Introduction
Every pupil is unique, with different aptitudes, capabilities and talents. It is important for schools to provide an education that caters to pupils’ differing abilities and prepares them for life. Thus, Subject-based Banding (SbB) has been introduced to ensure that pupil’s interests and strengths are taken into consideration. Schools are able to offer pupils a mix of Standard or Foundation subjects depending on their aptitude in each subject. The policy provides pupils with customised and differentiated learning experiences to realise their potentials.
At the end of 2009, about 4.2%, or 2,207 out of 49,045 primary school pupils, had the opportunity to have subject combinations that were not available to them in the previous …show more content…
More discussions are involved for pupils who passed 2 subjects or less. The Exco team was considering between 1S and 3 foundation (F) subjects and 2S and 2F combinations for a group of pupils. This group of pupils were strong in their Mother Tongue (MT) but weak at English (EL), Maths (MA) and Science (S). (Note: The scores for pupils’ EMS vary.) In the end, the team chose 2S & 2F for the pupils. The reasons were because (a) if pupils were to take 1S & 3F, the number of F subjects would affect their aggregate scores as S subjects have higher weightage. (b) There were fewer numbers of U-graders for SCI. (c) The school was faced with constraint of resources and thus unable to provide more subject combinations. Thus MT(S), SCI(S), EL(F), MA(F) were given to them. In this case, SbB’s guidelines were not followed by giving each pupil the subject combinations depending on his/her strengths. Pupils were seen as a ‘group’. There was also wrong assumption that the calculation of PSLE T-score being weighed in favour of S subjects as SEAB did not release any information on the calculation of aggregate score for combination of subjects.
There were also schools that delayed banding of the pupils until P5. The schools wanted to make sure many of the pupils take S subjects. If the pupil does not show any improvement, then he/she would have to take all/some F subjects at P6. The reason was pupils would be better doing more S subjects as they would have more chances at Normal (Academic). In this case, the schools did not follow SbB’s
Every pupil is unique, with different aptitudes, capabilities and talents. It is important for schools to provide an education that caters to pupils’ differing abilities and prepares them for life. Thus, Subject-based Banding (SbB) has been introduced to ensure that pupil’s interests and strengths are taken into consideration. Schools are able to offer pupils a mix of Standard or Foundation subjects depending on their aptitude in each subject. The policy provides pupils with customised and differentiated learning experiences to realise their potentials.
At the end of 2009, about 4.2%, or 2,207 out of 49,045 primary school pupils, had the opportunity to have subject combinations that were not available to them in the previous …show more content…
More discussions are involved for pupils who passed 2 subjects or less. The Exco team was considering between 1S and 3 foundation (F) subjects and 2S and 2F combinations for a group of pupils. This group of pupils were strong in their Mother Tongue (MT) but weak at English (EL), Maths (MA) and Science (S). (Note: The scores for pupils’ EMS vary.) In the end, the team chose 2S & 2F for the pupils. The reasons were because (a) if pupils were to take 1S & 3F, the number of F subjects would affect their aggregate scores as S subjects have higher weightage. (b) There were fewer numbers of U-graders for SCI. (c) The school was faced with constraint of resources and thus unable to provide more subject combinations. Thus MT(S), SCI(S), EL(F), MA(F) were given to them. In this case, SbB’s guidelines were not followed by giving each pupil the subject combinations depending on his/her strengths. Pupils were seen as a ‘group’. There was also wrong assumption that the calculation of PSLE T-score being weighed in favour of S subjects as SEAB did not release any information on the calculation of aggregate score for combination of subjects.
There were also schools that delayed banding of the pupils until P5. The schools wanted to make sure many of the pupils take S subjects. If the pupil does not show any improvement, then he/she would have to take all/some F subjects at P6. The reason was pupils would be better doing more S subjects as they would have more chances at Normal (Academic). In this case, the schools did not follow SbB’s