Analogy: Who will have a higher chance of winning a competition?

1. One sportsman trains under an experienced coach who himself has won such competitions.
2. Another sportsman with similar abilities trains under a new coach. The coach is very passionate about it but he has no/little experience.

Like produces like.

Every school knows the students need to be exposed to more difficult questions or learn beyond the syllabus to tackle the thinking and application type of A-level questions. How to do it well then depends therefore on the experience of the teachers. To produce excellent results, you need passionate teachers who can inspire students to love the subjects. At the same time, you need experienced teachers who can see the 'big picture' and lead the team of teachers.

MOE used to supply top JCs with all their teaching scholars. While many left to move to take on higher positions, a core group stayed. They sacrificed their careers advancement to helm and to lead the team of teachers in their schools. Over years, they became highly competent and efficient. The academic gap between the top JCs and the rest hence widened rapidly. MOE realized that and started sending the scholars to 'neighbourhood' JCs but it was too late. The new generation of scholars are not as sacrificing and often want to move within 2-3 years. With such high turnover, it is difficult to establish strong foundation in teaching and learning among teachers, especially new ones. (btw non-scholars do make a significant impact too. To me scholars and non-scholars are alike)

As a result, the teaching standard is affected and that translates to less effective learning for the students. Without external intervention, they are likely to achieve less than expectation.

WeiHan:

him4mixer:

This means while the students are of good quality, the teachers have insufficient experience to stretch them hard enough so that they can perform better than expected.

Hello,

For the benefit of greater Singapore, would you like to share abit more how are students stretched in the top JCs?

for eg 1) are they given more difficult examination questions? (if this is true, it will imply that less experienced schools have a lack of question bank)

2) Are they taught more than required by the syllables?

etc...

Thanks for your insightful sharing.

I respect the older tutors in TJC then for stretching their students’ abilities to achieve better than expected academic results. Mrs Lim LC then came and almost destroyed its culture TJC has built over 25 years. (She almost created the similar tsunami effect in RI (JC) before she volunteered to ‘resign’ from MOE). Sadly TJC has since lost its former glory.


ACJC used to produce moments of brilliance, producing top scholars like President scholar. It was possible then as some of the RI/RGS rejects went there due to poor O-level results or ACS(I) boys who wanted to continue their A-level in ACS family. Some of them did ACJC proud. Now with these 2 supply lines totally cut off, one doesn’t hear much from them now.


[/quote]
may we clarify -
school in the East :
I suppose you’re referring to Victoria Junior college, rather than Temasek JC ?

school in the West :
are you referring to National Junior college, or Anglo Chinese Junior College ?[/quote]

Hi,

it is RI (JC) not RJC.

Which CCA are you referring to? She will need to be highly exceptional (eg. National Sportwoman) before she stands a chance. Many who are strong in CCA have already gotten in thru DSA.

Not made known to public: MOE still ranks and evaluates the academic performance of schools using PRISM analysis. For each JC, MOE will set a band of expectation according to the quality of intake (eg. L1R5, non-IP) and will evaluate at the end of 2 years whether the school ‘value-add’ to that batch.


Ranking of JCs:
The academic performance of the top 2 JCs are WAY ahead of the rest. Since the implementation of the IP programme, the gap between the second and third JC has widen considerably to the point that it will be IMPOSSIBLE for the 3rd ranking JC to overtake the 2nd. Note that when ranking was still made public then, there was once when VJC came up top. Now? Any JCs can forget about it…

Who’s 3rd and 4th?
Knowing that even insiders like me will leak out data to the public, MOE has kept the names of each school but showed the academic standing of all schools. However with just simple networking, one can easily know where each JC stands. That school in the East was 3rd most of the time, while that school in the West occasionally (once in the past 5 years) will overtake.

The rest?
Harder to analyse as they are more likely to change positions (some in dramatic way).

New schools like DHS, RVHS and upcoming new JC?
While they may have excellent intake (good PSLE scores), the quality of the teachers play a critical role in maximizing the students to their fullest potentials. Each of the well-established schools have a core group of experienced and dedicated teachers who can ensure high standard of teaching and learning. DHS (one of the newer ‘JC’) has implemented its IP programme for almost 10 years but PRISM analysis often shows they just meet the MOE’s expectation. This means while the students are of good quality, the teachers have insufficient experience to stretch them hard enough so that they can perform better than expected. Hence while I think they have good intake of academically strong students, each will probably take more than 10 years to have a fighting chance for that 3rd or 4th placing (if assume that 2 JCs maintain current standard).

As an educator, I can understand why some parents are so adamant about sending their children to their alma mater, especially those perceived by many to be ‘popular’ primary schools.


Putting content knowledge aside, I can distinguish those who attended schools from distinguished ‘popular’ schools with long history compared to those schools with little/no history and low/none alumni association. All these within 30 minutes of seeing them for the first time.

So what makes them ‘unique’? It is not their academic abilities nor their intrapersonal/interpersonal qualities. Students from ‘popular’ or ‘unpopular’ schools have over the years proven to be able to compete fairly for high accolades and achievements.

What makes them ‘unique’ are the bonds that they share with their former schoolmates AND the cultural influence of that school. These intangible factors will eventually influence their future circles of friends and their mannerism/behaviours.

Hence those who experienced it will want their children to have similar experiences too. Unfortunately it also comes with certain measure of proven academic success and leading to others crying foul.

I see a lot of parents are passionately (some aggressively) voicing their opinions and suggestions for changes in the P1 registration system.


Many may not know but there is a team of MOE officers in the HQ who monitor the situation yearly and trying to extrapolate and predict trends.
What we are seeing now with alumni taking many places in the popular schools had already been predicted.

Why no change then? If you are in that team will you make suggestions that will jeopardize your children’s chance to get into that few popular but elite schools?

Complain to the Education minister Mr Heng and his fellow political heads? They may the HEADS of the ministry but it is the NECK that turns the head. Even if one day PAP loses all its seats and the opposition takes over the MOE, the neck will still be there to command and control backstage. There are only rare times where the neck will listen to the head and move in its expected direction.

Who are they who seemingly hold the ‘power’ and have Singaporeans at their mercy? They are common people like you and I, probably even one of us in the forum.

We are facing a problem of shortage of babies in Singapore + numerous complaints about the current registration system for primary school.


To eliminate the possibility of further rich-poor divide and elitism in ‘popular’ schools, I have an unusual suggestion for the registration system.

Phase 1: to continue

Phase 2: peg registration according to descending order of importance:
a. Citizens for both mother and father
b. Age of the mother. The younger the mother’s age (not the father), the higher the priority. This is to favor those who plan to have families early and that could help to increase the population. The age of the mother should be according to the year, not month.
c. If we have a huge group of mothers of the same age, the next determining factor will be number of siblings (younger only) for the child who is to be registered. i.e. one with a younger brother/sister will have priority over an only child.
d. Balloting if supply exceeds demand. Places for this phase to be capped (% to be determined).

Phase 3:
similar to phase 2 but applicable to parents with 1 or 0 citizens

Phase 4:
foreigners

The key idea is to ‘coerce’ couples to marry young and have children early.

[quote]I like this. And I also like the idea is rotating the 'top' schools' principals to less desirable, lower performing schools. After all, any principal worth his or her salt, especially if they've had success in top schools, should be able to turn around a struggling school. And that might go some way in closing the gap between schools.[/quote]
I can well assure you that this idea will definitely fail. Not every principal can handle a wide spectrum of students and teachers. Some are good with dealing with intellectually capable students/teachers while some are good at dealing with problematic students/teachers.

Likewise some principals are game enough to accept challenges to head a brand new school while others prefer to maintain status quo and try to improve their schools' standard.

fyi, some of the IP schools use these personality tests for the cohort. Useful information for the Form/Civic tutor.

Sorry, enrolment statistics wise I’ve nothing much to share.


MOE will give each JC different number of scholars (some schools have more than others). There is a possible fixed quota for govt school but for independent ones we are more flexible. Usually we will go overseas and recruit foreign students on top of those already given to us by MOE. How many we recruit will depend on the capacity of the facilities in the school.