Alhamdulillah...Special Grade C Confirmation

Date: 25th February 2013 ( Monday)
Venue: PICC, Putrajaya

Alhamdulillah...I received the appointment letter for Guru Cemerlang Gred Khas C last week in a memorable and stately ceremony. All ten of us GCs were present to receive the letter from Ybg Dato' Sri Dr Ali bin Hamsa, Ketua Setiausaha Negara. There were altogether 142 recipients who received either JUSA A, B or C. The Malaysian ambassador to Syria was also present to receive his JUSA A. My gratitude goes to the Promotion Board, JPA and the Ministry of Education. A feeling of great relief swept over as this confirmation took place after almost a year! 

Congratulations to my colleagues who also received their letters- Pn Saripah Ahmad (MOZAC Melaka), Pn Mahadiah Muda (SM Seri Puteri. Kuala Lumpur), Pn Noraini Kassim (SASER, Seremban), Pn Norini Jaafar (Sek Sultan Alam Shah, Selangor), En Ooi Eng Lye (Penang Free Sch), En Pakri Abidin (SM Tengku Mahmud, Terengganu) and En Nawi Ismail (SMK Teknik Terengganu), Pn Khatijah Abdul Rahman (SMK Clifford, Perak) dan Pn Zaneriah Muhammad (SMK Jelawat, Kelantan). 

Thanks to all friends, teachers and students who have supported me over the years. I will not rest on my laurels after receiving this special honour. There is still a lot to be done. A special thanks to my other half, Aziz, for driving me there. Sorry you had to wait outside until the event was over. Thank you for being my motivator and for making me drag that body to fill up the application form when I was plain lazy :)

The Thinking Teacher

Teacher Talk (30) : Open Marking?

From:
To: "rahmahs@yahoo.com"
Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2013 9:14 PM
Subject: open marking

Salam Pn. Rahmah.

Thanks for your previous reply. It got me thinking. I plan to do open marking with my students from a low level class. Can I know how you conduct open marking in your class? How do you decide on what to focus and whatnot?

many thanks,

***

Second email

As an example, I get the students to do group writing activity. If they need to produce 5 paragraphs of a story, I'll have 5 groups, each works on one paragraph. Then, they write their paragraph on a mahjong paper, for instance, I paste it on the board and mark it in front of the students.

I hope my explanation is clear. =]

many thanks, 

***

My response

From: Rahmah Sayuti
To:
Sent: Tuesday, 26 February 2013, 13:45
Subject: Re: open marking

ok now i understand what you're trying to do. i once observed a teacher doing this in the classroom. however, there are some of the things you need to consider:

- font size on mah jong paper should be big enough for others to    

  see
- the language focus you would like to iron out. do not focus on 

  too many because poor learners lose focus easily
- getting the ss to point out the errors would be more effective
- group-writing may be dominated by those who are good. the 

  poorer ones are usually passive passengers. how do you address 

  this?

The Thinking Teacher

Ist PIBG meeting in SASEM

The response to our first PIBG meeting was encouraging! Hundreds for parents turned up and there was a good discussion of issues for the betterment of SASEM. It was chaired by Tn Hj Rozali Jemali, the President, flanked by the principal, En Mohd Noh Mohd Yussof and committee members. One parent made a thought-provoking analysis of the 2012 activities though. She was of the opinion that there needs to be a balance between academic and co curricular activities with academic activities taking the lead. According to her analysis, there were more co curricular activities than academic, something I happen to agree with. 

2012 was an exciting year because everything was the first- the first Sports Day, the first Kejohanan Balapan Zon Selatan etc. I remember students competing fanatically for their houses in order to win the coveted title. However, in retrospect, this may have given the wrong impression to students. If you give them a choice between sports and study, which one do you think they will choose? I think you know the answer. Well, this is 2013 and our Academic Programmes have already begun. We started with Pledge Day last week and STAR classes have also begun. Next in line is NLP (Neuro-linguistics Programming) for 70 top students in April. We are planning many more programmes for Sasemians and hope that they will respond positively.

The Thinking Teacher

Pledge Day and Elite Club Badge Presentation Ceremony, SASEM

Date: 1 Mac 2013 (Friday)
Venue: Khalifah Hall

We had a 2 in 1 programme in the assembly today. First was the Elite Club ceremony where 24 students who excelled in the Form 2 and Form 4 end-of-year exam received their badges from the YDP PIBG, Tn Hj Rozali bin Jemali. I hope his speech was inspiring to all the 135 PMR and 175 SPM candidates in their pursuit for excellence. This is more so because they are SASEM's first batch of PMR and SPM students. Thanks to all committee members, Pn Noreta, Pn Mazida, Pn Masitah, En Mohd Rafi Esa, Pn Halilah and En Hassan! Good job everyone!

Students taking their oath

The Thinking Teacher