Best Practices in Education

1 Student 1 Sport Policy – Scratching your head to implement it?

mbsskl — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 04:18:02 +0000

Students in action in a typical afternoon from 2.30-3.30pm

One of the objectives of this policy is to get students involved with a least one sports throughout the year with the hope that all students, including book worms and couch potatoes will get out of their comfort zone to be active physically. In addition, with this involvement, new talents will be discovered, groomed and trained to compete at the state, national or international level

When the minister announced this policy, it created a lot of questions on the best way to implement it. A few schools were chosen as pilot schools with close supervision from the department and officials and the practices of these schools were shared with others.

This school has taken the stand that for a student to take part in a sport, it has to be for a least an hour. There is no point in getting a group of say 40 students lining up to serve a badminton shuttle or kick a ball, as has been done in many schools. Students will get bored this way and getting them to stay back to touch the ball for a few seconds is really defeating the objectives of this policy.

What we have done is to match the facilities the school has with the optimum number of students (players) required for a game. For example, we have a volleyball court, and the maximum number of students that will be involved is 14 (7 per team). From all the facilities, we will know the total number of students that need to be involved for a single day and therefore a week. With the limited number of facilities that we have, each student can play a game only once every fortnight but they play it well and enjoy the game for at least one hour.

One Teacher One Student

mbsskl — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 05:17:59 +0000

Most schools organize some form of extra classes for examination bound students in Form 3 (Year 9), 5 (Year 11) or Upper 6 (Year 13). These extra classes may take various ways. Some may organize after the trial exams by regrouping the students based on the ability and getting different sets of teachers to teach those groups. There are issues on this arrangement as there is a need to revamp the timetable and other non examination classes are affected. Additionally, there will be movements of students into groups and time wasted in these movements. Other forms of extra classes are “teaching to the test” about three months before the examination for the weakest students after school hours. But problems arise in getting the students to attend these classes and slow achievers find the lessons which are geared towards the examinations, too difficult for them to grasp. There is also a problem of class control; some classes are too big for the teachers to handle and when the lessons are held in the afternoon after school, students get tired and agitated during these classes. Many slow achievers lack the foundation to pass the examinations and these lessons are deemed too advanced for them. Teachers might also do remedial during the months leading to the examinations but most of the time, many of the students do not even have the basic fundamentals which should be mastered in their primary schools. There are students who couldn’t even construct proper sentences and there they are in the extra classes preparing them for the SPM (Year 11) public examinations.
The other problem with extra classes is continuity and coordination amongst teachers. All teachers in a subject panel are involved and they take turns to teach. Some have not taught these students before and may not know the ability level of the students.

The school has decided to do away with scheduled extra classes for examination bound students and has instead embarked on a program we called “One Teacher One Child Program”. In this program, all teachers are to “adopt and tutor” at least a child (student), who is amongst the weakest in the school from the beginning of the year. We have 100 teachers and therefore at least 100 of the weakest children are tutored personally for at least one hour per week outside the normal school hours on a day and time decided between teacher and student. The lesson is recorded in the teachers’ record book and checked by the vice principal every week. We believe this program has advantages over other so called “extra classes” as remedial learning starts at the beginning of the year and not after the trial examinations. The other advantage is that each teacher is the counselor/teacher to the child and what problems that the child faces can be resolved with the teacher. Even though this program is for all levels, the students who will benefit most are those from the lower forms as they would be able go through numerous cycles of this one-to-one tutoring. Those at Form 5 and Upper 6 may only benefit for a year and some of the weakest of the weak of this form may be already too late to be rehabilitated, but as the saying goes, “it’s better late than never”.

Creating Value in Canteen Rental

mbsskl — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 03:31:33 +0000

The Indian food stall has been vacant for many months. Many potential stall operators have tried and failed due to competition from other stalls selling other types of food with almost the same pricing. Knowing that renting out this stall again under the same arrangement will almost certainly meet with failure, a creative way was found to rent out this stall. To compete with other stalls on almost similar price and on the same type of food would be undesirable. We know there is a group of students who can afford more expensive high end food and hence a decision was made to redesignate this stall as ‘high end food stall’. This stall would be allowed to sell any food under the sun (subject to halal conditions for both Muslims and Hindus) for RM4 – RM6 so as not to compete with other stalls, thus giving the better off students (and teachers) the opportunity to enjoy better quality food. This stall will not compete with other stalls on the pricing but rather value for money. For example this stall can also sell ‘nasi lemak’ which is also sold by the other Malay stall but the ‘nasi lemak’ must be of a higher end (RM4 – RM6) – maybe ‘nasi lemak with satay’.

Benchmarking Visit By Principals Attending ICT Leadership Course

mbsskl — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 13:15:35 +0000

On 22 Feb 2010, eleven principals and four lecturers from Institut Aminuddin Baki, Genting visited my school. These principals were taking the Strategic Leadership on ICT at that institute and this visit was part of their benchmarking coursework on how ICT is being efficiently implemented in all aspects of the school. I was honoured to give them an overview on the ICT implementation in the school, focusing on the six core strategies – Infrastructure Development, Change Management, ICT in Teaching-Learning, ICT in School Management, Developing ICT Literate Students, and Smart Partnership with the Corporate Sector

Congratulations! Your school has improved from an average grade of 3.5 to 3.0. Or has it?

mbsskl — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 12:56:13 +0000

In the Malaysian school system, the performance of each school in the public examinations is measured by the average numeric grade, in which the lower the better is the performance. This is because the grades A, B, C etc is designated 1,2,3 etc. Each year awards are given to schools which show vast improvement over the previous year. But not many people are aware of the flaws of the present award system. If we study literature on school effectiveness, we would know that the yearly academic achievement is to a large extent influenced by the entry qualifications of the pupils. On a good year you may get students with good results but on another, students with poor results which will effectively influence your school public exam results in a number of years from now. What is more important is the measure of “school effects” – to what extent the results of the students are attributed to the efforts of the school. This can be measured to a certain degree of accuracy using sophisticated statistical methods and has been carried out in Britain for many years already. If we check on the BBC website, we can find the ranking of schools based on the public examination results and also on “contextual value added”(CVA) – the measure of the “school effects”. We will find that there are schools ranked very high in their academic results but mediocre in the CVA – an indication that the good academic results is due to intake of good students and not due to the effort of the school.

Students’ Feedback On Teachers’ Lessons

mbsskl — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 10:42:45 +0000

Observation of teachers by their seniors or head of departments is a form of supervision carried out in almost all schools. But in most lessons, when teachers know they will be observed they will put in their best performance – the Halo effect. In my school, all the students will give their feedback on their teachers’ lessons once a year and the average score of the teachers is a part of the performance assessment. For example, if a teacher teaches 5 classes, all the students from those classes will give feedback based on a 17 item instrument and a score computed. The average of the scores of the students from the 5 classes will form the single performance score as rated by the pupils. This way, the teachers will have to put up their best performance all the time as they are under observation, all the time throughout the year. The feedback instrument can be easily done on-line in the computer laboratory in a controlled environment, hence there is no need for the messy printing of the hard copies of the feedback instruments.

Benchmarking on Teacher Development By Post Graduate Teacher Trainees From China

mbsskl — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 04:50:02 +0000

On 23 Feb 2010, the school was honoured and surprised by a visit by three post graduate teacher trainees from China and another two local post graduate trainees who wished to learn and benchmark the way the school implements teacher development programs. The school was delighted to share with them the structured and scheduled programs and a few code of practice which are meant to instill professionalism on the part of the teachers. Some of the code of practice include a policy of no sitting while teaching, including relief lessons.

Empowering Heads of Subjects (Ketua Panitia)

mbsskl — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:46:38 +0000

In the Malaysian perspective, heads of subjects are not promotional posts and all the heads of subjects are appointed internally. Many of them take up this post rather reluctantly and do so because it is a directive from the headmaster. Many of the heads have complained that there are more senior teachers in their subject department and they don’t have the confidence and ability to lead the subject department. One of the ways to empower these young and able teachers is to allow them to give a say in the confidential reports of the teachers in the department. The present confidential report is to be completed by the vice principal as the first assessor and the headmaster, the second assessor. It is almost impossible to get an accurate assessment of the work performance of the teachers if this protocol is to be strictly followed. In my school, the head of subjects will have to assess the teachers under them and this will be cross checked by the head of departments and then by the vice principal. This will not only give the head of subjects a sense of leadership but also empower them more effectively in their post.

Your teacher coached your volleyball team to be the state champion, but is not a good classroom teacher. How do you score him for the yearly performance assessment?

mbsskl — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:35:31 +0000

Like I mentioned in my previous article, it is extremely difficult to find an ideal teacher from the Malaysian perspective – you can’t find a teacher who’s good in the classroom, extra curricular activities and paper work. This put us headmasters in a dilema as to how to assess their performance. Can you give a high score to a volleyball coach who has sacrificed his evenings and weekends to train the kids to a gold medal in the state championship but is very lousy in his teaching and learning (T-L)? In this school, the weightage of scores for teachers are 60% for curriculum, 20% for extra-curriculum and 20% for other administrative tasks. Going by this weightage it would seem very unfair for the teacher who had sacrificed evenings and weekends to bring glory to the school and yet be given a low score because he was not good in teaching and learning. I found a way out of this dilemma by giving teachers a choice of weightage based on the three aspects – Teaching-Learning, Extra-curriculum, Administrative tasks. Based on the weightage, T-L still carries the highest weightage but is varied from 50%, 60% or 70%. So if a teacher is excellent in T-L, he/she can choose 70% for T-L and the weightage for extra-curriculum and administrative tasks can be reduced accordingly. There are nine options, and the teachers can choose the option based on his/her strength.
Option 1: 70% T-L, 10% extra-curriculum, 20% administrative tasks
Option 2: 70% T-L, 20% extra-curriculum, 10% administrative tasks
Option 3: 60% T-L, 20% extra-curriculum, 20% administrative tasks
Option 4: 60% T-L, 30% extra-curriculum, 10% administrative tasks
Option 5: 60% T-L, 10% extra-curriculum, 30% administrative tasks
Option 6: 50% T-L, 40% extra-curriculum, 10% adminstrative tasks
Option 7: 50% T-L, 10% extra-curriculum, 40% administrative tasks
Option 8: 50% T-L, 20% extra-curriculum, 30% administrative tasks
Option 9: 50% T-L, 30% extra-curriculum, 20% administrative tasks

Immersion Programme for New Headmasters

mbsskl — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:19:35 +0000

New headmasters need to assistance from senior headmasters to improve their skills and knowledge in leading and managing their schools. These hands-on skills and knowledge are very important as they can see and experience for themselves how the senior headteachers had successfully lead and manage their respective schools. I had the privilege to lead two new headteachers in this programme. They were attached to my school seeing, learning and experiencing the successful aspects of my school for 5 days in September 2009. I was humbled and honoured to have them with me under this immersion programme and as an experienced head teacher it was also my duty to share with them the best practices in this school. It is not to say that I am superior in all aspects of school management; they were also able to give some suggestions or inputs on the weaknesses they see in my school.

The headmasters in the Immersion Program