I have a tutee from Crescent Girls’ who has not been passing her math tests since the middle of her sec 1 year. After one lesson I knew her main problem was doing Algebra. So we had been focusing on Algebra, especially Algebraic Fractions, for the last few months and the effort has paid off. Two topics important for lower sec students to master are Algebra and Indices.
I’ve said elsewhere and here I will say it again – If your Algebra is bad you need not attend Math lessons anymore in secondary school.
Just finished Sec 4 IP Math and Physics tuition…
Sunday mornings are very tiring for me – 2 hrs of Sec 4 IP Math followed by 1.5 hrs of Sec 4 Pure Physics tutoring. The topics we are doing now are Trigonometry, Differentiation and DC Circuits.
Apparently, some schools are slower than others. Sec 4 students should now already be doing Differentiation and DC Circuits, but some are still at graphs of trigonometrical functions and electrostatics or even sound!
Every year, my tuition students who are weak in Math come from two ‘very good’ schools in the west. I shall not name the schools but I think the lower sec Math teachers in these schools need to get closer supervision from their superiors. This is what I have been trying to tell parents – ‘good’ schools do not necessarily have good teachers. Some of these schools attain good results because their students are academically good in the first place, not because they have outstanding teachers. If you enter a ‘good’ school, chances are, the teachers there think you are already very smart, so they teach fast and make you do a lot of ‘independent’ learning, and justifying these actions using the ‘Teach Less Learn More’ philosophy.
Last but not least, I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: SEC 2 MATH IS VERY IMPORTANT, ESPECIALLY THE ALGEBRA PART.
For our latest timetable, click here =>
______________________________________________________________
