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原文章由 sillymum07 於 07-12-20 00:11 發表 
Dear Jenny,
Can you tell me what CAS activities that RC offers to Y2 and Y3 students and which one does your child join in? The reasons why i like to put my child in RC are that I want her to be bilingual. I have some friends. Their children are studying in ESF and they speak wonderful English but have low Chinese standard and no motivation to learn Chinese. So, i think it is very important to have children learn chinese at the very early stage. At this moment, I think RC could do better, i'm not sure. Can any RC moms give more details on how their children are assessed? What areas are assessed? Compare with the classmates, some public exam or some special norm? Sorry for so many questions, just want to understand more how the assessments are done and can be used to help the children learn in RC. ops:" />ops:" />ops:" />
I do not have access to the CAS database for Year 2 or 3 since my children are not in these years. I do not know what CAS activities they have. C stands for Creativity, A stands for Action, S stands for Services, and from what I noticed for other year levels, you would expect they have a bit of each type for everyone to choose from. But of course, if one CAS is very popular (usually the sports are very popular), then it might be difficult for the school to please everyone.
I cannot recall whether RC has ever claimed to be a bilingual cchool but I do not think home grown RC children can by truly bilingual. RC is a school that provide Chinese classes and that's about it. I know that a lot of students are going to outside Chinese classes. In my mind, "bilingual" means you need to be good at both. With the very limited time spent on teaching Chinese, and particularly the overall language environment and culture, I think it is very difficult to expect RC children to be really good at Chinese.
It is hard to tell what is going to happen in the future. All I know is that those that are good at Chinese now are those who joined halfway from local schools. Those who were from other international schools have relatively poorer Chinese. Not to mention that there are western kids and Chinese kids returning from overseas. It is hard to tell what will happen in, say, 4 - 6 years' time when the majority of students would be homegrown RC students. With much fewer students joining halfway from local schools, I think the overall "average" grades would not be as impressive.
There are other schools that claim to be bilingual that you might want to consider if you are into "high" Chinese standard. However, there is always a trade off. They do spend more time on Chinese and do have better environment for Chinese. But the English environment might not be as strong.
There are all types of assessments going on at RC (primary). And I think it is more or less the same in most international schools adopting a western curriculum. The children are assessed all the time, sometimes without parents noticing it: in fact, parents do not necessarily need to know about it. Assessment is basically a tool for the teachers to know more about the children so that they would adjust their teaching to help the children. Assessment may be anything. There are reading assessments, spelling assessments, writing assessments, math assessment etc. Just that they are in areas of relevance. Depending on the Year Levels and subject areas, there might be tests or exams, but they are all conducted for the purpose of either (1) testing whether a child understands what he has learnt (2) identifying the weaknesses of a child (3) "ranking" or putting children in different "levels" for more effective teaching. These tests or exams are not to make children feel bad, rather they are to help teachers and parents know the actual abilities of a child. If a child is behind, the teacher would try to give extra help. If a child is ahead, then the teacher might give him extra challenges. As with other ESF schools, the Year 1 entrance requirement is English. So children might be of different abilities. By putting children with similar abilities in the same sub-group, it will help teachers to teach more effectively. For example, a child might be best in reading and yet not so good in spelling. So he might be a Group One reader and a Group Three speller. He would be asked to read more challenging books and yet still struggle a little spelling simple words. Children are not to compare to others in a class. The are put into sub-groups for teaching purpose only. Smarter children might know whether they are in a "better" sub-group, but generally children would not feel bad if they are not in the best sub-group. They are compared to how they perform previously. They do follow some "standards" which, regretably, I have never really asked what those are. For example, I know that they have a quite standardised way of testing the reading level of the children. Generally, if a child is improving and developing at good pace, then it is a good sign. I think we all agree that almost all international schools adopting a western curriculum are looking for "steady progress" in a child. They might occasionally rank the students (mostly in upper primary) for incentive reasons. But generally, children are expected to "do better than they did last time" instead of expecting them to be the fighting to be number one in class. So, generally, the children do compete but they are competing in a very healthy and friendly atmosphere.
[ 本文章最後由 JennyL 於 07-12-20 16:41 編輯 ] |
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發表於 07-12-12 23:31
. Glad to hear that SJS teachers are good
You're right, RC provides more "free" after school activities and the strong mandarin class. On the other way, SJS has a well-established history. It's very difficult to choose
. Would u mind telling me more about their mandarin standard? Will all kids speak english after class? I also heard that there is a conflict between the principal and teachers and parents, do u think the principal will go in the near future? Sorry for so many questions
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