Back to normalcy

-

The 1st semester of 2023 marked a return to normalcy with most of the SMM restrictions lifted and various school programmes resuming to pre Covid scale. As I look back, it has been a busy semester albeit a fulfilling one. 


My colleagues and I were able to plan and bring our students on various field trips.  For Geography, Sec 1 students visited dairy farm and learnt more about the tropical rainforest while Sec 2 students had a chance to interview the residents at Bangkit market to find out more about their quality of life. 


For History, the Sec 2 students visited the Fort Factory and went through a role play of being a POW to have a better understanding of life during the Japanese Occupation. I believe these learning experiences from GI and HI allow the students to see the relevance of Humanities in real-life and make learning more meaningful and memorable. 

For Sec 3 Geography, though the new syllabus seem rather daunting initially, I'm glad that the Geography team worked together to prepare the resources for the new topic 'Geography in everyday life' and we also conducted a bite-size fieldwork and shared our experience with other schools.


For Guides, it was nice to finally have an overnight camping experience for the girls together with the other uniform groups at the inter UG camp. The girls were also pleased to meet and interact with other guides and brownies from the West division at various events like the World Thinking day and West Division day.



For my form class 2 Vincent, I'm glad to know them better this year through our day to day interaction, celebrations, postcard exchange and programmes such as cohort hike and the level camp. Nevertheless, there is still much that I would like to do with them, such as improving the class bonding and ironing out some of the discipline issues. 


As we draw nearer to the O-levels in the next semester, I hope to continue to monitor students’ progress through various assessment modes (e.g. online quizzes like GimKit, checkpoint quizzes, timed practices) and to provide them with the necessary guidance. Would also be looking to contribute more to my committee in the update of the school website.

As the June Holidays come to an end, may we all have a good semester ahead! 💪

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Change and continuity

-
Image
As we come to the end of the school year for 2023, I find myself at the intersection of change and continuity. Next month, we will bid farewell to our principal Mr Kwok and HOD Ms Tang. They have been an inspiration in my teaching journey and I hope to carry with me the lessons learned under their guidance.  Similarity, I also bid farewell to the students I've guided this year, my Sec 4s and 5s as well as my form class. It has been a bittersweet experience. With my graduating Geography classes it was a daunting task getting them to be well prepared for the O-levels. Likewise for my form class 2 Vincent, there were unique challenges that were emotionally taxing but also heartening to see them grow and develop over the year.  This year was also the 1st run of our new Geography upper Secondary syllabus and we saw how SLS especially the interactive digital textbook became a mainstay of our lessons and students become more accustomed to using it. Nevertheless I believe there's room...
Read more

Highlights of Term 1

-
Image
As I look back at Term 1, there are several memorable events and learning to reflect on.  Things done well Knowing my form class better At the start of the year I was a little worried about being the sole FT for class 4/1. As I didn't teach the whole class, I started a few initiatives to get to know the students better and see how I can better support their learning. I tried out a E-colours personality test and found out more about their strengths and potential limiters. The results were shared with the students too so they can better understand and communicate with one another. Another thing I started with my form class was to set aside time in the morning to have a student teacher conference session. I found the time fruitful as I gained much new insights about the students background, study styles, aspirations and concerns. This also allowed me to provide students with the necessary guidance and advice. HI virtual tour Another aspect that I am proud of is the HI virtual tour. Wh...
Read more

Reflection on doing reflection

-
First blog post! 😄 Its been a month plus since I started my teaching journey at AES. One thing that caught my attention was that many students in AES care a lot about their grades. After sitting for their weighted assessment, many would come anxiously asking if they passed or did well. When I return the scripts to them, the first thing that most students would do is to compare their marks with their peers and proceed to take out their calculator to calculate if they met their target grade. While it is good to be motivated to want to excel and achieve their target grades, I felt that students also need to understand that assessment is for learning and personal growth. As a result, I started a simple reflection exercise with my classes. After going through the corrections and markers comments for the WA, I got the students to take some time to reflect on their progress and jolt down their responses for the following questions: 1. What is one area that I did well? 2. What is one area for...
Read more