MPM Maths - Discussion

[slacker]

Hi. Does anyone know whether the teachers at the West Coast MPM are good? I’m thinking to send my DS there this year.

[KingRascal]

Oops, wonder why I missed this out. Guess you should have found out the fees by now :lol:


For others who are interested to know, it's about $440 for 24 books. Assuming your child does 2 books each week, it'd be 12-week term each payment.

MissyD:

Hello everyone! Is there anyone who can advise on the aprroximate course fee for MPM Maths, for maybe P2?

[Poonie]

MissyD:

Hello everyone! Is there anyone who can advise on the aprroximate course fee for MPM Maths, for maybe P2?

It works out to $18 per lesson if you go 2x a week for 45 mins or $36 if it is once a week for 1.5 hrs. In my dd's case the 45 mins usually extended beyong 1 hr.

[Poonie]

AgonyMum:

Hi,I would like to send my kid to this maths course.Anyone has any feedback regarding the different branches and how effective are the different instructors?

Any mummy or daady here who has sent their kids to MPM,pls let me know their opinions and feedback etc.
Thanks very much!

Agonymum

Recently I enrolled my kids in MPM. Frankly I am not impressed. The booklets were full of grammatical errors. 'truck' was 'trunk'. I remember there was a question that even advocated drinking beer as the question was a about 'the number of barrel of beer' that some kids had!!!! Both mistake and blunder were spotted by my kid. She even questioned why the book tells her to drink beer when here I was telling her it's something she can't touch yet. For new comers, you will not know what the questions are asking as they either do not have instructions or very minimal. Really have to depends on the instructor to explain and thereafter you are expected to figure it out if you see the same type of questions.

[KingRascal]

Hi Poonie, I am going to share my personal opinion. Please do not take offence as I may differ in some views. However these are just my personal comments and how I view and evaluate my decision making :lol:


My DS has been with MPM since K1 and he's now in P2. He's almost completing the MPM P2 series. He's learning well from the programme.

Errors in the questions
Yes, I agree with that and I spotted several over the years. Or rather my DS spotted them. However I have also spotted errors in
- My Pal Grammar Handbook for P1/2
- Myhometutor CDRom P2 lesson
- Lots of assessment books (too many to recall)
- \"Branded\" schools' exam paper questions
Thus I conclude that there is no 6sigma enrichment centres/student materials right now. My decision criteria - so long as the error is within my tolerable range and the teachers are good to acknowledge and guide my DS, and that he's gaining enough knowledge from the materials for me to accept that error margin, I am fine with it. However, that would also mean that if one day, the errors outway the benefits I am getting from it, then it's \"bye-bye\" to MPM or any other centres/materials.

Questions with no instructions
Yes, it took a while (almost 6mths?) for my DS in K1 then to fully understand what they were trying to ask. Often he had to ask me and flipped back to what he did in class to recall what the questions required him to do. I also could not fullyu appreciate them at that time. However he was only in K1 and I did not have much alternatives then, I let him continue. Moreover my objective was a centre with creative math, not the usual syllabus math. Thus we stayed on.

That was in 2007. You asked me now, I would tell you I have no regrets. There is no more need for me to help him with the questions. He fully understands what is required nowadays. Sometimes he does not even need the teachers to explain to him. These creative questions are very stimulating. In fact sometmes I asked myself if it's possible to put instructions down for these questions...and my answer is: very tough. it's almost like writing down a short paragraph just to explain the steps.

I am not sure if this is the reason why the recommended entry age is k1 to p3. Parents from mid to upper primary may be more concerned with academic syllabus thus the creative portion of the MPM programme may not meet the need. However I do see a trend of the recent exam questions moving towards that direction.

To be honest, I do not know if I would let my DS stay on next year. Too early to tell. Things evolve. So we shall see :lol:

The above is purely my personal opinion, not meant to challenge anyone of differing opinion hehe. Just thought I would like share my persona experience with MPM for the past 3 years.

[Poonie]

Wow! KingRascal what a lengthy rebuttal! No worries. We are just responding to Agonymum’s queries and it’s for her weigh the pros and cons herself.

[KingRascal]

Aiyo, pls don't use the word \"rebuttal\" haha. Cos that's the last thing I want it to sound like :lol:


Why lengthy? Actually all along there had been discussions on MPM and there were also parents who felt the same way as you do. I have many friends sharing the same feedback too. I have been wanting to share my personal opinion but never get to really sit down and craft my thoughts to sum them up. So there it was just now.

Well, you are right. It's for the parents to make their own judgement and decision. Even if a programme is good, it may not suit the child. I have also made some investments in courses that didn't produce the outcome I thought it would be. Anyway if we do not try we'd never know we don't like it.

Please don't take offence. It's just simply \"fate\" that I ride upon your entry to sum up my thoughts :lol: :lol: :lol:

You know from the above \"error\" I pointed out, the most frustrating one is in My Pal Grammar handbook cos my DS is using this book in school! Sorry, side track liao...

Poonie:

Wow! KingRascal what a lengthy rebuttal! No worries. We are just responding to Agonymum's queries and it's for her weigh the pros and cons herself.

[cafelatte]

I am in same camp as KingRascal, also been wanting to share some thoughts but didn’t really get down to it :


I didn’t plough through all the threads but I gathered that there are many parents that are impressed with the program. My son was with MPM for a short 1.5 years before I pulled him out. My decision was that it wasn’t worth the time and money spent.

To cut a long story short : The programme is such that there is no formal "teaching" but there will be facilitators to help & guide the children while they are working on the workbooks. These facilitators will also mark the workbooks and use the provided manipulatives to explain any missed concepts. These "facilitators" attended a self-paid 3 days MPM course before they started facilitating the classes.

Hence, I feel that we are paying for the workbooks. Whether you get a food facilitator or not depends on your luck as the turnover can be high and most of them do not have prior teaching experience.

Back to the workbooks, I do find some worth and that they are well designed and probably helps in developing critical thinking skills over long term.

[KingRascal]

Hehe, now that I have got the lengthy part done, it's easy for me to add on now.


I fully agree that the trainer/facilitator makes a BIG difference. They must know how to coach and guide the children so that over time, the children can appreciate the rationale behind the questions' intent. I once changed the class date to another cos I found the original trainer not effective.

cafelatte:

I am in same camp as KingRascal, also been wanting to share some thoughts but didn't really get down to it :

I didn't plough through all the threads but I gathered that there are many parents that are impressed with the program. My son was with MPM for a short 1.5 years before I pulled him out. My decision was that it wasn't worth the time and money spent.

To cut a long story short : The programme is such that there is no formal \"teaching\" but there will be facilitators to help & guide the children while they are working on the workbooks. These facilitators will also mark the workbooks and use the provided manipulatives to explain any missed concepts. These \"facilitators\" attended a self-paid 3 days MPM course before they started facilitating the classes.

Hence, I feel that we are paying for the workbooks. Whether you get a food facilitator or not depends on your luck as the turnover can be high and most of them do not have prior teaching experience.

Back to the workbooks, I do find some worth and that they are well designed and *probably* helps in developing critical thinking skills over long term.

[Mandarin]

I would like to share my experience.


My DS is in sec2 this year, he was with MPM since P3 and completed all levels in P6. He enjoyed every lesson and I particularly liked the fact that MPM teaches him many Maths concept early and in a very creative and easy-to-learn way. You may not realise it then but many of the exercises done in the early levels are introduction to more difficult topics later. The child just learns it easily. In fact, I found that MPM has helped in some of the topics that he did in GEP later. However, I understand that MPM has done some major revamp on the syllabus to be more aligned with Singapore school syllabus, so this may not apply any more.

As for my DD, I was really glad that I switched her to MPM in K2. She was then enrolled in Kumon and she absolutely detested the drills. She proclaimed to me at the end of K1 that her Maths was lousy and she hated Maths. I made a decision, which I never looked back, to move her to MPM as her brother had started MPM then and I was quite impressed with the curriculum. Within 1 year, her attitude towards Maths changed. She even won the Maths competition 1st prize in P1. She is now P5 and her Maths score in all exams has remained in the high 90s. Though the MPM curriculum that she is on is not closely aligned to school syllabus, she has learnt to observe, think and try to do any problems presented. I think these skills are more important that knowing fixed methodology in the long run.

I don’t even think that the instructor is that important. The materials are good (barring some grammar and spelling mistakes which my kids found amusing) and they are meant for self-learning, although occasionally I do need to explain to my DD when she is really confused.

The above is personal experiece. You may have to let your child try before deciding if the program is suitable for him/her.