Vote for Chris!

My boy, Chris, participated in the Neeteen competition. Click on the link below and vote for him. Just enter your name plus email and then reconfirm the vote through your email- thanks!

http://www.neeteen.sg/tshirt/designdetails.asp?id=58

If you are interested, you can also take part in the competition - for 13-16 year old (Category A) and 17-20 year old (Category B) teens. Do let me know so that I can vote for you too!

Just got the message from Hafilah - vote for her too - http://www.neeteen.sg/tshirt/designdetails.asp?id=86

Release of O Level Results

I was pretty worried for my students' results and could not sleep well yesterday - especially when my students took the subject O level Economics for the first time and also it was our last batch of Pure Geography students. I worked till 2 a.m. on 6 e-lessons - Social Studies Skills (Sec 3, 4 and 5), Fun Geography (all), Economic links and resources (Sec 3) as well as providing some educational links for the students. I have also already posted them on the HS portal and I hope that the students will find them useful, especially for the Social Studies skills which I took pain to build up two years ago.

I was exhilarated when I found out that all the Economics students passed with 57.1% getting distinction! I am so happy and proud of the students - they were not from the best class but they have definitely performed the best! They were the pioneer batch to take the subject at O level in Singpaore and they have really set a record! Though I was trained to teach Economics in 1991 (which is 16 years ago!) for A level Economics, this was the first batch we had to teach for O level. There was no textbook available in Singapore for O level and I must say we have limited resources when we compare ourselves with England as it was available to the students long ago. I must say I had to do a lot of research and also attended enrichment /refresher courses related to the subject. It took us a lot of efforts - both for the teachers (Mrs Patty Gan taught them in Sec 3) and the students.

We did not do badly in the other Humanities subjects either. We managed to get 97.2% passes for Pure Geography with 2 failures. I think the questions set for 2007 were quite a surprise - especially the one on crustal movement as it was combined with weathering. But I must say it is still an achievement compared with the results for Prelim. I think Junlin was very disappointed that he did not get his A1 but A2 - I felt the same too. I was quite comforted when those who did well came to thank us. However, my heart sank when I saw those in tears as their results were not satisfactory.

I was also proud that Chin Kheng is 2nd top student in Express with 8As - he has proven that he could excel both in academic and CCA. He had already passed his VI course and I hope that being attached to our school as VI for our Red Cross unit will inspire the cadets - that we can excel both academically and in our CCA!

IT competitions

Anti-Drug comic strips competition 2008 - click below for details
http://www.cnb.gov.sg/events/index.asp?name=Current&page=227

Online T-shirt design contest for youth (13-17year old)
Design a hip and cool T-shirt to promote an active lifestyle and win up to S$1,000 cash and S$1,700 worth of Adobe software! Don't forget to invite your friends to vote for your design online. More details at www.neeteen.sg/tshirt.

Digital Art Competition
The British Council, Singapore Science Centre and Scholastic Environment Fund organised the Digital Art Competition on the Environment to present you an opportunity to express your thought to save the environment.
If you are creative, innovative, IT savvy and most importantly feel strongly about our environment, we want your participation in the Digital Art Competition on the Environment.
This competition will be held from 1 November 2007 to 23 March 2008 and will be open to all.
Please visit the competition website for more details.

Coming up soon:
1. Microsoft Office Academic Skills Competition - Microsoft Powerpoint, Microsoft Word and Excel.
Last year we only sent 5 participants. Lim Ding Yan won the 3rd place in North Zone for Microsoft Word, Ho Chee How won the 5th position in North Zone for Microsoft Powerpoints and Mrs Lily Lee the champion for Microsoft Powerpoint in the MOE Staff category 2007. They were also awarded the globally recognised Microsoft Office Specialist Certification (airflown from California) for passing the test. We intend to enroll all our infocomm club members this year for the competition. http://www.acpcomputer.edu.sg/mos2007/ Staff are encouraged to enroll in the MOE staff category. Results: http://www.acpcomputer.edu.sg/mos2007/results/Prelims%20-%20Zone%20Championship%20Results.htm
2. National New Media Challenge 2008
We won the 3rd prize in 2005 (1st National Blogging competition) and the 2nd prize in 2006 and 2007. We hope to sustain our achievement in the competition this year! 2007 Winning Blog entry: http://www.campusmoblog.com.sg/group/home.asp?gid=7634FE6F-4056-43E9-9604-EC096D470CD6

3. Learn@
We won the merit prize in the competition learn@SRT in 2005. We hope to send at least a team for this year. Details for the competition http://www.learnat.info/

4. Schools Digital Media Award
Some very useful resources for the above competition: http://www.evideo.edu.sg/sdma/resources_references.html

5. National Word Power Challenge
Online quiz on word power. Our students emerged as top scorers in the above online quiz 2007 and competed against top schools in the Finals at Mediacorp last year. They won the 2nd prize in the competition organised by Reader's Digest for the first time in Singapore last year. You can click here for the results 2007: http://wordpower.com.sg/ You can practise online http://www.rd.com/international/asen/wordpower/WordPower.swf

Entry requirements to JC, CI and Polytechnics

Education in JC, CI or Polytechnic?
http://www.moe.gov.sg/careersguide/poly.htm

Joint Admissions Exercise:
http://www.moe.gov.sg/esp/schadm/jae/

Direct Polytechnic admission:
http://www.moe.gov.sg/education/admissions/post-sec/dpa/selection-and-eligibility-criteria/

Links to polytechnics:
http://www.moe.gov.sg/education/admissions/post-sec/dpa/polytechnic-websites/index.htm

Joint Polytechnic Special Admissions Exercise:
http://www.polytechnic.edu.sg/jpsae/

Entry requirements for the different Polytechnics in pdf format:
Nanyang Polytechnic
Ngee Ann Polytechnic
Republic Polytechnic
Singapore Polytechnic
Temasek Polytechnic

GE for 5A2

Click on the link below to learn more about development and take the short test after that.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/development/developmentwhatisitrev1.shtml

Interesting websites

Law watch in Singapore: http://www.singaporelawwatch.sg/remweb/comm/urjfeed/index.jsp

Read about the new school graduation certificate: http://www.moe.gov.sg/press/2004/pr20040929d.htm

Social studies and Geography elective

Let's start with the following next week! Be prepared and half the battle is won!

Sec 3 social studies - 2192
Book 3 Chpt 1 Singapore - a nation in the world (non-examinable).
You will watch a video on Singapore - a nation and understand the importance of building a nation and why it is important to establish a stable government and meeting the people's needs. You will also be taught the basic skills on how to answer source-based questions e.g inference, comparision...

Sec 4 social studies - 2192
Book 4 Chpt 1 Managing Peace and Security: Regional and International conflict.
You will understand more of the Iraq-Kuwait Conflicts.

Click here for resources on the new SS syllabus

Sec 5 social studies - 2190 (last batch)
Book 4 Chpt 2: People: A Country's most precious resource
You will be watching a video on managing population changes (ageing population) as well as working on a mindmap and a source-based sample question on the topic(handout 2006 SA1 paper).

Click here for resources on the old SS syllabus

Sec 5 Geography elective - 2190/2 (last batch)
Chpt 12 Development
You will learn more about the indicators of development, the stages of development, the desire for development and the problems brought by development.

Click here to access BBC bitesize revision on the topic:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/development/developmentwhatisitrev1.shtml

Please note:

1. Sec 3 students will attend the social studies skill workshop starting next week.

2. All students are to note that CA test 1 is much earlier this year - week 4 and not week 7. The test will be on social studies (source-based).

3. The exam format is the same for social studies 2190/1 and 2192/1. Section A (25 marks) is source-based (normally around 5 sources) and you must answer all parts to the questions. Section B (25m) is structured essay. You need to answer 1 out of the 3 questions given. Minor differences in the topics covered e.g. no more merger and separation of Singapore and Malaya in the new syllabus but topics such as the Iraq-kuwait conflicts and terrorism are introduced.

You can refer to MOE SEAB website for details: http://www.seab.gov.sg/SEAB/oLevel/syllabus/school/2008_GCE_O.html

4. The exam format for Geography elective 2190/2 and 2192/2 are quite different. For 2190/2 (old syllabus), map reading is compulsory in Section A - 10 marks. For 2192/2 (new syllabus), map reading is integrated into the questions - that is, students might be given a map extract e.g. showing a river. For the new syllabus 2192/2, students will choose to answer one question from section A (25 marks) which is Physical Geography (natural vegetation and river and coast) and another one question from Section B (25 marks) which is Human Geography (Geography of Food and Development). In the old syllabus 2190/2, other than the compulsory question on map reading (10 marks), students have to answer 1 more question (15 marks) on either (or combination) from Changing Agriculture or Changing Manufacturing. For Section B(25 marks) in the old syllabus 2190/2, students must answer one out of the 3 questions given based on one or a combination of topics: Changing Tourism, Development and Environmental Management.

Happy New Year