bed at 8.30pm, people think you are crazy! I look at my \"ang mor\" neighbours and their kids sleep as early as 7pm.
I try to pack my kids to bed at 8.30pm when time permits or by 9.30pm. I strongly believe that kids are growing so are their brains. Without the rest, how are they going to develop well? -
oliveminx:
In my opinion, all the supp classes in pri sch not really helped. It's like in P6, i had 5 supp classes a week, 2 on one of the days so it means i only get 1 day of no supp classes. We just spent that time going through papers/doing more papers. However, my supp classes are only 1h each time, so not that bad, but still get very tired especially near PSLE time where the homework is always a few exam papers everyday :faint:
I think supplementary classes are necessary because sometimes curriculum time is just not enough to cover the syllabus but I am against excessive supplementary classes. I heard of a primary school that actually conducted supplementary classes for their top P6 students everyday during the holidays.silverhorse:
Hi Smartmummy,
DS1 started compulsory Supplementary class in P3. Once a week till 5pm, and after that, he still have homework to complete. I told my son the teachers are being ridiculous. He gets on the schoolbus daily at 6am, comes home from CCA and Supp class at 6pm. its a 12hr day for him. How can a young mind function after 12hrs of work? Even as adults, we will feel drained. -
Yah… totally agree. In fact there are many research that proves this and research from our local doctors here too (if i remember correctly). Sleep and rest. Also ‘play’. Kids need to be kids. If we ask ourselves how are our childhood like, i’m sure most of us here would have very fond memories of playing with neighbours, cousins, etc. In 10 yrs time, if our kids are asked the same question, eh… tuition, enrichment classes, test and exams. Hahahaha
My kids used to sleep at 8 pm (when we lived in Aus), when we came back, they went to bed 8.30pm as 8pm seem crazy (weirdo), then 9.30pm now 10pm (latest). Basically, if they cannot complete their homework by 10pm, I will access if this is due to the teachers loading the kid with unrealistic amount of homework. If so, a letter from me to the teacher asking to extend dateline, so far, no teachers have challenged me. (Maybe behind my back) hehe -
My kids skip many supp classes… because by the time they come back from supp class, it will be 5pm. They have about another 4 to 5 exam papers (about 1h 45min each paper) to complete.
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