EBENEZER–St. Maarten Academy Preparatory Secondary Vocational Education (PSVE) section Principal Lavern Nelson says a myriad of strategies will continue at the school to ensure that students perform well in their exams.
Nelson said on Tuesday that the first and very basic strategy will be to continue enforcing the school’s admission criteria.
“Also very key is ensuring that teachers at the PSVE campus plan and execute lessons that align with the end terms of the eternal examinations,” Nelson said. “Towards this end, two full-time coordinators were instituted for August 2018 and team-teaching will permeate foundational classes to facilitate students who continue to need extra support.”
She said teachers will continue to be managed in terms of their preparation and execution of lessons, test preparation and administration, punctuality and quality of instruction.
“For team teaching both teachers plan lessons, work together to teach students and give students a chance to ask questions and get assistance during a lesson. Team teaching also supports teachers in coping with their own realities, given new normal for teaching and learning,” she said.
The school’s Student Care Department, Nelson added, will continue to be engaged so students can receive adequate counselling to address their post-hurricane realities at home, at school and in their communities.
A total of 65 per cent of the school’s students graduated in July. Nelson said that despite the after-effects of Hurricane Irma and a shortened school day due to sharing the school’s campus on a shift system with Academy’s academic section since January 8, 2018, a total of 55 PSVE students had graduated, representing 65 per cent of the total graduating class who met the graduation criteria at the end of period 2 of the exams.
After the first period of the central examination, three of the six external examination subjects had “stellar performances,” Nelson said. At the PKL level, English Language was the best performing subject with a 94 per cent pass rate, followed by Administration and Commerce with 92 per cent passing and Spanish having a pass rate of 88 per cent.
“These subjects were also strong at the PBL level at the external examination: Spanish with the highest pass rate of 91 per cent, followed by English with 84 per cent passing the central examination and Administration and Commerce with 80 per cent passing the sector programme.”
The performance of the students for Economics reflected a pass rate of 62 per cent at the PKL level while 52 per cent of the students at the PBL level passed their central examinations. At the end of period one, only 49 per cent of the students passed outright.
“The weak performance of the students reflected the fact that 79 per cent of those who sat the examinations did not meet the two-year-old 5.5 per cent criterion set for central examinations as a quality control measure. This criterion was imposed in May 2017 for external central examinations to improve the quality of teaching and learning in general and specifically the quality of the diplomas students receive.
“For the PSVE campus, this criterion meant that students can no longer pass when exceptional School Based Assessment (SBA) outweighs the performance at the external examination. Since May 2017, students must first attain 5.5 or more on the external central exams before other qualifying criteria are considered.
“It is in this area that students’ performance was disappointing for the Dutch, with a mere 7 per cent of students passing, Mathematics with a mere 23 per cent passing and French, where only 41 per cent of the students passed the new criteria.
“The disappointing performance of Dutch, Mathematics and French was further compounded by the 50-50 criterion, also imposed in May 2017 for PBL (practical) classes: the central examination accounts for 50 per cent of the overall grade, instead of 33 per cent in prior years,” Nelson said.
It is at PBL level that students’ performance was worst. The biggest negative impact of this criterion was experienced in the Mathematics subject at the PBL level, where the average pass rate at school was 87 per cent, but an average of a mere 12 per cent passed the central examination. For Dutch, the average pass rate for SBAs was 71 per cent while only 12 per cent of the students passed the external examination. French also had a significant 94 per cent passing SBAs but only 38 per cent passing the external central examination.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/79789-psve-outlines-strategies-for-better-student-performance
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