MP echoes calls for PSLE to be scrapped

[HAPPYH]

Daddy

Children's Day holiday on Fri...

Let me guess... More school homework? Cos' the teachers cannot finish teaching.
:yikes:

I dont doubt that.

[janet88]

SAHM_TAN:

Inference skills and cause and effect connections can be taught/introduced at P1 but dunno if there's enough time taking into account the number of kids per class

I know my gal's teacher explains the meaning of compre passages to the class but it is not easy to do so in a class of 30 and make sure they all understand. I use simple annotation when I coach her, then she will answer the questions part by part.

[SAHM_TAN]

HAPPYH:

Daddy

Children's Day holiday on Fri...

Let me guess... More school homework? Cos' the teachers cannot finish teaching.
:yikes:

I dont doubt that.

Not necessary becos all hols, public hols and time offs, are taken into account when planning the schedule to complete the syllabus. Most probably I will be bombarded by NOssssss but the planning is there.

[SAHM_TAN]

Nebbermind:

SAHM_TAN:

Inference skills and cause and effect connections can be taught/introduced at P1 but dunno if there's enough time taking into account the number of kids per class

No doubt it can be taught but every kid's command of English is different.

It's like we can teach the kids the moves of each chess piece...but to play the game well still need alot of brain power.

Yes plus the General Knowledge bank is at different level in the class. So very much depends on the ability of the teacher to scaffold and differentiate for the different groups within the same class. Tough job.

[janet88]

Kids have to be taught critical thinking and how to think-out-of the box. This was what I was told. English is not 死板…for eg Paper 1 Compo, whichever question the child wants to write, he has to think on the spot and FAST, how to create the plot to form a compo. There is only 50 min.

[Chenonceau]

Beanbear... :goodpost:

beanbear:

One critical skill eg in English comprehension is mining for meaning. I don't know how it is taught to my ds at school but I knew he was definitely not picking up the skills required at school. He was scoring 4 out of 20 for school tests & regular assignments. After I taught him to ask specific questions as he read each line, and to do annotation and to interpret questions, he moved up to 14 out of 20 at the next assignment given. This is literally within 2 lessons of being TAUGHT these skills.

Same thing happened to us.

beanbear:

I didn't know at first how to teach my son to do better in comprehension as I was unconsciously competent as an English speaker. I always scored well in English but I didn't quite know how to teach. Obviously right? I'm a parent not a trained teacher. Seeing my child failing miserably and coming from an English speaking family and he who was reading books daily, it's only with grt frustration that I felt I had to pull up my own sleeves and teach my son. I had to attend a very expensive 2-hr workshop conducted by a teacher to teachers. How did I learn about this teacher? From another parent at ksp.

Most people are parents and not trained teachers.

beanbear:

So what does this tell u? Teaching is either inadequate or teachers are not properly trained to teach skills needed by students. Interesting I got ds to apply the same techniques to Chinese comprehension and he was able to score almost full marks for that section when previously was was again barely passing.

Red words: Same experience on our end.
Blue words: I concluded that teaching was inadequate because classes were too large AND teaching materials were scarce.

beanbear:

Ive lost trust in schools to teach adequately not when they r testing the kind of skills needed to pass or do well. I now don't take chances with ds3 who is in p1. He reads even more widely than my older 2 kids, has amazing vocabulary and is in stellar prog. But I've been burnt as a parent. I tutor him myself when previously my older 2 had no tuition for English from P1-4. I've had to arm myself with a whole shelf of English grammar reference books and assessments. He reads lots and listens for hours of audio CDs. Feels like I'm now an English tutor myself. Wished I didn't need to. Because I'd rather hv my kids learn English unconsciously when they r with me, picking up vocabulary and sentence structure through our daily conversations. But this kind of induction will not b adequate to help my child pass English at p5.

Same conclusion on my end at end of P4. I did briefly consider though that my son was low IQ because it was at that time so unthinkable to me that Singapore schools could be so awful. My own experience as a child and youth biased my judgment. I believed that the schools could not be wrong and that my son was just dumb.

Now I know better.

[janet88]

I’ve lost confidence in son’s school. Right after his prelims, he was ‘home-schooled’ for about 1 month.


All these years, I thought since son’s school was SAP and he was doing fine (not scoring As but didn’t fail), he should be ‘safe’. Well, I was so wrong. My son was not taught adequately to pass, let alone do well.

[Nebbermind]

Recently I came across 2 comments from diff parents.


Parent1 : This new (actually she has taken over for a few yrs if I remember correctly) principal not very good.
Me : What u mean? :scratchhead:
Parent1 : Oh, she only care about (academic) results and not the well being of the kids.
Me : :roll:

Parent2 : I donch like this GEP school.
Me : Why? :scratchhead:
Parent2 : Coz this school seems to be only training the kids to get good results in exams. Doesn't look very enriching as compare to xxx school. (This is her 2nd kid in GEP).

Well, sometimes life is so ironic!

[SAHM_TAN]

Nebbermind:

Recently I came across 2 comments from diff parents.


Parent1 : This new (actually she has taken over for a few yrs if I remember correctly) principal not very good.
Me : What u mean? :scratchhead:
Parent1 : Oh, she only care about (academic) results and not the well being of the kids.
Me : :roll:

Parent2 : I donch like this GEP school.
Me : Why? :scratchhead:
Parent2 : Coz this school seems to be only training the kids to get good results in exams. Doesn't look very enriching as compare to xxx school. (This is her 2nd kid in GEP).

Well, sometimes life is so ironic!

:rotflmao:

But must ask Janet, Chen and beanbear if their kids were enriched by the schools in other areas....... :siam:

[tired mom]

As parents, naturally we would like our kids to be in a school which will enrich them both academically and non-academically.


However, as the end-point of primary school is this major-ranking exercise called PSLE, I would think the school’s principal aim should be academic.

As a parent, I hope that the school teach my kids adequately in the field of academics. I would rather spend time with my kids as a parent and not a tutor, building their characters and strengthening our family bonds. But very sad, it is not happening. I spend more than 80% of time with my oldest kid as her tutor. I concur with beanbear and Chen, that I think I make a better teacher to her in many subjects, but this is NOT what I want.