Regarding Additional Mathematics.
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Hi, I am a private tutor for additional mathematics. Recently, I come across a secondary school near woodlands that prevent students who are good at mathematics from taking additional mathematics due to school ranking, troublesome and reputuation.
I am very surprised that the school HOD actually forced their way through to stop people. The school HOD actually ask all those students who did not qualify for additional mathematics to sign a form stating that they will only allowed those student to pass all subjects and pass in additional mathematics in secondary 3 end of year examination. What more surprise is that, they did not offer any additional mathematics classes to them and EXPECT them to clear the exam. What those students did in the end was to seek private tutors outside to tutor them. Some of them who cannot the money to hire private tutors actually just failed it. Even for those student who passed the exam, they will not be having any classes from the school and have to continue hiring private tutors.
I am very surpised that in government school that such practice exists. Teachers and HOD using such a political method to force students who are interested in the subject to drop just to save the trouble and save their reputuation. Is reputation really that important that they should put what best for the students aside?
The citeria that they set was bullshit. To qualify for additional mathematics, you have to get an average of 75%. E maths is not one of the citeria for selecting additional mathematics students.
Recently, two of my friends' parents appeal to the school to just let those students take the subject as school candidates are not allowed to take the subjects as a private candidates. Even if the parents already agreed that no classes will be offered to them and they have to seek those help elsewhere.
Please give your comments regarding those practice. -
i had no idea why but my sec sch then set very difficult A Maths questions for class tests and exams.....
but i guess it benefitted me. i got an A1 for both E and A Maths.
so this school P & Maths HOD ought to be shot. the fundamental of schools which is to educate is not there at all. schools are a business now.
look at this. like condo advertisement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVd1KTCLicQ -
Originally posted by dreamer87:
Hi, I am a private tutor for additional mathematics. Recently, I come across a secondary school near woodlands that prevent students who are good at mathematics from taking additional mathematics due to school ranking, troublesome and reputuation.
I am very surprised that the school HOD actually forced their way through to stop people. The school HOD actually ask all those students who did not qualify for additional mathematics to sign a form stating that they will only allowed those student to pass all subjects and pass in additional mathematics in secondary 3 end of year examination. What more surprise is that, they did not offer any additional mathematics classes to them and EXPECT them to clear the exam. What those students did in the end was to seek private tutors outside to tutor them. Some of them who cannot the money to hire private tutors actually just failed it. Even for those student who passed the exam, they will not be having any classes from the school and have to continue hiring private tutors.
I am very surpised that in government school that such practice exists. Teachers and HOD using such a political method to force students who are interested in the subject to drop just to save the trouble and save their reputuation. Is reputation really that important that they should put what best for the students aside?
The citeria that they set was bullshit. To qualify for additional mathematics, you have to get an average of 75%. E maths is not one of the citeria for selecting additional mathematics students.
Recently, two of my friends' parents appeal to the school to just let those students take the subject as school candidates are not allowed to take the subjects as a private candidates. Even if the parents already agreed that no classes will be offered to them and they have to seek those help elsewhere.
Please give your comments regarding those practice.May I know what's the school? PM me if you don't wanna say here.
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@SMB66X, Already msg you.
Kinda Disappointed at government school now, Yeah, agreed. Nowadays, government school are so political. No wonder there are so many teachers quitting the school. Now, tuition centre become the real school, government school are supplement.
I really dunno why additional mathematics has become such a HOLY subject. Only top students from neighbourhood or top schools can offer. -
May I ask serveral questions to clarify?
From what you have writen, I can tell that there are two groups of students. 1) Those who qualify for A-maths and read the subject with school's resources, and, 2) those who did not qualify for A-maths, but where able to read A-math (privately, without school resources). Is this what you are trying to say?
Allocation of precious resources
Regarding about the criteria (to get an average of 75%), there is this criteria because of the school's limited resources thus only offer A-maths to students who are above average achievers because 1) students are likely to cope with the additional subject better, 2) precious resource are allocate to students who can perform in the exam and this explains why so much resources are focus on the top 25% of the corhort in good schools.
And to register for GCE O Level Mathematics, the school set a criteria such that, a student should attain a pass in all subjects and pass in A-maths for the Secondary 3 End-of-Year exam.
My view on this issue is
The school may want to discourage students who are unable to or could not handle additional subjects not to take up A-maths. The student will then be able to make use of the available time to focus on weaker subjects. Stress during O level exam period is inevitably high, so it could affect any student. If the student is doing poorly for the other subjects because the student had A-math, then it will not do the student good.
Advice to you, have an open mind be willing to look at all side of the coin.
A coin has 3 surface.; top, back, and edge.You may wish to escalate this matter to the cluster superintendent. For more information, please click here.
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1. to address the first question ask, there are actually 3 groups of students.
the first type of student is those who qualify to be in the top 2 classes which is under the resources of having an additional mathematics.the second type of student is those who fulfill the "the school set a criteria such that, a student should attain a pass in all subjects and pass in A-maths for the Secondary 3 End-of-Year exam." Those student are not allocated any classes in additional mathematics and will have to SELF STUDY on their own.
the third type of student is those who cannot fulfill the above requirement. Apparently, from what I have known, there are about 12 student who cannot fulfill the requirement, either they did not passes all the subject or fail additional mathematics. Either way, most of them in those group are good at mathematics scoring A1 in E maths but is rejected.
I have spoken to two of the students in the third type and tutor them before. Both are really good at mathematics. One of the students told me that he is going to take it during poly days.
My question here is that why is it that Additional Mathematics is not offered to those who are good in mathematics but to those who can score well farely well in all other subject not related to mathematics.
The reason you gave was what the school had replied. I understand that having an additional subject will posted more stress on a student but if the student was love the subject and are able to score well in that area. Why isn't he given a chance?
What those two students request is not asking the school to allocate resources to teaching them. They are just asking for a chance for them to take O level additional mathematics in O level. But what their HOD and principle reply was, if I had to let you take this subject, many others will follow and that will be too troublesome to handle. They kept saying that they had to be fair to others. But have they really be fair to the students?According to my students, the criteria that they set in secondary 2 does not have enough students to enroll and they compromise the criteria to let some of those student to enroll in the classes. One of my tuitee told me that he is just behind by 1 mark.
If passing all the other subjects was a criteria, why this is not imposed on the first two classes student. And even passing all those harsh condition, students are not even allocate resources to help them in additional mathematics. No classes and expected the student to continue hiring tutors. -
Thank you for clarifying with me, I get the whole picture better already.
Bring this up to the superintendent, I guess only he/she can help bend some rules.P.S. By the way, it's not very troublesome to add/minus subjects during the registration for O level.
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As for the self-study arrangement, it's a common practice.
I can see that you are a very concerning tutor and you hope to do something to help them register for A-math next year. I say maybe you can do some videos and send it to STOMP or other media channel.
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i do not really wish to address the media regarding these. cause it is not good for them as they are still in the school.Thanks. I will get the parents to send an email to the superintendent.
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Originally posted by dreamer87:
Hi, I am a private tutor for additional mathematics. Recently, I come across a secondary school near woodlands that prevent students who are good at mathematics from taking additional mathematics due to school ranking, troublesome and reputuation.
I am very surprised that the school HOD actually forced their way through to stop people. The school HOD actually ask all those students who did not qualify for additional mathematics to sign a form stating that they will only allowed those student to pass all subjects and pass in additional mathematics in secondary 3 end of year examination. What more surprise is that, they did not offer any additional mathematics classes to them and EXPECT them to clear the exam. What those students did in the end was to seek private tutors outside to tutor them. Some of them who cannot the money to hire private tutors actually just failed it. Even for those student who passed the exam, they will not be having any classes from the school and have to continue hiring private tutors.
I am very surpised that in government school that such practice exists. Teachers and HOD using such a political method to force students who are interested in the subject to drop just to save the trouble and save their reputuation. Is reputation really that important that they should put what best for the students aside?
The citeria that they set was bullshit. To qualify for additional mathematics, you have to get an average of 75%. E maths is not one of the citeria for selecting additional mathematics students.
Recently, two of my friends' parents appeal to the school to just let those students take the subject as school candidates are not allowed to take the subjects as a private candidates. Even if the parents already agreed that no classes will be offered to them and they have to seek those help elsewhere.
Please give your comments regarding those practice.hi dreamer ,glad you know the social ills of singapore education system ,my student also another problematic one .a teacher who rush through syllabus and grading so bad can stay for 5 years and all his remedial is given to student,without any supervision and guidance to relief teacher .that is for elementary maths.no wonder the singapore education system is sick :) with that we are still in demand as private tuition teacher
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I don't quite get the point as well.
Are you saying the school did not allow this group of students to attend A Maths lessons in school, so that some of these students were doing A Maths from private tuition?
According to my knowledge, it is not possible. School students can only sit for the examination of a subject in O levels if the school allows them to do so. Will the school allow them to sit for the paper in O? If yes, won't this practice ruin the performance of the school; If no, how can the school tell the students to do A maths privately but in the end, not allowing them to take?
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Ok, sorry now I understand, so you mean all students had no formal A maths lesson in sec 3, and only those who cleared the end of year exam in sec 3 would be allocated to an A maths class in sec 4.
This is another possibility other than what you have stated: the school may only have 1 teacher who is qualified to teach A maths, and the workload will be unbearable if the teacher is to teach several classes from both levels at the same time... So the school has to practise it until it gets a new teacher.
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Originally posted by frekiwang:
Ok, sorry now I understand, so you mean all students had no formal A maths lesson in sec 3, and only those who cleared the end of year exam in sec 3 would be allocated to an A maths class in sec 4.
This is another possibility other than what you have stated: the school may only have 1 teacher who is qualified to teach A maths, and the workload will be unbearable if the teacher is to teach several classes from both levels at the same time... So the school has to practise it until it gets a new teacher.
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The problem lies in even if the students clear the end of year exam in secondary 3, NO CLASS will be allocated to them. They had to self study or seek help from private tutor. The only difference lies in the school will help them register for Additional Mathematics.
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The Education Minister has a FaceBook account and he loves to be in touch with Singaporeans who have a genuine interest in improving Education in Singapore.
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Erm, Do you really think posting such information on the facebook will help?
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If you insert a link that brings it back to sgForums, it will be helpful.
and you no need to re-type the whole thing. Just put the copy and paste this thread, and response will come in. -
Hi, just to update u guys. Nothing change. MOE system so screw up. they get the principal to talk to the parents. The parents object and then the principal told them the same old thing. Then the parents appeal again and the principal told them again that they sign the form cannot object. WTH IS THIS!!! It is such a fark up school. If your child are going in, forget it.I just feel so waste of my time contacting the minister for nothing.
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Its no biggie....because such practices are widespread across many schools.
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Originally posted by SBS2601D:
Its no biggie....because such practices are widespread across many schools.
Actually, it is a biggie, especially if its a widespread practice.
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True that.
Unfortunately, gradational practices, as duly encouraged by society, leads to this.
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Yah. Sometimes it was even spread to CCA, which is tragic, when students can't choose to do the things they enjoy outside the classrooms.
Simply because of the need to fulfill some silly MOE awards for % of students in uniform groups etc.
Really sad.
To the TS, for the contracts, did the students sign it with/without their parents knowledge?
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Originally posted by UltimaOnline:
The Education Minister has a FaceBook account and he loves to be in touch with Singaporeans who have a genuine interest in improving Education in Singapore.
oh ya... I have lots of ideas... I think I should post to him
Thanks for the heads up