2012 PSLE Discussions and Strategy

[janet88]

Chenonceau:

Therefore, parents need to pay tuition centres to mark, GRADE, and comment on our children's compos. Since last year, I have to re-correct my son's compos from exams and class practices. His teacher makes too many spelling and grammar mistakes... misses out other mistakes... and gives few comments. How to learn from school like that.

We just have to accept that our schools focus more on testing (and generating marks)and differentiatig than on teaching well

I don't bother with his compos done in school. Teachers do not have a proper system to teach kids how to write a compo. That's why we have to spend money to get tutors to teach. That is a skill.
The other thing is annotation. Why must kids do it? Does it help at all? My son had to do that crazy thing and it cost him so many marks and time during SA1. Yes, our schools are doing very well testing kids stuff way beyond guideline.

[janet88]

Chenonceau:

Cherylaw:

Somehow I felt my son didn't come to P6 academically prepared. If parents can build foundation in P5, P6 will be much better. Last year was hell bcos he failed Math the whole year.


I felt the same, haiz, now we hv to suffer double the stress. Mummies, better build the foundation earlier....

It's so sad that PARENTS now have to build the foundation. Schools don't do that anymore. Poor parents who trusted the school reach P6 and can only watch the pain of their kids and know there is little time to do much now.

Yup, kids are expected to know hanyu pinyin in P1 or he/she will suffer terribly. One good example, my daughter. When she was in P1 last year, she hated CL classes. The hypy stuff like 'ui, iu, ei' etc killed her interest in the subject completely. This year, she had to write compos based on 4 pic
:faint:

[august24]

Yes, those compo done in class, remarks given are one sentence comments, hardly useful. Not too sure are they given feedback for improvement in class. Was told to get them to read more to improve, year after year. When I get /dd to practice writing, I can’t mark as my EL is not gd! Tuition is def no no, I can’t find more time to squeeze into their alrdy crazy schedule.

Btw, their teachers also do not give out email addresses. All comm need go thru general office. Hesitant to write in to P. as I don’t want them being blacklisted!

[fightingmom]

august24:

Yes, those compo done in class, remarks given are one sentence comments, hardly useful. Not too sure are they given feedback for improvement in class. Was told to get them to read more to improve, year after year. When I get /dd to practice writing, I can't mark as my EL is not gd! Tuition is def no no, I can't find more time to squeeze into their alrdy crazy schedule.

Btw, their teachers also do not give out email addresses. All comm need go thru general office. Hesitant to write in to P. as I don't want them being blacklisted!

:scared: No email addresses given ?!

I don't understand the logic of all comm need to go thru general office. Isn't that a lot of \"red tape\" ?

[janet88]

august24:

Yes, those compo done in class, remarks given are one sentence comments, hardly useful. Not too sure are they given feedback for improvement in class. Was told to get them to read more to improve, year after year. When I get /dd to practice writing, I can't mark as my EL is not gd! Tuition is def no no, I can't find more time to squeeze into their alrdy crazy schedule.

Btw, their teachers also do not give out email addresses. All comm need go thru general office. Hesitant to write in to P. as I don't want them being blacklisted!

I don't know to teach compo...that itself is a skill.
Teaching compo starts with sentence structuring or something like that...but it's really a skill in itself. I don't mind coaching grammar, vocab, synthesis, comprehension for lower pri...but upp pri onwards, I surrender.

[august24]

fightingmom:

:scared: No email addresses given ?!

I don't understand the logic of all comm need to go thru general office. Isn't that a lot of \"red tape\" ?

All these yrs, only 2 of dd T. gave me their mobile and email. Really must depend on the T. as emails not published on their sch website.

[G Tan]

Chenonceau:

They don't return compos because they wanna hide the spelling mistakes the teachers make. They would rather hide than step up and face issues that they need to address to deliver a quality education. If kids don't get quantitative and qualitative feedback about their compos, how will they learn?


Therefore, parents need to pay tuition centres to mark, GRADE, and comment on our children's compos. Since last year, I have to re-correct my son's compos from exams and class practices. His teacher makes too many spelling and grammar mistakes... misses out other mistakes... and gives few comments. How to learn from school like that.

We just have to accept that our schools focus more on testing (and generating marks)and differentiatig than on teaching well

Great comments! I truly sgreee. I do not get back my DD compo also :mad:

[Zekezachzoom]

august24:

Is it the norm for your dc sch not to release compo & oral marks?

For EL, only situational writing marks were 'given' (cos I managed to see it tho teacher blanko it off). H/e, no marks on compo writing given tho the paper was returned. Ds & dd said teacher dun tell dem marks for compo. I can only gauged the combined std of compo+oral. Even during PT mtg, teacher usually give general feedback like ok rather than telling the score. When checking grade, they will also cover the list to prevent us fr 'peeping'.

My DS school releases the mark for every component. So far, oral mark has been released and already causing some disputes. Those boys who had their oral tested by non language teachers (math or science teachers) scored generally 5-6 marks higher ( some even managed to scored full marks) then those tested by language teachers. Students and parents of the later group are complaining. I think is rather unfair, the school should have at least pair up one language teacher with the non language teacher.

[Zekezachzoom]

Chenonceau:

They don't return compos because they wanna hide the spelling mistakes the teachers make. They would rather hide than step up and face issues that they need to address to deliver a quality education. If kids don't get quantitative and qualitative feedback about their compos, how will they learn?


Therefore, parents need to pay tuition centres to mark, GRADE, and comment on our children's compos. Since last year, I have to re-correct my son's compos from exams and class practices. His teacher makes too many spelling and grammar mistakes... misses out other mistakes... and gives few comments. How to learn from school like that.

We just have to accept that our schools focus more on testing (and generating marks)and differentiatig than on teaching well

Agreed totally. Took my DS son compo to his English tutor and she commented the compo was pretty well written and she would at least mark 35/40 as compared to 25/40 given by his teacher in school. Such a vast difference. There was no comments on the compo to justify for the mark given at all.

[buds]

fightingmom:

pixiedust:

[quote=\"fightingmom\"]I used to joke with DD that SA stands for Speed and Accuracy so have to be careful (cannot say the forbidden word \"careless\") and finish the papers and leave at least about 10-15 mins to check through.


I used to repeat this every time before my DD starts her revision papers :

\"Every mark counts !\"

So now the 3 words stuck with her liao :rotflmao:

Ah, \"careless\" is forbidden ! I must remember this. What's the history behind ? chenonceau's suggestion ?
.

Hi pixiedust,

It is actually our \"house rule\". Used to remind my DD not to make any careless mistakes when she was in lower primary. The more
I reminded her, the more careless mistakes she made ! :faint:

So my DH said why not remind her to be careful (positive input) instead of careless (negative input ) so I tried. By end of primary 3, she has cut down her not so careful mistakes by half (used to lose 20-25 marks).

Whether is it our choice of words that helps - I don't really analyse too much as long as it works for my DD! [/quote]Yep, us too.. more positive to say be careful than why careless... :hi5:

DD2 will reply \"I will be more careful.\" instead of her previous \"I know i'm so careless.\" Makes a diff. I like \"every mark counts\" too! Will try that too. :xedfingers: