Schools Tackling Impact of Posting Group Banding to Promote Inclusivity and Friendships

The following question stood in the name of Ms Gho Sze Kee –

78 To ask the Minister for Education whether schools are resourced and equipped to (i) deal with any possible negative impact of posting group (PG) banding and (ii) promote inclusivity, interaction and friendships across different PGs in the same class.

Mr David Hoe (Jurong East-Bukit Batok): Question No 78, please.

The Minister of State for Education (Ms Jasmin Lau) (for the Minister for Education): Posting Groups (PGs) are used to facilitate students' entry into secondary schools and guide students to take subjects at appropriate levels at the start of Secondary 1. Students admitted through different PGs may take subjects at similar levels, depending on their individual strengths.

Under our Full Subject-Based Banding (Full SBB), our secondary school students are placed in mixed form classes, where they spend around a third of their curriculum time taking common subjects, such as Art and Character Citizenship Education with peers from different subject levels and combinations. This approach gives students more opportunities than under the previous streaming system to interact with and to learn with classmates with different strengths and interests.

Outside the formal curriculum, there are other group settings, such as co-curricular activities (CCAs) and Values-in-Action projects, for our students to interact with peers within and across schools.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) is mindful of potential challenges that some students may face, including with social interactions in a more diverse classroom setting. And this is why we provide teachers with resources and professional development opportunities to support students in Full SBB schools. For example, our teachers use termly check-in surveys to understand their students' interests, emotional well-being and peer support networks, which in turn, help them to foster a positive classroom culture.

Mr Speaker: Mr Hoe.

Mr David Hoe (Jurong East-Bukit Batok): Thank you, Speaker. I thank the Minister of State for her response. I have two supplementary questions.

First, whether there are any specific guidance or professional developments to teachers managing a mixed PG classroom. Specifically, I ask this because prior to mixed PG classroom, teachers would teach a class with similar profile, specifically in subjects like Character and Citizenship Education and Design and Technology. Given a mixed PG classroom now, teachers then would have to engage in a classroom with wider student profiles.

Second, if there is professional development or guidance given, what is the current take-up rate and training that teachers have gone through and have we gotten any feedback from teachers about the usefulness of such training in helping them to manage a mixed PG classroom with students of different learning profiles?

Ms Jasmin Lau: I thank the Member for his question. I will try and answer both questions in just one answer.

One of the concerns for mixed form classes is the emotional well-being and support systems for all of our students, because they come from different backgrounds and may have different life experiences. So, a lot of our focus in terms of supporting our teachers is in providing them with tools and strategies to understand and monitor our students' emotional well-being. As I mentioned, the termly check-ins do focus on their emotional well-being and peer support systems, and we also provide teachers with tools to help map out their students' peer support networks.

Every student, every child and therefore every mixed form class will be unique. We are also observing how many of our teachers are coming up and developing their own approaches in managing more of these mixed form classes. MOE will help to share these best practices across the teaching profession, so that across the board, our teachers are more equipped in future to deal with and manage mixed form classes, regardless of how every mixed form class looks like in future.