Yangzheng Primary

[slepland]

The meeting was held by principal, vice principal with 2 parents formally old boys in attendance. meeting started 8am.


Agenda set for request to change wednesdays morning classes to friday,
status: not passed.

Inquiry to move to single session.
status: no fixed schedule.

Higher Chinese / GEP
status: to each child’s potential.

Funding with regards to enrolment size
status: MOE funding together with others sources, no specifics to enrolment optimum size.

Signed Letter by parents (4 signatures) with return address.
written reply requested.
status: submitted & received by hand of principal.

Meeting ended 9.40am

[LiLing]

So basically nothing much on today’s dialogue session…

[greenredapple]

Thanks for updating the status …

[LiLing]

Did the school mention why the CCA is set on Wed? Thanks

[dragonflow]

Six parents registered their interests for the session. On that day, two parents attended. Though the turnout was a bit disappointing but we have a good session with the Principal and Vice-Principal. We put forward the parents’ viewpoints and concerns and the school presented the background of the issue and the reasonings for doing so.


I hope I have captured the points correctly below:-

The Principal gave us the background:
1. The CCA was offered to the P3 and above students initially. In view of the activities that will benefit the lower primary students as well, the school decided to extend the offering of the CCA activities to the lower primary levels three years ago. This comes in the form of Modular CCA conducted on one of the school days for P1 and P2.

2. Why the Modular CCA is in the morning and not in the afternoon so that the "wake-up" schedule of the child is not interrupted in the week?

a. One major issue is about the trainers required to conduct the activities. Most of the trainers are external and they are sourced throught the electronic bidding system of the government. These trainers are primarily more readily available in the morning timeslots as these timings are the low-peaks for them. So in order to have the resources to realise the objective of the program, the morning was chosen.

b. By bringing in the P1 and P2 students and teachers in the morning, it provides the environment and opportunity for all to come together as a school (just like a single session). There are weekly afternoon training and sharing sessions for all the teachers and this is made feasible by having the teachers coming in at the same timeslot.

3. Why Wednesday and not other days?
After studying other schools with this program and their resultant outcomes and factoring in the child behaviour and development pyschology considerations, the school has picked Wednesday as the day to conduct the Modular CCA. The school coined the "WW - Wonderful Wednesday" to instill the fun, play and relaxation for the kids to enjoy themselves on this day and away for the regular school work. So the week is arranged as such…
mon/tue-CLASS wed-FUN thu/fri-CLASS sat/sun-FUN.

The traditions. Yangzheng being 106 years old has long traditions and the school wants to inculcate some traditional entrenhments in the progress of the school. WW is one of these traditions as the school sees it and prefer to have the consistency and not deviate from one weekday to the next.

The parents’ viewpoints and concerns:
1. We want the child to have a more regularise week so that their normal sleep would not have to be interrupted and we have to force them to wake up earlier than usual on a certain day. It is their biological clock that may not be accustomed to this change and they may be sleepy in the afternoon.

2. Friday is a better option for the Module CCA.
a. Logistically, it is easier for parents to arrange than other days.
b. The child may be motivated to wake up early on Friday as it is a longer weekend and the family can plan ahead for other activities.
c. Muslim students can go for prayers in the afternoon.

The Response:
1. The parents from the previous years had actually highlighted these concerns at the outset. But once they are into the schedule during the year, the school had collected feedbacks and observed that the feedback were quite positive as both parent and child get used to it and they did enjoy the day.

2.
a. Challenging for some but once the logistic arrangements are made and set in motion. It will be a non-issue once it is being accustomed to as the previous years’ parents have done so.

b. Longer weekends may not be the best option as it will be harder to get the child to come back to the school schedule on Monday after the longer weekend.

c. This is a practice for secondary students but not the primary students.

Add-on:
The school is assured of the results of the current program and is confident that most parents are of the same view and happy with the current arrangements. If not, there will be strong objections coming back during the implementation years. Even if the school changed the day accordingly, there will be other problems created as all resources and logistics are planned and executed in this current mode. It will disrupt the current arrangements of the school administration, teachers and parents that are in the program now. So as the Principal puts it, they had studied and come to the conclusion that this is not feasible and seek the understanding of those concerned parents and wish for all (parents and school) to work together the better environment of our children.

The school is going single session soon. No confirmation on which year but "soon". The school is comfortable with the current enrolment of six classes and MOE will work together with the school to get the go-ahead according to their master plan. So once this happens, there will be no morning/afternoon issues.

Conclusion:
We went into the meeting room and left the room with everything status quo. What I can do is to take away those points of discussion and post them here for all concerned parties to read and assess. It is up to you to balance the positives and negatives and come to your stand on this issue.

(Please be understandable that I may not have presented all facts as accurately as I did not record nor take notes during the session, and if I have any typo or representation error, please tell me).

[greenredapple]

Zhonghua will be having two weeks lesson before the school start on Jan …

Do yangzheng also have?

[magiccastle]

Hi dragonflow, slepland n liling.

Thks so much for the effort . So sori,
Couldn’t make it at that timing.
More impt is that our children can benefit from the cca modules.
Really want my girl to have exposure on the non-academic - art, calligraphy , Chinese culture n sport etc .

Slepland
On the higher Chinese , do they offer at lower Pri ?
Thks a lot

[dragonflow]

greenredapple:

Zhonghua will be having two weeks lesson before the school start on Jan ..

Do yangzheng also have?

Did not hear anything about this. However, there is a briefing on 11 Nov.

[LiLing]

magiccastle:

Hi dragonflow, slepland n liling.

Thks so much for the effort . So sori,
Couldn't make it at that timing.
More impt is that our children can benefit from the cca modules.
Really want my girl to have exposure on the non-academic - art, calligraphy , Chinese culture n sport etc .

Slepland
On the higher Chinese , do they offer at lower Pri ?
Thks a lot

Sigh....I couldn't make it too. The timing jx not right ...if I remember correctly during the mini open house, higher chinese only start frm p4 or so...anyone can knows?

[bekithia]

Hi,


Haven’t followed this thread for awhile and very surprised to see so many active fellow parents here!

After reading the many concerns about the partial mornng session every Wednesdays, I would like to share my experiences here.

I have 2 children in YZPS, older one in P4 and younger one in P1. When the wednesday MCCA day was introduced 3 yrs ago, my older child was in P2 and many parents like me were apprehensive about it. I had the same concerns as those listed here, main worries being the kids having to adjust to different sleeping/waking patterns.

Now realized I worried for nothing. Both my kids adjusted very well and they look forward to every wednesday! My P1 girl loves her Term 1 chinese painting CCA and she even had a chance to do a team project for SYF Art Competition. Every Tuesday night, they automatically go to bed earlier. It certainly helps that the day they look forward to falls on midweek as weekdays do not seem to drag that long now(this according to my younger child)