Unlikely. Anyway no point losing sleep or losing hair over this. We are at the mercy of HR policy; currently the policy direction seems to be trimming excess and balancing the top-heaviness. If this is in fact the case (I can't say for sure, since I have no insider knowledge), younger teachers will just have to eat the short end of the stick and endure the slow grind until the policy direction shifts again.

If you are not a prestige scholar then you will need to be realistic. Wanting to have cep raised to P6 is building castle in the air. You might not even be a P7. Potential in you or anyone else who just entered the school should not be uncommon, ultimately you guys are young and full of drive. It will be worrying if your RO deems you as one without potential to take on any greater role 1-2 years into the teaching.

Even for geo 3-4, P6 is not common, unless you have been formally appointed.

Focus on your T&L. Take on additional roles to show your drive (being in staff welfare committee etc), but manage your workload so that you don’t get exhausted. It helps to have good pr skills

March
 

Here comes March, the anticipation of March Hols, PB and the possible promotions. Jia you comrads.

As for promotion, is it impossible to get promoted for two consecutive years for a teacher who is 3 to 4 years into teaching? As for PB, I heard that for the year after promotion, the standard grade is a C, is that right?

the year after promotion, unless you ate doing something way above what u were doing, its hard to justify a superb grade

guven that the grade is contextual to your current new post

It's not a hard and fast rule. I got a B in the year after my promotion from GEO2-3 so it's definitely possible. But it must be justified by work done.

Happened before, I knew of a colleague who was promoted from GEO 3 - 4 - 5 in 2 years straight. But that was before the pay revision days..

On another note, anyone who caught wind of their promotion, do share here so we know the news is in, please!

It wasn't uncommon for above average teachers to go from 1A1 to 1A2 then 1A3 in the span of two promotion cycles back then.

Ever since they rolled out the 2015 payscales, this doesn't really happen much anymore. At least 2 to 3 years between promotions.

There is no standard grade. If in the year of promotion you are still performing consistently above expectations of your new subgrade, you can still get C+ (fairly common) or even B.

This is true, but I've also heard of schools/clusters where the leaders lean towards awarding default C in promotion year.

Hi all, I previously mentioned that I was worried about a moderator coming in for me. I was told the day after my final NIE supervisor visited that I would be moderated for a fail and that the moderator would come in week 9.

It’s week 9 now, I have 3 more days left not knowing when the moderator could possibly show up. I suspect it will be today, the same period that my supervisor was observing the previous week.

Not sure if the moderator’s say is final, hopefully it is because I hope to prove myself(the lesson observation by the supervisor was a sh*tstorm of bad things happening at once). Wish me luck guys.

All the best - and if the worst happens, don't take it as the end of the world. There's still hope if you have a good attitude and are able to work on improving yourself.

What kind of work would justify a newly promoted GEO3 getting B? Care to share a little on what you were doing and your portfolio in that year? Generally would assume that impact goes beyond just T&L right

I suppose it differs from school to school. In my school, where its a norm to have two committees, I was playing a leading role in both, and had been given opportunities to plan for school level events. The competition teams I headed also went on to do quite well. In other words, I was probably contributing more than colleagues with the same subgrade.

Led the organizing team for combined UG camp as well as assisted DM with organising overseas trip for at-risk students as part of student development committee. Generally should be in more than one committee and also take initiative to conduct large scale activities beyond just your subject class. That’s on top of showing that your repertoire for T&L has expanded.

Thank you! Just finished the meeting with the moderator. The lesson wasn’t perfect but I hope it means I won’t end up having to do a repracticum.

I have a colleague who did a repracticum in my school. Turns out it was just incompatibility with the mentor. He's doing really well now, even conducting teacher led workshops at national level. Even if thr worst were to happen, chin up and keep working to improve.

Not sure if too late now, but you can consider taking a long term mc and leave this practicum if you think you are bound to fail. Next practicum will be considered as “first” and you won’t face penalty of paying for nie fees when doing repracticum. If the school is bent on failing you, it will be a difficult year for you even if you scrape through this time. Remember that there is still the one year probation, and people do fail that as well

is it that difficult?

That’s good to hear. Both of my CTs were very ‘involved’ at the start but suddenly stopped giving much feedback around week 6. I can’t say that their feedback was very constructive for my development. As I struggled to fix the mistakes they pointed out, new areas for improvements always popped up in the APT forms.

At this point reprecticum doesn’t sound that bad at all. I fear they might fail me during the probation as another poster pointed out. Thank you for all the encouragement and feedback.

It's not difficult but it can be unnecessarily and unfairly political. Any of the people in school involved in your practicum grading (VP Acad, SCM, CTs) has enough influence to cause you to fail, if for any reason at all they don't wish to work with you in the same school for at least 2 more years.

Within my batch (CS1 class) there were two such cases. They are doing so well in their respective schools that helped them pass their re-practicum.

May I know what are the different cep terms that were used? Not in KP so don't really understand these terms and what do they mean.

CEP is not openly discussed, so rarely you will need to use the term. Even if you are a Kp, the lingo (P6, P7, P8 etc) is only used during review of cep.

So does it mean P6 is the best? Like SEO2?

I like to ask who decides the promotion? Is it P or is it HQ?
Some said P will strongly approve every teachers to get promoted but ultimately it is the decision of HQ? Or is it P who strongly recommend a few and these would be accepted by HQ and get promoted?

Usually, P can recommend but they will not be able to accelerate a promotion because this is controlled by MOE-HR. And there are rules a) scholar/non-scholar status b) job performance for the past x years c) CEP and d) Number of years in that job grade e)age.

Usually, a person who has a higher CEP may only need 3-4 A/Bs to move up to the next grade whereas someon who has similar grades but lower CEP will just have to wait for their turn.

Nowadays, promotion in job grade has stalled significantly so it is not suprising that a jump of each job grade may just take like 5 years or more rather than the 3 years. For higher job grades such as SEOs, it will also depends on the number of vailable positions nationally.

It is the role of the P to indicate to HQ not to promote people to failure. This is especially crucial if the officer has been in the job grade for a number of years and is not performing well. If the officer is promoted to the next job grade, then it is even tougher for him/her to perform to the expectations.

wow hard truths.

s://.todayonline.com/singapore/cap-teachers-working-hours-1838626

So much bull excrement.

There is a big difference between responding to a genuine need of a student after hours, and responding to a sch leader's or HOD's urgent call for work to be done after hours that is a direct result of their incompetent planning or poor foresight.

I would do the former ANYDAY, again and again and again as much as the students need me. But the latter is the one happening most of the time. We sign up as teachers to give our students the best, not to give our worthless managers their best fluffy worthless KPIs.

You can choose not to do the work and to also not reply them. Take charge. If anyone penalises you for not replying after office hours, you can always complain them to their superiors.

yes complain!

Fresh NIE Grad
 

Hello,

I just started my journey joining this fraternity since the past 3 months. I do have 5 years bond to serve and have a couple of questions hoping to hear from your sharing.

1. Will teachers be penalised or marked down if the students were not able to perform and give results? Eg. Considering I am a BT, my school is very result driven in ensuring the students get excellent grades.

2. How will we be rank as a BT? I don’t quite understand how this ranking system works or the kind of game plan. Eg. Are we going to be marked down every time we screw up. I always believe we learnt from mistakes. It’s almost impossible to be perfect especially managing the crazy teacher workload. :/

3. Please share do some tips to safeguard myself as a BT. Obviously, I’m always being arrowed within my meeting discussion sharing, FTship, dept, cca and committee. Sad reality!

I really enjoy teaching with my students so far. I hope to survive long enough to clear my bond and not burnt out or give up halfway. I try to be positive for the most part but at times I’m already feeling annoyed and tired being arrowed all the time.

Happy Upcoming March Hols Teachers! :)

PB
 

Hi, am very new to this system. Can someone enlighten me when will our Performance grade be made known and where can we locate the information & also when will PB be paid out?

Welcome to the teaching fraternity. We all make mistakes, but whether it is serious enough to bring it up during ranking depends on whether these mistakes are repeated frequently, whether they are avoidable, and also what the consequences are.

I would say most schools are reasonable enough to consider the fact that you are BT as a mitigating factor, but some things cannot be compromised regardless. Some of these non-negotiables include safety of the students, integrity of exam protocols, as well as baseline expectations of an educator.

Ranking is done by comparing your performance with others that are in the same subgrade as you. You will not be discussed with teachers who are more senior in the GEO4/GEO5 category, as they will be ranked against their peers in the same subgrade. Schools rarely assign C- or D grade to the lowest subgrade as the expectations are also much lower than those of the higher subgrades, unless you are really performing way below expectations.

Some tips I have would be:
♦ Stay student-centric but don't overcommit yourself to acts that you know cannot be sustained in the long run (easy to burn out)
♦ Always find time to mark. It piles up easily.
♦ Not sure, clarify. Keep your RO and ICs informed.
♦ Keep track of deadlines. There are a lot of deadlines and it is important to give a good impression by sticking to the deadlines given instead of missing them.
♦ Do not be calculative and make friends even across your department. Help when you are able to; it really makes your life a lot easier in the long run.
♦ Instead of thinking you are being arrowed, be clear and selective of your preference. You cannot siam work one, esp with so many students and teachers who will inevitably get Ag+ and others have to cover. Instead, arrow yourself in areas that you are good at, so that you can deflect other arrows.

I would say teaching involves a lot of pple skill. Manage parents, manage students, manage colleagues, manage bosses.

3rd week of March. From past years experiences it is usually over the Fri Sat Sun weekend. Previously, it was emailed to us or accessible on pac@gov. Now with workpal, perhaps it will be uploaded there just like our pay information?

Used to be able to get payslips (including PB with grade) via email, but guess it's all via HRP now.

I received the notice via email around 20 Mar in the last two years, with payment made out around 3 days after that.

1) Based on personal experience, delivering good results is an added advantage as it boosts credibility of your T&L strategies. This could also open up new possibilities some years down, when the management decides to offer you mentorship roles to help strengthen T&L for others in the dept / sch.

2) Ranking is done at every substantive grade. All teachers in the same grade will be assessed for their contributions in T&L, FTship, CCA, Committee work, Professional development etc. Before the ranking exercise, ROs would have to get feedback from the respective project / programme owners / comm heads on individual teachers' contributions, strengths and AFIs. So, during the actual ranking exercise, there are active discussions on basically which teacher had a greater impact etc...

Whether or not you get penalised for mistakes depends on the gravity of the situation. Based on hearsay, there are 3 areas you cannot fault in: Money, Exam, Students' Safety.

3) Perhaps you could view the "arrowing" of jobs as opportunities for others in the school to get to know your talents and working style better :) See things positively!

When will oyea results be out?

Around middle of the year.

Very wise words. Good to see some positivity in this forum. Take care everyone

Is this when interviews to be a finalist starts?

positivity can only take you so far. all the best.