Assalamualaikum and very good afternoon to headmaster, teachers, parents, ladies and gentleman. Thank you for coming to the fourth Parent-Teacher Association meeting and as we know the main agenda for today meeting is to discuss our concern about the performance of our children in this school. At the last PTA meeting, many of us especially parents expressed their concern about the poor performance of our children particularly in Mathematics, Science and the English Language. The parents felt that we must work harder towards improving the achievement of these subjects. Im sure that we can work together to achieve the objectives to improve our children results if we all work together as team in this school. The parents and the teacher should cooperate to ensure the all the activity that we plan can be done successfully. As we all know, the last PTA meeting also included the presentation of the current financial report. Club's financial report shows that we are facing a shortage of funds to carry out the activities that we would have planned. Therefore, this matter should also be discussed in this meeting so we will have adequate financial provisions to meet the needs of our planned activities.

Lets we discuss our first agenda. To increase our children achievement in this school. I will show you the report of our children result in last first semester exam. As you can see on the screen, the result shows the result based on subject and classes. SubjectMathematicsScienceEnglish

ExamsTOVMid Semester 11st SemTOVMid Semester 11st semTOVMid Semester 11st sem

Per cent of student passed

Year 176%60%57%66%50%56%45%46%43%

Year 280%76%65%56%54%55%56%50%66%

Year 393%85%87%67%60%57%56%50%47%

Year 477%76%77%88%76%76%80%75%70%

Year 565%67%70%77%75%70%71%67%65%

Year 669%71%71%65%64%66%65%56%60%

Notes : TOV Take Off Value . Result from the diagnostic test.Report based on number of students passed for each subject.

Result based on GPS and Grade for each subject.Mathematics

YearABCDEGPS (Average School Grade)Number of students

13591023.0030

22412723.1127

33323312.8733

40315603.1324

51813913.0332

64615643.0035

Science

YearABCDEGPS (Average School Grade)Number of students

11791033.3630

201141023.4827

32107953.1533

40414333.2024

52812912.9632

648111202.8835

English

YearABCDEGPS (Average School Grade)Number of students

13551253.3630

22412723.1127

333101343.3633

41115703.1624

521091012.9332

656101043.0535

Based from the first report which is regarding the number of passed student in each subject, we can see a significant decrease of achievement of our children. For Mathematics, Year 1 until year 3, we can see our childrens results are decreasing from the TOV result in the beginning of the year. For year 4 students, the percentage slightly decrease in mid semester exam the back 70 per cent same as the TOV result. For year 5 and 6, its good to see that there a slight increase in those results but still not in good quality especially for year 6 as they going to sit UPSR exam this year. Science subject also worrying us in term of percentage passed. We can see decreasing trend of those overall results but Science for year six a bit increase but there a lot of space needs to improve. The English subject also decreased significantly starting from TOV results untill the first semester results. Something must be done to improve the performance in English.

If we go through the quality of each subject, we can see not many of our children achieving good grades. Only few students can achieve the first grade A and B. A lot of them achieve at the grade of C, D and E. This quality of grade we can see from the table shown at the screen which the Average School Grade is higher and unfavourable. The higher Average School Grade means low quality of the result indicates that only few students achieve A and B grades. Achieving C still not good enough to reach the quality and still increase the Average School Grade. The good Average School Grades should be between 1 and 2 and number of students get grade C, D and E are much lesser.

This of course worrying us and most of the parent really concern about this matter seriously. However, I strongly advice to all parent not to blame the school in this regard. We need to find the root of the problem before taking any action. The teachers in this school are doing their best to our children and Im sure the problems are not from our children too. They are just like a piece of blank paper and it is our duty to shape and decorate this piece of paper to make it useful and beautiful. Teachers nowadays are burdened with a lot of works which is needed more time and energy to fulfil the National Education Plan. We as parents need to do something to ease the task of the teachers in educating our children. Actually the real teacher at first place to our children is parent because we are raising them and their learning process start from parents. We cannot fully devolve the task of educating only to teachers alone.

As a retired teacher, I want to present some views and opinions on the causes that lead to a decline in performance among our children. I also hope that the school especially the teachers can carry out a meeting to find out the causes on this matter. I will talk about this matter generally and we as parents should open your mind if some problems also come from us. Teacher workloads lead to a decline in the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom. Our education nowadays requires a multipurpose and multi skill teacher. They are not only doing the classroom routine but a lot of more things such as updating student data, curriculum activities, participation in various competitions, performance improvement program, in-service training, Linus intervention program, UPSR, programs involving Student Affairs at school and so on. Still there are many more things to do that Im not mention here. Therefore as parents we should need to understand the teaching profession is not an easy career. If we can work together with teachers so we can reduce their burden in the slightest. In other words, we do not help them in the learning process but can help in other things such as help in preparing our kids classes are more conducive, helping the teacher in cleanliness and discipline our own children. We educate our children to be better prepared and able to learn well in school.Lack of attention from the parents. This is one reason why our students' performance declined. Here I can underline some situation based on my experience as a teacher. Firstly, parents often leave the task of teaching to the teachers. Parents do not bother to know the progress of their children from time to time. Working parents rarely ask their child development. If they know their child is weak in their studies, something needs to be done to help them. We may send our children to tuition classes. If we cannot afford we can may provide additional training books to our children at home. As parents we should ask and discuss the teacher about our child achievement. If their achievement is not good, we should ask the teacher the area of weaknesses so we also can take action as parents at home. Some parents are not concerned with disciplinary matters at home. It is also among the leading causes of student discipline problems at school. Disciplinary problems among students also led to a decline in academic performance.

Lack of teaching and learning resources. Indeed, our students were provided with textbooks and workbooks from the ministry, however they more additional material for example additional workbook, such as in mathematics require calculating equipment such as abacus, in science they need a lot of apparatus to do the experiment and many more. In teaching Science, Mathematics and English, we dont just rely on writing resources but so much more such as teaching aids, picture, and flash cards equipment and so on. I know the school has their own allocation of each subject but that not much to provide those entire things at once. That is our task in this Parent Teacher Association to overcome this problem. One of other thing that concerns me is lack of reading among pupils. As we all know, reading is a very beneficial activity. It is one way to improve student achievement, especially in language. Students who read a lot will quickly master a language. This is a learning process that does not need to involve teachers, which can be done at home and in the library. To improve performance in English, students should be encouraged to read books in English more frequently. Parents also need to emphasize the children to read in English. Therefore, teachers and parents need to think about programs that can enhance of reading activity among children. Parents can encourage children to read by taking them to the public library and buy books according to their level.

Classes are not conducive for teaching and learning. This is one thing that needs to take notice into account as a conducive class atmosphere and beautiful is good for student development. Use appropriate colours, correct table layout, appropriate class exhibits can help students to master and revise what they have learned. I went to several schools and saw a lot of school created a beautiful environment outside and inside the classroom. The cleanliness of the school also must be taken as serious matter to ensure our school in good condition and healthy environment. In this case, we can assist classroom teachers in decorating the classroom and contributes materials and also help the teacher in decorating the class.

One of the reasons also comes from higher order thinking skills (HOTS) which one of the aspects that are important of producing quality students. Students should be exposed to problem-solving techniques and higher-order thinking skills. At present, the use of (HOTS) question is emphasized so that students are able to solve problems using high-level thinking skills. The students whos not master the skill was unable to answer such questions especially in Mathematics and Science. More questions now emphasize on this aspect because the ministry of education has underlined on this as one of the most important skills for student.Regarding to our association funds, Im a bit worried because the funds are still not enough to help the school. We need to discuss on how we can increase our funds in this year. Family contribution would not be able to accommodate our activities in future. One of my suggestions is to held a family day or school open days so we can collect some money from the activities. We must have relations with other agencies such as private agencies and NGOs to raise funds for our Association. We can establish alumni for our school where the ex-student also can contribute idea, funds and materials that might be useful to the school. This matter can be discussed in our next Parent Teacher Meeting just to discuss the financial and fund matters. Before I conclude my remarks, I would like to take the example of a school that successfully use the Parent Teacher Association as one medium to improve the performance of the students. The best example we can take is SK Ulu Lubai, Limbang. A cluster school in the best ranking in Malaysia and always excelled in academics and co-curricular activities. I outline some of the good example that we can do and implement in this school. a. Parents involve in almost school activities. Helping the teacher in many ways.b. Students need to speak simple English in school and also the parent. They speak English at home at least simple English.c. Many intervention programme to increase students performance for example, mathematics program such as multiplication activities, English Daily Routine, Smart Science Program and many more.d. Parents always with the kids while they do their homework at night.e. Parents always maintain a good relationship with the school

Last but not least, Im sure the parents in this room can cooperate with the school and will assist the school in whatever activities they run. If you have any idea and suggestions please let us know so we can try to work out to make it real. To headmaster and teachers, I hope we can work together and try to improve the performance of our students. I'm sure the school has also developed programs to improve performance and we as parents always supported and will help in various aspects.

Thank You.

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