Year 5 ESF Question

[testuser]

When do your schools publish their curriculum letters?

We've not seen one here at our school for Y5 and not sure if other schools are getting them at the beginning, middle or end of the units.

I've noticed Glenealy publishes their letters online on the public site before the units begin.

 

[MommyTo3]

Same for us, first week, right when starting the new unit.

 

[fingerscrossed]

Interesting thread.
I'm tutoring an ESF boy from QBS and his mum also tells me there are no textbooks, curriculum outlines etc. available to parents. I'm a little direct here but it's good for the 'let the school do all the work' parents but not so for others who want to know what is going on in their child's classroom. That's confirmed it...I'm not sending my child to an ESF.

(It's also absurd to leave obvious errors uncorrected...from the other thread and yes, I do agree the future generation will no doubt have a mind of their own)

 

[testuser]

There are some really good teachers and really good schools in the system. Even our school has some really good teachers... no matter what I feel about our school; there are some good people there.

I’m a bit surprised by the QBS thing. Of all the outputs I've seen from various schools QBS seemed to have their act together (along with Discovery & Renaissance). Their curriculum outlines were very good. I did email their principal asking if they could send us their Y5 outlines but she never bothered to email me back after I told her I was a parent at another school and wanted to compare notes.

I'd ask the parent to email the school / principal and check why they don't have a document which outlines the current year / unit.

I've also not spent much time looking at Kowloon Jr and some of the other schools further up north. KJS has a good academic reputation.

The ESF from where I stand does not seem to act as a school board (I have huge gaps in my knowledge of how they work, but I have first hand information from several primary and secondary schools) and set curriculum, performance standards and minimal requirements to ensure that students, teachers and parents operate at a consistent level across its system.

If they did set, monitor and enforce standards they would for example have a common curriculum document across all their schools, which would give parents an idea of what every Y5 student at the ESF would be learning.

Today it is documented with different levels of enthusiasm by different schools – seemingly driven by how much they’ve embraced parents as partners.

Bottom line, there is no need to abandon the ESF as a system. There are good schools there for all sorts of kids the key is to do your research and find the right school for the right kid+parent combo.

 

[MommyTo3]

Interesting thread.
I'm tutoring an ESF boy from QBS and his mum also tells me there are no textbooks, curriculum outlines etc. available to parents. I'm a little direct here but it's good for the 'let the school do all the work' parents but not so for others who want to know what is going on in their child's classroom. That's confirmed it...I'm not sending my child to an ESF.

(It's also absurd to leave obvious errors uncorrected...from the other thread and yes, I do agree the future generation will no doubt have a mind of their own)

Apparently his parents are not well informed. I have 3 children at QBS and on their intranet there is an absolutele ton of information, which I showed to Shri. Every year level has their curriculum letter posted (or mailed), weekly updates (depends a little bit per year level and teacher) on what the children are working on and how to support them, tons of links on Mandarin support, learning center resources, just to name a few. I am getting emails from the teachers (beginning of year only, the kids know themselves and parents should know where to find it by now) when the new unit is starting and how to support, planned trips, what they are working on, etc. This has been the same throughout the lower school with all different teachers my children had. Plus I know excellent examples in the upper school as well. I am sure there are individual differences, but this doesn't sound right. She should have a sit down with her son and go through it. Every child has a log in in their diary. My children can log in since Y1 by themselves and know where to find their work! The listen to sound books, read their Chinese readers, find their home work, etc.

There are indeed no text books, but that's pretty much an IB-thing.

I would be really interested to know which year her son is in ...

 

[rani1]

Interesting thread.
I'm tutoring an ESF boy from QBS and his mum also tells me there are no textbooks, curriculum outlines etc. available to parents. I'm a little direct here but it's good for the 'let the school do all the work' parents but not so for others who want to know what is going on in their child's classroom. That's confirmed it...I'm not sending my child to an ESF.

(It's also absurd to leave obvious errors uncorrected...from the other thread and yes, I do agree the future generation will no doubt have a mind of their own)

As an ex-ESF student I can confirm that my child is not getting the same education as I did or anywhere near what I received. If I had known earlier, I probably wouldn't have sent him to ESF either.

 

[rani1]

Shri

thanks for that, interesting - mind boggling lines of inquiry! wow

Fractions, decimals and percentages looks like your focus.

You could (if you havent already) get some CArol Vorderman, or similar, fun workbooks to do at home, if bub runs into any problems.

Very much depends on the teacher, I find, how 'foggy' or clear, the explanations are (and hence grasping new ideas in Maths)
Not sure too much philosophising helps in these areas! http://hongkong.geoschools.com/forum/images/smilies/tongue.png

Thanks for recommending Carol Voderman. Received my book order yesterday and the workbooks are good. My primary concern is English, as my guy is still making silly grammar mistakes.

 

[rani1]

Carol Vordeman is not the way to go. They are quite generic and not suitable to the outcomes described in the English National Curriculum. If your school subscribes to Mathletics, ask them to download the excellent workbooks for the relevant unit of study in Maths linked to your child's current inquiry.

Our school has just signed up for IXL and not Mathletics. Not sure how different they are.
Will let you know how it goes. Hoping my guy starts this week.

 

[testuser]

Quick update.

We did not get a curriculum letter for the last unit of inquiry which ended on the Dec 2nd. Our school did make an effort and updated its VLE / Moodle site on or around the 26th or 27th - 3 or 4 days before the unit ended. Impressive!

They have sent us a one page document today - sub-standard output compared to what we have from various ESF and other PYP schools in HK. All I can say is, now our school documents are covered by a confidentiality clause - prohibiting anyone from sharing anything with anyone else!

Nice going ....