Self Report - General Information

1.     School: General Information and Academic Administration

After observation, please write a report about school general information and its academic administration according to topics as follows:

1.1     School profile

School Name       : Saint Mary’s University Grade School Department

School Address   : Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines

School’s Vision   : Excellence, Innovation, Communion and Passion for Christ’s Mission

At first, it is the initiative of Msgr. Constant Jurgens, the CICM, then parish priest of Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya and one of the eraliest CICM missionaries to arrive in the Philippines who wants to establish a Catholic school for the children in his parish. However, Jurgens was recalled to Europe to become the Director of the Bishop Hammer Institution in the Netherlands. It was Achilles de Gryse, Jurgens' successor, who pursued his dream through. Thus, Saint Mary’s Elementary School was inaugurated in June 1928. Then, Godfrey Lambrecht as director and Margaretha Hermus as principal opened the Saint Mary’s High School in 1934.

In 1947, Saint Mary’s College was opened by offering programs in Associate of Arts, Bachelor of Science in Education, Bachelor of Arts, and Junior Normal. Gradually, the course offerings expanded with Bachelor of Science in Commerce (1951), Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering (1955), and the Graduate School (1962). Then the Belgian missionary congregation Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae took over the ownership and also the management of Saint Mary’s College in 1967.

The college’s physical expansion program started with the purchase and development of the campus by the Magat River in 1968. The college was transferred to its new site in 1969. Saint Mary’s College was granted university status under the presidency of Rev. Fr. John Van Bauwel, CICM, and became known as Saint Mary's University. Now, the president of Saint Mary’s University is Rev. Renillo H. Sta. Ana, CICM.

Meanwhile, the school’s principal of Saint Mary’s University Grade School Department is Dr. Ma. Cristeta M. Aduca. It is the laboratory school of Saint Mary’s University.  The school conducts the lesson from Monday to Friday at 7.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. The flag ceremony is always be held twice a week, on Monday and Friday. The students have two break times; at 10 a.m. and 11.30 a.m. They always go home at the lunch break (at 11.30 p.m) and have to come back before 1.00 p.m. There are 8 grades in Saint Mary’s University Grade School Department. They are grade Nursing Section, Kindergarden, grade 1, grade 2, grade 3, grade 4, grade 5, grade 6 and 2 Science Sections for each grade.. The students in the school are divided into regular classes and science classes. There are around thirty five (35) students in each classes. In each classroom there are fans (around 4 to 5), black board, and LED TV along with the speaker.

1.2     Academic support system

Education in the Philippines is managed and regulated by the Department of Education (DepEd), Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA). DepEd is responsible for the K–12 basic education; it exercises full and exclusive control over public schools and nominal regulation over private schools, and it also enforces the national curriculum that has been put in place since 2013. CHED and TESDA, on the other hand, are responsible for higher education; CHED regulates the academically-oriented universities and colleges while TESDA oversees the development of technical and vocational education institutions and programs in the country.

From 1945 to 2011, basic education took ten years to complete—six years of elementary education and four years of high school education for children aged six up to fifteen. However, after the implementation of the K–12 Program of DepEd and subsequent ratification of Kindergarten Education Act of 2012 and Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013, the basic education today takes thirteen years to complete—one year of kindergarten, six years of elementary education, four years of junior high school and two years of senior high school for children aged five up to seventeen. As of 2017, the implementation of Grade 12 has started.

1.3     Teaching system

All of the teacher here can teach all of the lesson in the elementary school. One of the differences with Indonesian system is in here, they only have same schedule for every day. The pupils only meet the same teacher for every day. The minimun hours work for the teacherr is 8 hours each day.

1.4     Materials and other learning sources

This school takes teaching materials based on k to 12. Every subject has two books. First book for teacher as teacher’s guide and second book for students. However, teachers usually add more materials from internet or other resources.

1.5     Measurement and evaluation system

According to the K to 12 Basic Education Program, this school uses a standards- and competency-based grading system. These are found in the curriculum guides. All grades will be based on the weighted raw score of the learners' summative assessments. The minimum grade needed to pass a specific learning area is 60, which is transmuted to 75 in the report card. The lowest mark that can appear on the report card is 60 for Quarterly Grades and Final Grades. For these guidelines, the school will use a floor grade considered as the lowest possible grade that will appear in a learner's report card. Learners from Grades 1 to 12 are graded on Written Work, Performance Tasks, and Quarterly Assessment every quarter. These three are given specific percentage weights that vary according to the nature of the learning area.

For Grades 1 to 10

     In a grading period, there is one Quarterly Assessment but there should be instances for students to produce Written Work and to demonstrate what they know and can do through Performance Tasks. There is no required number of Written Work and Performance Tasks, but these must be spread out over the quarter and used to assess learners' skills after each unit has been taught.

The following are the steps in computing for the Final Grades.

Step 1: Grades from all student work are added up. This results in the total score for each component, namely Written Work, Performance Tasks, and Quarterly Assessment.

Raw scores from each component have to be converted to a Percentage Score. This is to ensure that values are parallel to each other.

Step 2: The sum for each component is converted to the Percentage Score. To compute the Percentage Score (PS), divide the raw score by the highest possible score then multiply the quotient by 100%. This is shown below:

 

Step 3: Percentage Scores are then converted to Weighted Scores to show the importance of each component in promoting learning in the different subjects.

To do this, the Percentage Score is multiplied by the weight of the component found in Table 4 for Grades 1 to 10 and Table 5 for Senior High School. The product is known as the Weighted Score (WS)

1.6     Curriculum

K to 12 BASIC EDUCATION CURRICULUM

THE FRAMEWORK

The curriculum aims to help learners acquire highly-developed literacy skills that enable them to understand that English language is the most widely used medium of communication in Trade and the Arts, Sciences, Mathematics, and in world economy. Furthermore, the curriculum aims to  help learners understand that English language is a dynamic social process which responds to and reflects changing social conditions, and that English is inextricably involved with values, beliefs and ways of thinking about ourselves and the world we dwell in.  Through multi-literacy skills, learners will be able to appreciate and be sensitive to sociocultural diversity and understand that the meaning of any form of communication depends on context, purpose and audience.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

The world is now in the “Knowledge age” where the challenge of education is to prepare learners to deal with the challenges of the changing world. S tudents in this age must be prepared to compete in a global economy, understand and operate complex communication and information systems, and apply higher level thinking skills to make decisions and solve problems.

The Language Arts and Multiliteracies Curriculum (LAMC) addresses these needs. This is the rationale why Mother Tongue, Filipino and English follow a unified framework which allows easy transition from acquiring and learning one language to another.

The curriculum has four components. Each component is essential to the learners’ ability to communicate effectively in a language leading them to achieve communicative competence and multiliteracies in the Mother Tongue, Filipino and English.

Component 1 illustrates learning processes that will effect acquisition and learning of the language. It explains the HOW of language learning and therefore serves as guiding principles for language teaching.

Component 2 describes knowledge and skill areas which are essential to effective language use (understanding of cultures, understanding language, processes and strategies) which will be developed through language arts (macro-skills).

Component 3 shows the interdependence and interrelationships of the macro-skills of the language (listening, speaking and viewing; reading, viewing and responding; writing and representing) and the development of thinking skills (critical thinking, creative thinking and metacognition) allowing students to make meaning through language.

Component 4 explains the holistic assessment of the Language Arts and Literacy Curriculum which serves as feedback of its effectiveness to students, teachers, school administrators, and curriculum developers.

1.7     Teaching plan

On their teaching plan here as what he has in the Philippines, they do not have this core standard and are instantly broken down into specific learning objectives. And it's all based on their curriculum guide.Their teaching plan provides detailed learning resources, varied learning activities, and learning assessments. I have observed that the procedure or flow of the lesson are student-centered, while their assessments are performance based which assessed by rubrics or mechanical ratings.