MOE to scrap Banding for Secondary Schools

[corneyAmber]

slmkhoo:

Kissgurami:

[quote=\"ksi\"]

COP is partly determined by demand right? So previous year COP will be used as the guide to determine if one should choose the school?

Hmm, I had this impression that the banding also kind of justified for the call for higher COP...

As far as I understand, COP is entirely based on demand-supply. If very few choose a particular school that year so students with poorer results are posted there, the COP will fall. The school has no control over the COP. Banding will cause more students to select schools in the higher bands, so no banding will mean that students select schools for other reasons?[/quote]Yes this is my understanding too. Today the banding is helping the school to maintain their COP. Without banding, it will purely be relying on previous year's demand as an estimate of the COP.

[Melodies]

I was :rotflmao: :rotflmao: :rotflmao: when I first heard that! Whether u Like it or not, the unofficially banding will take place by itself without u officially band it :evil:

looking4Tutor:

No more banding for secondary schools hence all schools are good school. Just a joke shared this morning.

[SAHM_TAN]

Daddy

[quote]
On the scrapping of banding, MP Hri Kumar Nair said: \"Even if you don't band schools, parents will have the impression as to which are, in their view, the better schools...this will be evident from the PSLE cut-off... By itself, it is not going to address the issues of competition and stress.\"

I like this Hri guy... :salute:
How do parents choose schs when no banding?
Refer to old banding lor... :siam:[/quote]Don't need old branding lah, look at previous O level results can liao. Even if O level results are not published on schools' website, come to this forum and ask also can. There was a thread mah on last year PSLE top results by schools, many parents shared what was the top PSLE t-score in their kids' school.

[corneyAmber]

Daddy

[quote]
On the scrapping of banding, MP Hri Kumar Nair said: \"Even if you don't band schools, parents will have the impression as to which are, in their view, the better schools...this will be evident from the PSLE cut-off... By itself, it is not going to address the issues of competition and stress.\"

I like this Hri guy... :salute:
How do parents choose schs when no banding?
Refer to old banding lor... :siam:[/quote]Previous year COP.

[Daddy D]

Next time Education Minister will say cannot surf KSP forum?

[corneyAmber]

Melodies:

I was :rotflmao: :rotflmao: :rotflmao: when I first heard that! Whether u Like it or not, the unofficially banding will take place by itself without u officially band it :evil:

looking4Tutor:

No more banding for secondary schools hence all schools are good school. Just a joke shared this morning.

Then stop asking MOE to do any more policy changes to make life less stressful for the children if parents' mindset is not going to change in tandem. This is a very good example of stress not coming from MOE but from parents. It takes 2 to clap, if MOE has done its part, we gotta do ours.

MOE is doing this to make schools de-focus on inter-school competition but build their own unique niche so this will benefit the children in terms of academic pressure. The idea now is to choose schools based on the merits of its curriculum niche that it can offer or match to your child, not on its band ranking when stack against other schools. Can this be understood? New policies can come in but if old brains or behaviour stay on, nothing is gonna work. Then the complain cycle starts again...never ending story... :slapshead:

[SAHM_TAN]

I'm in 2 minds about MOE/SEAB setting the final exam for each level, on one hand it will serve as a better gauge of expected standards but on the other hand, parents might be stressing about who's the top national student annually instead of just on PSLE year :rotflmao:


I don't think MOE/SEAB setting national exams at all levels will reduce the demand for branded school though becos there will still be parents who believe the branded schools will better prepare their kids.

My dd1 has tuition for maths but I tell her not to tell the teacher. My reason is because, she needs the help for maths and I do not want the teacher to think that she's accelerated and not bother about her progress. Plus, I think it's a parent's choice to enroll their kids for tuition/enrichment.

tutormum:

My suggestion is that MOE sets all exam papers for all levels for all schools to ensure uniformity. Schools can still have their topical tests etc but children have to sit for same final year exams, for example.
This may somehow ease the pressure to get children into branded schools as all children will sit for the same exams throughout their school lives, not just the PSLE. Of course if schools want to outdo each other, they can do so by all means but this will only results in comparing how many more children getting full marks in one school from another. :evil:
In this way, no parent can complain that their children lose out cos they didn't manage to get into branded schools. We can then safely say that all schools are the same.
As for whether teachers are effective in their teaching, maybe their increment and promotion should be pegged on how well their students do in their final year exams without private tuition. MOE can gather data on the number of students taking private tuition and penalise teachers whose students fall into this category. There are students who really need help and MOE can make allowance for such cases. MOE can say, make known the number and percentage of students taking private tuition in a particular school. Parents will then know whether that school depends and/or encourage private tuition and shun it.
I am sure MOE is aware of such a situation all along but choose to keep mum. When DS3 was in P3, he told me a survey was done by his teacher (maybe on the instructions of MOE) on how many of them had private tuition. He also remarked that his teacher seemed surprised when he said that he had no tuition though his mother is a private tutor.
As for non academic achievements, points can be awarded for CCA and competition participation, CIP, special achievements etc - similar to the present secondary school system. Students can use such additional points on top of their PSLE scores to get into secondary schools of their choice. This will encourage students to be actively involved in school programs and have a holistic education.

[kitty2]

Daddy

[quote]
On the scrapping of banding, MP Hri Kumar Nair said: \"Even if you don't band schools, parents will have the impression as to which are, in their view, the better schools...this will be evident from the PSLE cut-off... By itself, it is not going to address the issues of competition and stress.\"

I like this Hri guy... :salute:
How do parents choose schs when no banding?
Refer to old banding lor... :siam:[/quote]No banding doesn't mean that the COP will change,there's still COP for entry to all the sec school!!

[looking4Tutor]

ksi:

Then stop asking MOE to do any more policy changes to make life less stressful for the children if parents' mindset is not going to change in tandem. This is a very good example of stress not coming from MOE but from parents. It takes 2 to clap, if MOE has done its part, we gotta do ours.


MOE is doing this to make schools de-focus on inter-school competition but build their own unique niche so this will benefit the children in terms of academic pressure. The idea now is to choose schools based on the merits of its curriculum niche that it can offer or match to your child, not on its band ranking when stack against other schools. Can this be understood? New policies can come in but if old brains or behaviour stay on, nothing is gonna work. Then the complain cycle starts again...never ending story... :slapshead:

My prediction is that it will not work for the fact that which schools are the top is well established.
Unless, he removes COP for secondary school selection. All secondary schools should have a fair distribution of strong and weak PSLE students.
Or a more drastic move, ask the so called top secondary schools to take in the weakest PSLE students and turn them into stellar cum holistic O level students.

Removing banding is just like removing stars (6 stars, 5 stars) from hotel rating.

[corneyAmber]

Daddy

Next time Education Minister will say cannot surf KSP forum?

KSP simply provides a convenient platform for parents to get a consolidated view of all the previous years COP of all schools, otherwise the previous year COP is found on the secondary school's website. Btw, this effort of consolidation was started by a parent and the trend continued every year.