September Holidays

Dear all,

It is back to school and term 4 soon! Get ready for the last term. Your last journey for your primary 5 begins. I do hope all of you have been studying and revising intensely during the holidays for your end of the year examinations. I will post up notes for you from time to time to help you along the way but remember that you have to also complete your revision with hard work on your own. You are sitting for the examinations and it is your own results that will matter come end of the year and leading on to next year.

[Important Reminders] 

1. Unit 10 spelling test is on Friday, 14th September. Please study hard for it. 
2. Bring your English and Science textbooks.
3. Supplementary and remedial lessons are resuming next week. I am opening extra remedial lessons for all. We will be doing intense remedial lessons from 3 - 3.30pm every Tuesdays and Fridays. 
4. After school study groups will resume next week on Mondays (3 - 4pm) and Wednesdays (after your broadbased programmes to 4pm).  If you find that you can concentrate better in school, stay on for the after school study group at the study corner at level 3 and PLEASE INFORM YOUR PARENTS AND GET THEIR APPROVAL FIRST. I will be at the study corner to monitor and help out for any of your school work or tuition work. 
5. Please get ready your class photo order form and bring it on the 11th and 12th September to submit to the VENDOR!

[Oral Examinations]

We would have done some revision for your oral examinations during the two days of extra lessons during the September holidays. Your reading has been improving in general. Here are some tips again:

Reading

• Pronunciation is important.
• Fluency of reading is important and that means you should be able to read smoothly and not stop and start all the time. The 5 minutes of preparation time is important for you!
• Reading with expressions is a major weakness. Please vary your tone and read with feelings or expression especially during the conversations or dialogues. 

Picture Discussion

• Introduce your picture first. (talk about where the picture is in general and probably the time of the day)
• USE THE D.I.E.O method to describe the individual scenes. 
• D - describe the actions and appearances.
• I - interpret the feelings of the characters  (Use adjectives to describe them and talk about how they might feel)
• E - explain or elaborate on why they feel that way. 
• O - give your own opinion. 
• Conclude your picture. 

Dear Parents,

If you still do not own an oral practice book for your child, please get one as soon as you can. It would help your kid for their oral practice, especially for their PSLE next year. If you need to make do with one now, you can use the picture for compositions as a temporary measure for now. Using the guidelines above, you can help revise with your children.

Do also make sure that they do not use broken english or singlish or short forms during their picture description. Examiners are also looking out for language of the student. As such, they need to use sound grammatical structure to describe the picture. Also, make sure they use present tense all the time. 

See you all on Monday,

Sincerely,

Mr Nelson Ong