My 3 children attend DLS. For years, the school HOD of Mother Tongue has been compelling the students to subscribe to certain children magazines published by local publishers. Different magazines for different grades. I think they make this decision in the name of providing the students supplementary reading material. After reviewing the results of such magazines for many years (my eldest child has graduated the primary education. I have stacks of magazines which my children never read except for the page that teachers ask them to do the exercise at school), I think the MOE should check on this practice.
To make these magazines look like they are necessary, the teachers select only one passage in the magazine which is intended to certain grade to be the classwork or homework. Students are expected to read the rest of the magazine on their own. The fact is. They don't. The reason being the content of the magazine. It is not interesting in the first place. While the school select different magazines for different grades (I have 3 kids, I have to subscribe to 3 magazines - two of them identical), the content for the intended grade are limited as the magazines are targeted for ALL grades.
There are altogether 6 magazines from 2 publishers targeted at different groups of pupils:
P1 & P2: Xin Peng You / Hao Peng You
P3 & P4: Xin Lie Che / Zhi Shi Hua Bao
P5 & P6: Xin Tian Di / Zhi Shi Bao
It is not true that teachers select only a passage in the magazine to be completed as homework. The teachers will require pupils to complete exercises designed for their level and read the articles found in the magazines with the pupils whenever time allows. However, it would be unreasonable or too much to ask of a pupil of a lower level such as P1 to complete the P2 exercises, even though the P1 and P2 exercises are found in the same paper.
This parent has to subscribe to 2 identical papers most probably due to the fact that 2 of his children are only one year apart. However, since sourcing from 2 vendors last year, the siblings should bring home 2 different papers published by 2 different publishers. And if the parent is wise enough, he can actually ask these 2 children to exchange and read both papers, complete both sets of exercise in both papers. As such, his children can actually reap more benefits from the subscriptions since they have 2 sets of magazines to share with each other.
If the intention of the school was to encourage the students to read, I think these magazines are not useful. My questions:
1. Why are the magazines subscription made compulsory? Why not let the parents decide?
The magazines were used during curriculum / supplementary / remedial time to enhance the pupils' language ability. According to the publisher, around 80-90 percent of the schools in Singapore subscribe to the magazines. Based on our professional judgement, the CL teachers have found the magazines value for money. Thus DLS adopts the magazines and strongly encourage pupils to subscribe year after year. Parents only need to pay $14 for 35 issues, which is equivalent to $0.40 per copy. Those children with financial difficulties can approach their teachers and get free copies from the publishers.
The subscription is made compulsory so that pupils can follow the lessons closely. By allowing the parents to decide if they want to subscribe to the magazines, teachers would not have been able to make use of the magazines as a teaching resource. Also, wouldn't parents of pupils without the magazines be concerned if their children have no access to the exercises, while those pupils who subscribe have their work marked / monitored by the teachers?
For $14 a year (which cannot even get a person 3 extra value meals at MacDonald;s), what pupils receive include:
1) Articles on current affairs and celebration of festivals (front page)
2) Passages rewritten using words pupils of that level just learnt from the textbooks in that week, which reinforce pupils' learning
3) Quality exercises which teachers use to hone the pupils' skills.
4) Model essays contributed by primary school pupils
5) Games and quizzes
Other than the mastery worksheets set by teachers to strengthen pupils’ performance in some weak components identified through Item Analysis, teachers utilise the magazines as a teaching / revision aid to achieve results. Consequently, DLS pupils were not asked to purchase any assessment books. Whenever possible (if time permits), the CL teachers will devote ample time to read the articles found in the magazines with their classes. This method of teaching has proven to be effective, as evident in DLS achieving its first ever above national PSLE CL results last year.
2. If this is compulsory by MOE of school, what are the seletion criteria to decide that these magazine fit the standard?
MOE does not require that schools subscribe to these magazines, thus I do not know of any selection criteria to answer this question. However, we make it compulsory, and strongly encouraged pupils to purchase the magazines based on our professional judgement as we believe that pupils can benefit tremendously from reading these magazines. MOE's stand with regards to this matter is: Schools should assess and review the effectiveness of the magazine found in the market, and have the autonomy to decide if they want their pupils to subscribe to any of the magazines.
3. Are the magazines endorsed by MOE?
The distribution of the magazines is approved by the Ministry of Information and the Arts (M.I.T.A.). On every front page of the magazines, parents would be able to find the MITA registered number on every issue. The Curriculum Planning & Development Division at MOE gets a copy of the magazines every week as reference materials.
4. Does the school/teachers receive any revenue, commission or other form of benefits from the sales of the magazine? If not, why are the school teachers so eager to push for the sales of the magazine for many years?
Personally, I find this question absolutely humiliating and most offending. I would like to query: on what grounds did Mr Lee make this accusation?
The teachers go the extra miles to collect money from the pupils, distribute the papers to the pupils every week, ensuring the pupils complete their exercises, go through the papers with the pupils, and ultimately landed themselves in more markings to complete. What have they to gein from the subscription?
I guess the teachers could have made their lives easier if the subscription is not made compulsory. Now that they have worked so hard to try to help the pupils improve their CL results, this unreasonable parent has the guts to ask such utterly rude question. I definitely feel very disgusted!!!
5. If the school/teachers made the subscription of the magazines compulsory, then time should be spent in class to guide the students read through the whole magazine.
Teachers certainly spent time to guide pupils and read the magazines together with their classes. The heads of CL department monitors this closely by checking stacks and stacks of pupils' magazines during the Book Check Exercise conducted every year.
Nevertheless, limited curriculum time is one constraint all teachers face. While teachers tried their best to read as much of the magazines together with the pupils, it is unreasonable / unrealistic to demand that the entire magazine be read in class as we do not have the luxury of plentiful time with the pupils.
As such, pupils should be trained to be independent learners and parents should play an active role in ensuring that pupils read the magazines at home if they wish to see improved CL results.
6. There are other source of supplementary Chinese reading material such as Lianhe Zaobao which has a student session, can it be considered?
The Lianhe Zaobao is meant for adult audience as the vocabulary found in this paper is definitely too difficult for primary school pupils. However, the CL department did simplify and make use of some reports on current affairs in the Lianhe ZaoBao to set Higher Order Thinking Skills questions in P4-P6 levels.
The student section that the parent refers to is most probably the XIAO BAI CHUAN section which is published in the papers every Sunday (1 full page per week). This section showcases selective P1 - P6 pupils' compositions. Other than that, the Wednesday BAO MI HUA section is targeted at the secondary school students which perhaps only some of the P6 pupils can attempt to read and most probably would not be able to understand fully its content.
Another supplementary reading material that is suitable for primary school children is the "Thumbs-Up" magazine. However, CL department does not require pupils to subscribe to Thumbs-Up as the pupils have already bought one. However, nearer to the exams, Thumbs-Up publish mock exam papers for P4-P6 levels, and Mrs Wang did assign one of the teachers to be in charge of ordering the papers (with mock papers) on behalf of the pupils if they wish to purchase.
complaint was emailed directly to MOE. weirdo parent. Level head was asked to reply to parent minus the fire...heee...but who wont be?
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