| Author | Message | ||
     Rosemeadow Senior Member Username: Rosemeadow Post Number: 659 Registered: 01-2008 Rating: N/A |
Dao, I am glad to hear Jessie did so well despite the teacher. I hope she makes a very good friend with the new children comming into the class. Your last paragraph made alot of sense. Yes, I hope things are as they seem, it will be very good if it is. It is worth the try, anyway. | ||
| Dmaivn Senior Member Username: Dmaivn Post Number: 3017 Registered: 07-2003  Rating: N/A |
Karen, Jessie had her ups and downs with her teacher on matters unrelated to her ability. She likes playing with Aussies and there aren't many at her OC class. But next years there will be 5 Aussies coming in. Her social life will be better as she is happier with less competitive kids. Apart from a clash with her teacher at the beginning, she had done very well without having to put in a lot of effort. She made many scratch their head wondering how considering that her teacher had been less than kind to her. I think your daughter will enjoy the new class. I also hope that what seems nice will be nice. You can never tell until after the first term. She will make new friends. It is always good to have more friends especially those who are serious about achieving. | ||
| Rosemeadow Senior Member Username: Rosemeadow Post Number: 652 Registered: 01-2008 Rating: N/A |
I have only just found this post as I only go to the first two forums here, but today I am looking for a message left somewhere here by a American Garden Web friend. He told me on Garden Web that he had left a messasge on Rose Exchange and that he thought it looked a good forum. Dao, I know I have talked to you before about OC classes. I thought now that I would ask you how Jessie went this year. Did she like her class this year ? We met the teacher of our daughter's class next year, also the headmaster, and they seem very nice. I also talked with a mother who daughter has just finnishing her year 6 in OC and she has a daughter starting next year like my daughter. She said the OC class had been great for her daughter. The younger girl had been very friendly and talking with my daughter, so that was good to see. Roselady, how is Kristen going ? | ||
| Dmaivn Senior Member Username: Dmaivn Post Number: 2911 Registered: 07-2003 Rating: N/A |
Meryl, I am afraid OC classes have gone the dog-eat-dog way for quite sometime. It's because so many kids who get in are also sent to coaching colleges. Jessie will go into an OC class next year. My friend has a son going to OC class in Alexandria. He told me that when it came to birthday party invitation, no one wanted to come because the kids were too busy going to coaching colleges on the weekend. The simple reason is that competitive parents (and kids) worry that the kids will fall behind the others. They turn their kids into "polite" dogs. That's very sad. I have no worry because Jessie is naturally good at so many things. She is probably not as good as many in some areas, she will be better than them at other areas. It's possible for us to choose not to participate in the dog-eat-dog attitude. We invite kids to come over to our house to play with Jessie on the weekends. They love that because we have all sorts of entertainment at home. We just don't invite the ones with wrong attitudes. But next year, only her best friends in the current schools and another one who managed to get into the same OC class will come to our house to play. This is because the other kids will be too competitive and too busy going to coaching colleges. I don't blame the government because each school has its own way of doing things. Often they find that there is only as much they could do. If the kids (under pressure of their parents) are not willing to participate, there is not much the school can do. For example, on the orientation day, OC teachers always tell parents to stop sending their kids to coaching colleges, but none of the parents listens. They fear their kids will fall behind the others. The OC teachers do not want to be seen as giving the kids things easier than what they get at coaching colleges, they end up giving the kids even harder work and more homework. That makes parents think that the only way to keep up is more coaching! That vicious circle keeps going faster and faster until something breaks. Some kids could not stand the pressure, and the parents have to pull them out back to their old schools rather letting them staying at the bottom of the OC class. The teachers do not rank the kids, but somehow nosy people always get to know how the kids rank! The way I see it is that if Jessie is not going to get all the enriched experiences promised by the government, we will pull her back to the current school. If the OC class does not provide the same level of sport, art&craft, ... plus the extra academic stimulation, we will just get her out straight away. | ||
| Meryl Senior Member Username: Meryl Post Number: 909 Registered: 02-2004 Rating: N/A |
I'm not sure how old Jessie is. Has she already started in her OC class or is she going next year? If she is soon to go, I hope you will find that your view has been a bit skewed by parental attitudes. I didn't mean to imply that OC classes ignore academic attainment, on the contrary, the idea is to make teaching suit the kids being taught so it should necessarily stretch them. But OC kids (all but one or two per class) get into selective high schools anyway, just by virtue of the way they naturally perform when given the right learning environment. The Education Department and the schools are certainly still paying lip service to giving OC kids a life-broadening experience on the various web-sites. However I guess all of this can vary according to the ethos prevailing in a particular school and the teachers involved. I do hope Jessie's school isn't dog-eat-dog competitive. | ||
| Dmaivn Senior Member Username: Dmaivn Post Number: 2909 Registered: 07-2003 Rating: N/A |
Meryl, I think education is a rapidly changing area. The trouble is that teachers often find it too hard to keep up. The DET also throw too many miscelaneous things at schools that are time consuming and of no academic value such as vaccination or an awareness campaign about something. That's why public schools are forced to choose to teach the middle ground leaving the smart kids and the weak kids out in the cold. The talented kids get awfully bored being among kids that don't have to pass to move on to next grade. Jessie recently helped her teacher to check and sort math tests that her teacher gave the class to prepare the coming school report. Her teacher gave them a "real" test instead of the easy stuff prescribed by the DET. Most kids scored between 15% - 30%. Only a few got near 60%. But parents won't see this. That's too graphically real to show parents. The current OC classes are purely focused on academic strength while maintaining just enough of the other activities. In fact, it's a bit depressing that OC and selective classes have been too much on academic that other stuff become neglected. The public education system has gone pretty bad that even a drop-out from an OC class (or selective school), would continue to be the top academic student in a normal school. Roselady, let your child try the year 5 tests to see if she gets around 90%. These tests are compiled from advanced Australian content, normal Singaporean and US content. Did she compete in UNSW school competition? The top 5% of the state (ideally top 1%) in this competition is considered to be internationally competitive. I really hate to see the modern pace of competition going at this break-neck level leaving the average kids little time for childhood. Only the smarter ones can have both a childhood and a good future. | ||
| Roselady Advanced Member Username: Roselady Post Number: 359 Registered: 06-2005 Rating: N/A |
We must be writing at the same time meryl, I agree with you also, couldnt do that to some of the other kids, they are more creative! Do we have OC in Victoria? | ||
| Roselady Advanced Member Username: Roselady Post Number: 358 Registered: 06-2005 Rating: N/A |
Good thinking Dao. Our kristen is a bit of an exception, she plays maths game with Arie all the time, he is a very clever, a real mathmation, she is also the type who sees hard maths as a game, not my ideal! We would only let her use it if she wants to have some "fun" Would be good to assess her to NSW standards.. We are Victorians, you know the smart ones lol! hee hee.. She is already doing grade 6 maths, the teachers cant keep up with her! Not only that she excells in all subjects, not bad for an 11 year old. my brother was a genius, he had a 250 rating at 12 and when he studied for a doctor his marks were usually 110, dont ask me how they did that but he had a photographic memory also. He was so disappointed when he got 98.8 for micro biology he became depressed! It seems no one ever got to the 90's in that subject. | ||
| Meryl Senior Member Username: Meryl Post Number: 908 Registered: 02-2004 Rating: N/A |
I can see why parents, hoping for a selective highschool for an academically inclined child or just wanting to help a child struggling with maths, might want to get into coaching, either professional or DIY. But I would like to say to anyone contemplating this to get a younger primary school child into an OC class, don't do it. Unless things have changed very much indeed, OC classes are run on the premise that the kids will be able to sail through the syllabus in much less time than a conventional primary class would take. The time saved is devoted to enriching the OC kids' life experience in many, many ways - music, plays, crafts, art, excursions to all sorts of destinations and so on. In other words, having a child in an OC class won't necessarily boost their academic performance at all. And if your child can't sail through the syllabus without extra work, doing extra will place them under great pressure and make them feel "different". Obviously, I am not directing this at you, Dao, because your little girl is clearly very clever; or you Roselady because maths whizzes like Kristen can get a kick out of solving difficult problems. But more and more people are placing undue pressure on little kids to no purpose when it comes to OC classes. | ||
| Dmaivn Senior Member Username: Dmaivn Post Number: 2908 Registered: 07-2003 Rating: N/A |
I was not thinking about this feature to allow people to have flexible access to the database. I will see what I can do to allow people to have better access without compromising the philosophy that kids should not be asked to study outside their school semesters. I guess Kristen could try the Nov and Dec tests for now. If she find them difficult, she might want to revisit other grade 5 tests where I need to do some work on the system. The first few tests of grade 6 will be easy but soon they will get very tough. Normally, if one just want to practice for the NSW selective school test, s/he would not need year 6 tests because the selective school test is about April. There isn't time to do the tests for year 6. That's why I also plan to produce a series of special tests that will help OC and selective school candidates. These math tests should cover a broad area and provide enough pressure. Some people asked me why I did not let kids do test every week or every day! I could imagine what these people had in mind. It's isn't helpful for kids to do a lot of tests because tests are for assessment rather than for learning. | ||
| Roselady Advanced Member Username: Roselady Post Number: 357 Registered: 06-2005 Rating: N/A |
Looks really good Dao. question? Our kristen has just finished grade 5 but she is way ahead in maths. Can she do the grade 5 one in the holidays and start the grade six? Would be great stimilus for her! Lynne | ||
| Dmaivn Senior Member Username: Dmaivn Post Number: 2907 Registered: 07-2003 Rating: N/A |
I have thought hard about releasing this out to help Aussie kids to improve mathematics. Now I have decided that it's the time to let people I know to access this database of mathematics questions that I have collected for years. I collected international quality math questions available on the Internet for Jessie to test her math skills. That's a small part of the reason why she is in the top 1% of NSW in UNSW math competition. The trouble is that the DET in NSW is giving very easy tests to the kids to get good statistics, but so many parents allow themselves to be fooled. They feel pretty smug when their kids come back with good results in the NAPLAN without accepting that kids out there in other countries are between 1-3 years ahead in numeracy skills. So this is a dose of reality for those who want real mathematics for the kids and for those who want to try for Gifted and Talented selective schools. http://storeshosting.com/oas/index.html The tests could be very hard. So don't be unhappy if the kids cannot score very high. It often hurts to know the truth. |
