evolving & reflection

attended a symposium @ SOTA last week to understand their curriculum,
to attending a seminar for Arts & Music teachers by STAR.

STAR was started early last year, together with PESTA and also PERI for the primary school pupils.

SOTA
- one of the basic requirements to get into SOTA is to make sure that you qualify for the express stream, and also prove to the panel that you can you offer during the audition
- its not easy as they only take in 200 students per year
- interesting conversation during the Q&A: a primary 6 student asked whether is there any CCA in SOTA. The answer was NO. WHY? reason being that everything is build into the curriculum, so that students are actually exposed to the 'CCA' but in a fixed timetable.
-typical school hours for the SOTA students -> 8-5pm
- Dance students - > 8-9/10pm, as the students need to cool down their body with the help of a physiotherapist
- sharing thoughts by the Visual Arts Presenter: SOTA do not send their students for SYF competitions. They do not see any need in it........SOTA is very different from the mainstream schools.
- I found out that SOTA is under the charge of MICA

STAR
- a new academy for Art and Music teachers, where support will be provided for them, and to provided training that will enable the teachers to be a even better teacher
- sharing of thoughts
-providing support
-training
-overseas cultural exchange programme
-masterclasses
-changing of ideas, and most importantly
-Community of Practice

COP
- exchange of ideas, peer support, discussion, reflection etc... ...
think it is going to be a HUGE thing as the principal of STAR was giving quite a number of examples on how to create a COP group.
-I will try to find out more about COP, and its impact on us\


to be continued....