2016 PSLE Discussions (Born in 2004)

[nansk]

Giggler1:

He was a NUS scholar, hanged himself

Thank you for the info. Is there an online news item you can point me to? Just curious, that's all.

Giggler1:

I also at a loss with my dd, weak in all subjects, esp Maths and Science. Printed out P2 exams papers for her to do and she cant even do them. Sigh

I'm sure the majority of Sg parents feel this way. There is just so much pressure to perform!
For my dd in Maths, I found that she needs regular (almost constant) review, only then does she retain the material taught and can do well when tested. If we somewhat neglect a certain topic - don't review it often enough - then she is sure to get a \"progressing, needs help\" assessment for that topic.
For Science, otoh, dh and I are quite clueless how to help her. Science is only done twice a week in school, and there is very little homework or worksheets sent home. In contrast, Maths is done daily and there is plenty of homework/weekend worksheets sent. So we have a pretty good idea about how she fares in Maths and how we can help her.
Add to that the fact that each school has it's own sequence of Science topics and each school appears to cover Science in varying depths. So we can't even use other schools' Science papers to test our dd's knowledge.
I'm waiting to see how she does in this SA1. It is the first exam she will have Science. We will decide how to proceed based on how she fares this time.

[Giggler1]

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/nus-scholar-found-dead-in-utown-campus-185329134.html

[Steadyberry]

JohnYeo:

Hi Steadyberry,

3 more years...still got time to solidy and strengthen the foundation....when you say weak in maths, which area is he specifically weak in? and weak means what? not being able to understand, or can understand but can't apply or have absolutely no idea what's going on?

lets see if we can explore solutions from these new inputs...

Hi johnyeo

I am not sure which area he is weak in. In p1, most of the tests he scored above 90. In p2, he can score as low as 60 and below average. During ptm, his ft said not sure what exactly happened to him too. For this yr ca1, he scored above 90. The mistakes that he made can be anything, no specific question or topic and he doesnt really repeat the same mistake again. Eg. For calculating time. He added the time up without thinking that 1 hr is 60 min and not 100 min. Or calculating shaded area. He calculated the non-shaded area instead. Since I am not able to pin point which topic or type of question he is weak in, I would normally let him do ca & sa papers. :scratchhead:

[Steadyberry]

Hi nansk


Instead of getting your dd to do schools’ science papers, you can try assessment books. My friend has the same prob. Then we went popular and browsed the content page of all assessment books. We found a few books that doesn’t combine few topics together. The individual topics are fungi, materials… instead of diversity, life cycles…

[nansk]

Giggler1:

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/nus-scholar-found-dead-in-utown-campus-185329134.html

Thank you.

Steadyberry:

Instead of getting your dd to do schools' science papers, you can try assessment books. My friend has the same prob. Then we went popular and browsed the content page of all assessment books. We found a few books that doesn't combine few topics together. The individual topics are fungi, materials... instead of diversity, life cycles...

Thank you, too! This is very helpful. Can you recommend any specific assessment book? My friend bought a Conquer Process Skills book at the last Popular sale. Was the book you found something that said \"Process Skills\" in the title?

[janet88]

nansk:

I'm sure the majority of Sg parents feel this way. There is just so much pressure to perform!
For my dd in Maths, I found that she needs regular (almost constant) review, only then does she retain the material taught and can do well when tested. If we somewhat neglect a certain topic - don't review it often enough - then she is sure to get a \"progressing, needs help\" assessment for that topic.
For Science, otoh, dh and I are quite clueless how to help her. Science is only done twice a week in school, and there is very little homework or worksheets sent home. In contrast, Maths is done daily and there is plenty of homework/weekend worksheets sent. So we have a pretty good idea about how she fares in Maths and how we can help her.
Add to that the fact that each school has it's own sequence of Science topics and each school appears to cover Science in varying depths. So we can't even use other schools' Science papers to test our dd's knowledge.
I'm waiting to see how she does in this SA1. It is the first exam she will have Science. We will decide how to proceed based on how she fares this time.

there is still a pressure to perform...so it is still very much a grade-centric system going on...and i am not looking at PSLE but P3.

science lessons twice a week...maths everyday and the homework is not just workbook but supplementary worksheets as well.

science topics to be tested for SA1 is living/non-living things, animals, plants, fungi and bacteria, life cycles of plants and animals. how to print past year exam papers to let her practise when life cycles is taught at p4 in most schools.

[nicnac]

Wow, some of the schools are starting their sa1 real early. Ours will start with oral next week, then one week break before they start on their written papers.


Actually, I am not even sure which topics are covered in their sa2. I don’t remember seeing homework on volume so not sure if they have done that in class. My dc said they are behind schedule in maths and ahead in science, thus teacher once used the sci period to do math instead. It doesn’t help that the teacher is current away…for 3weeks!! I am not sure if the relief tr is doing any teaching at all?!

My dc does not see the urgency, even though I’m constantly reminding her that the exams are round the corner. She can be extremely careless and with her "no-need-to-check" mentality, it is sometimes really frustrating. I am most worried about her EL paper 2.

[JohnYeo]

Steadyberry:

JohnYeo:

Hi Steadyberry,

3 more years...still got time to solidy and strengthen the foundation....when you say weak in maths, which area is he specifically weak in? and weak means what? not being able to understand, or can understand but can't apply or have absolutely no idea what's going on?

lets see if we can explore solutions from these new inputs...

Hi johnyeo

I am not sure which area he is weak in. In p1, most of the tests he scored above 90. In p2, he can score as low as 60 and below average. During ptm, his ft said not sure what exactly happened to him too. For this yr ca1, he scored above 90. The mistakes that he made can be anything, no specific question or topic and he doesnt really repeat the same mistake again. Eg. For calculating time. He added the time up without thinking that 1 hr is 60 min and not 100 min. Or calculating shaded area. He calculated the non-shaded area instead. Since I am not able to pin point which topic or type of question he is weak in, I would normally let him do ca & sa papers. :scratchhead:

Hi Steadyberry,

Sounds like it is not the whole topic. And I think you did a great job in pin pointing exactly what his mistakes or room for improvement are...I think maybe it is related to application and also understanding the concept of time and shaded area (in this context).

You may want to segregate out the practice time to just working on one or both concepts by letting him do questions on these two concepts and observing closely. Does he hesistate when it comes to reading the question or working out a solution? Maybe he understands but he can't solve it or he can understand and solve it but he misread the question?

Once you know the details, you can choose two questions related to these two concepts and let him do daily. It is still a habit afterall and we need consistency to develop a new habit which is to correctly solve questions testing on these two concepts.

Continue this process for about a month...New learned habit takes sometime to form and stay ingrained in a person...

My 2 cents,
John

[janet88]

nicnac:

Wow, some of the schools are starting their sa1 real early. Ours will start with oral next week, then one week break before they start on their written papers.


Actually, I am not even sure which topics are covered in their sa2. I don't remember seeing homework on volume so not sure if they have done that in class. My dc said they are behind schedule in maths and ahead in science, thus teacher once used the sci period to do math instead. It doesn't help that the teacher is current away..for 3weeks!! I am not sure if the relief tr is doing any teaching at all?!

My dc does not see the urgency, even though I'm constantly reminding her that the exams are round the corner. She can be extremely careless and with her \"no-need-to-check\" mentality, it is sometimes really frustrating. I am most worried about her EL paper 2.

facing same headache here. her orals are just next week...after school hours and she doesn't sense any urgency...instead kept complaining why orals are held after school hours...followed by compo (eng and chinese) the week after. written papers 3rd week of may. our dear friend here is careless...copied wrong numbers for prob sum and of course it is wrong all the way and can't even divide.

[JohnYeo]

nansk:

For my dd in Maths, I found that she needs regular (almost constant) review, only then does she retain the material taught and can do well when tested.

Hi nansk, regular and constant review is normal. It is the learning process.

In fact, the cycle is like this.

Learn -> Application -> Feedback --> and back to Learn and repeat

In your case, the review is considered part of application if she still remembers what she had learnt and how much of it and the result of the review will give you feedback on how much she had retained and how well when tested.

And the memory curve vs time is in fact a down slope curve and as every day passes by, what we have learnt yesterday will be forgotten and it is only with review, this curve goes up again but it will still be down sloping...

Maybe you want to have a review system that works best for your kid. For some parents, the children can verbalise the workings and the concepts and they can remember.

For others, they are more auditory and they need to listen. For the rest who are visual learners, they need to read their notes or look through the questions which they had done previously. There is a last group which belongs to the kinesthetic group and they can remember by doing and working on questions and feeling the success of getting these questions solved.

Different review works for different children....and you will need to find out what works best for your child...

John