In our previous post, we wrote about Oxford Fajar's Complete Study Solution which includes resources to help students revise, practise, assess and reinforce their learning.
This post touches on the first level of books recommended for students at the start of a school year ie Revision Books.
Revision Books by Oxford Fajar provide comprehensive notes covering the essential concepts and facts of each topic and present them in a clear manner. Examples and tips are included to bolster students' understanding.
Revision Books published by Oxford Fajar are catered to student's learning styles
Did you know that the Revision Books series published by Oxford Fajar are actually tailored to cater to student's learning styles? This insight will be useful to you when selecting books to buy for your child's revision.
For Visual Learners
The Amazing series is designed for visual learners ie students who study best with diagrams, charts, and full coloured images. These books will have more visual guides for students who study best visually. Below are examples of the Revision Series books. - Amazing Sains and Amazing Matematik Tambahan for Form 4 students.
Additional digital resources such as videos, notes, interactive quizzes help students learn more effectively.
For Comprehensive Learning
The Success Series are for learners that need full comprehensive revision books. These books are detailed with comprehensive notes for each topic including examples and tips. Below are examples of the Success Series - Success Bahasa Melayu UPSR and Success Science KSSM PT3
For Quick Revision on-the-go
The Whizz Thru Series as its name suggest is a compact guidebook with notes and exercises designed for learners on-the-go looking for a quick revision to guide them through their lessons. Below are examples of the Whizz Thru Series - Whizz Thru Matematik KSSM PT3 and Whizz Thru UPSR Express Notes English.
Did you find this information useful? We hope this knowledge of how the publication of these revision books have been done with careful design and purpose will help you choose the right revision guides for your child.
Wish to try a set of these revision books? Join our Facebook giveaway. 5 lucky winners will have the chance to win a set of revision guides for your child's level whether primary or secondary school.
When is Chinese New Year 2020?
It's December 2019 right now. Isn't it a bit early to talk about Chinese New Year school holidays? School hasn't even started yet! However, as most of us Malaysians know, we have to plan ahead for everything. If you are going to be travelling around this time, you need to book your flight or bus tickets and there's accommodation to take care of too.
In 2020, Chinese New Year falls on 25th and 26th January. Well, that just happens to be a Saturday and a Sunday. What about the Chinese New Year festive school holidays?
According to the Festive Holiday calendar issued by the Ministry of Education, the Chinese New Year school holidays is as follows:
22 Jan (Wed) and 23 Jan (Thur) for schools in Kumpulan A 23 Jan (Thur) and 24 Jan (Fri) for schools in Kumpulan B
What this means...
Schools in Kumpulan A which observe Fri and Sat as weekends ie Johor, Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu will have days off from 22 - 26 Jan 2020 (Wed to Sun). School reopens on the 3rd day of CNY for schools in Kumpulan A
*CP = Cuti Perayaan allocated to schools for CNY festive holiday
** 24th Jan is a weekend, therefore it is an off day
Schools in Kumpulan B which observe Sat and Sun as weekends ie Perlis, Pulau Pinang, Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Melaka, Pahang, Sabah, Sarawak, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Labuan and Putrajaya will have days off from 23 - 27 Jan 2020 (Thur to Mon). Schools reopen on the 4th day of CNY for schools in Kumpulan B
*CP = Cuti Perayaan allocated to schools for CNY festive holiday
** Monday, 27th January 2020 is a replacement day off for Kump B which observes Sat and Sun as weekend
Now that you know the dates, you can use these dates as a guide to plan your balik kampung trips. It's only slightly over a month away.
As we wind down for the year 2019, some parents are starting to plan for the new academic year 2020 by buying reference texts and even workbooks. There are so many options in the physical as well as online bookshops that while this means that we are fortunate to be so spoilt for choice, we can also be a little bit confused.
Which books to buy? There are revision books, topical practice books (according to textbooks topics), model test papers based on past year papers, memory cards etc.
This is where Oxford Fajar's Complete Study Solution come in handy. It is essential for students to practice repetitive revision by using various materials and study methods. You can use it as a buying guide to decide what types of books to buy at which stage.
The Oxford Fajar's Complete Study Solution
1. Revise Topics Learned at School.
It is recommended that at the start of school, you first select revision guides to help studentsREVISE.Revision guides help students to understand what they are learning at school with comprehensive notes. You can use this as a daily revision book to supplement or compliment school textbooks.
2. Practice, practice, practice!
Next, workbooks that help students go more in depth into each topic for further PRACTICEis useful to reinforce learning. These books come with exercises to help students explore each topic they have learned more thoroughly.
3. Assessment is necessary to prepare for exams
After revision and practices, it is time for assessment. Model test papers focusing on past year test papers are useful to prepare students for the next step in learning ie examinations. While Tahap 1 students ie P1 to P3 students are no longer tested at schools with exams to move away from an exam-oriented environment, it is still useful to have some sort of informal assessment at home to gauge if your child has understood what they have learned at school. Parents can get these mid-year and end of year assessments to ASSESS their knowledge at home in a safe, no exam pressure environment.
4. Reinforce with study notes
Oxford Fajar has study tools like memory booster cards to help students recall key topics of importance quickly at a glance. This is the last stage of workbooks required to REINFORCElearning before students sit for their school exams. They can be bought together with the Past Year papers or assessment workbooks to prepare for examinations.
Dear readers, we hope this post has helped you to see how workbooks are published with certain intent and purpose. Knowing this will help us to select the right kinds of books for every stage of learning from start of school to exam season.
As before, we will be doing giveaways for lucky winners. This week 5 lucky winners will win a set each of revision books tailored for their child's level from Standard One to Form 5.
Do you know the difference between ‘menjunjung’, ‘menggalas’, ‘mengelek’, ‘menatang’ and ‘mengandar’? These words mean ‘to carry something’ but they are used with specific objects and done in different ways. Parents in our group have been asking these types of question over and over again as even they too are confused making it a challenge to guide their kids.
Did you know that the ‘Kata Hampir Sama Makna’ on the Oxford Fajar Kamus Bahasa Melayu CW (Companion Website) will tell you exactly how they are different, with pictures! There are other words, not just about ‘carry something’. The Companion Website is available exclusively to all owners of the Kamus Bahasa Melayu who are registered users.
A good Malay dictionary will help the learner to learn not only new vocabulary but it will also help them with grammar to a certain degree. For example, in Oxford Fajar's Kamus Bahasa Melayu (Kamus BM), there are Nota Bahasa windows containing grammar notes.
The Kamus BM is designed to cater for student's needs. The layout is more user friendly. Apart from italics and bold font, colours (black and blue) are used to provide emphasis on different language aspects such as antonyms, 'peribahasa' and 'perkataan berimbuhan', making it easier for the learner to look for and notice them. These language aspects are included in the dictionary not only to help them to enrich their vocabulary but also to improve their language mastery.
The dictionary also provides full example sentences to assist students to understand the context of the words and help them to familiarize themselves with grammatically correct sentences. Not only does the dictionary familiarize students with grammatically correct sentences, it also helps students to build new ones by providing 'kelas kata' (part of speech) for all the words included. It is important for students to know this since parts of speech are the building blocks of sentences.
Locating 'perkataan berimbuhan' can be very challenging if you do not know the root of the word since the content of a dictionary is arranged alphabetically by root words. With that in mind Kamus BM has included Carian Pantas Kata to help users.
The CW or Companion Website also provides Carian Pantas Peribahasa to help users to locate a ‘peribahasa’ in the dictionary, very much like how Carian Pantas Kata works.
Kamus BM was reviewed by Professor Emeritus Datuk Dr. Nik Safiah Karim – a renown Malay linguist expert.
All of these extra bonuses in Kamus BM make it a useful companion for the Malay language learner.
Dictionaries help learners to learn languages, they are not mere references for improving vocabulary alone.
Dear Readers, join our Facebook giveaway for a chance to win a Kamus Bahasa Melayu for your child. We have 5 to giveaway. Will you be the lucky one? Good Luck!
In this post, we will zoom in on monolingual English Dictionaries by Oxford Fajar Malaysia. As we mentioned in our earlier post, it is important to get an age appropriate dictionary because the dictionary is specifically written with an understanding of where students are in their development, and entries in the dictionary include the kind of language they will understand and can relate to.
Here are two best selling English dictionary for students from Oxford Fajar
For Primary School Students - Oxford Essential Dictionary The Oxford Essential Dictionary is suitable for primary school students. With Oxford 2000 keywords showing the most important words to learn, words and phrases are explained in an easy language.
It includes 400 illustrations to help explain the more difficult words, 500 notes on spelling, grammar and speaking, 1,000 synonyms and opposites and 120 pronunciation boxes aimed at helping students avoid mistakes, learn new words and say them correctly.
It comes with a CD-ROM containing the full dictionary, Picture Dictionary, exercises, language games, Oxford Genie and NEW iGuide, an interactive tutorial to help students explore dictionary entries.
For Secondary School Students - Oxford Student's Dicionary
The Oxford Student's Dictionary is suitable for secondary school students. With Oxford 3000 keywords showing the most important words to learn, the Academic Word List are clearly marked.
Collocations and thesaurus boxes help to expand student's vocabulary.
It includes 48 study pages to support student's academic writing and a guide to common areas.
There is also a bilingual word list for Science and Mathematics terms which is useful for learners to use English to study other subjects.
As with the Oxford Essential Dictionary, it comes with a CD-ROM
with Oxford Genie, iGuide, Exercises and Videos
Want to own one of these Oxford Fajar English Monolingual Dictionaries?
We have 5 to giveaway to readers, members and followers.
Click here to join our Facebook giveaway. Its simple. All you have to do is Like, Tag and Share and tell us which of these English Dictionaries you would like to have
1. Oxford Essential Dictionary recommended for primary school students
2. Oxford Student's Dictionary recommended for secondary school students
Have you started your back to school shopping for 2020 yet? The school holidays may have just started but its not too early to start now as many retailers have started their back to school promotions.
Here's a quick look at some of the back to school shopping promotions from local retailers.
1. Back to School promo from Aeon Big (8 Nov - 31 Dec 2019)
There's a 20% discount for school uniforms from unform brands like Canggie, U-Cemerlang, MNK, Unggul and WHH School Classic Attire at Aeon Big. Note also that white shoes are now going cheap with just one more year to go before it is totally phased out in 2021. You can buy 2 pairs of white shoes for RM20 whereas a black pair starts from RM27 per pair. School bags are colourful and there is a big range from RM10.90 to RM188!
Aeon Retail sells Alpha Kids and Canggih brands of uniforms. You can find just about anything including short sleeve shirts, long sleeve blue shirts, long pants, short pants, pinafores, baju melayu at various prices. You can also find J-Kids brand of inner clothing for boys and girls. Bags selection are around RM39 to RM169 and mostly black shoes sold.
Besides uniforms, shoes and bags, you will need stationery, food containers, water tumblers. Do view the catalogue before you go shopping and circle some items that you have in mind to make shopping more organized and faster.
Uniform brands at parkson include Parkson School Shop and Canggih. Shoe brands include Bata, Pallas, Barbie and Hot Wheels. There are plenty of gift ideas for the little ones with coordinated bags and school stationery with famous cartoon characters.
A Star and Canggih uniform brands can be found at Tesco. Bag prices range from RM20 to RM200. As with the others, white shoes are going cheap. Note that the back to school promotion at Tesco ends on 4 December 2019.
Hope this compilation helps readers. Always be prepared with a list before you go shopping. Downloading the catalogue to compare prices is a quick way to do research before you spend. Circling the items you would like to get makes your back to school shopping more efficient without too much browsing and lingering around. The cashier lines can get rather long around this time of the year with holiday shopping as well.
It's that time of the year to start preparing and looking forward to the next year. This is especially exciting for parents with children going to school for the first time in 2020.
It's that time of the year to start shopping for school uniforms, bags, shoes and stationery. It's that time of the year to start wrapping books and labelling them. Gone are the days when we used to wrap books using recycled calendars from the year before. Now we have pre-cut plastic wrappers that make life so much easier. All you need to do is slip them into the books and voila your wrapping is done!
Nowadays we also have lovely, cute and fun personalized labels to label all of your child's stuff from tumblers to pencil cases and pencils, spectacles and even shoes. These school labels come in various sizes and can be personalized with your child's name, colour and favourite design. You can stick them on or iron them onto fabrics with special iron-on labels.
Iron-on labels are good for school uniforms and particularly useful if you send your child to after school care. You can also iron-them onto extra school curricular uniforms or gym clothing.
Pencils and colour pencils often get lost and one of the ways to prevent this is to use small labels to label the colour pencils.
Now, you can design and order your personalized name labels online and have them delivered to your home from Fun Printz. Orders of RM90 and above get free shipping from now till 5th, January 2020. Tip: If you are a first timer and not sure which to get out of the many types of labels available, choose the value packs. They come with different types of labels in a set including Small, Medium and Large labels, Round Shoe Labels, Iron-on Labels and bag tags too.
Want to try these labels for yourself! Fun Printz , has generously offered 12 prize package for 12 of you lucky readers !.To celebrate back-to-school in style; winners will win a Giveaway Label Pack Package! This is a perfect prize to ensure that your kids’ stuff will come home with them.
The labels are high quality labels and will stick strong and last long on most materials. They are waterproof, scratch- resistant, laundry safe and dryer safe too.
12 Lucky winners will receive a set of Giveaway Label Pack which includes the following labels:
Guest Post: This post was written by Joanne Lee, a mother of two and an avid member of our Facebook group, The Malaysia Primary School Parents on Facebook. Come join us for more modern-day parenting discussions. Recently, a new circular slash guide has been released by the Ministry of Education on the topic of the choosing of subjects since Form 4 students will no longer be subjected to streaming based on their PT3 results beginning 2020. If you are like me, you'd want to know the changes that are going to be implemented to carry out such a change that many consider a drastic and big change.
Let's take a look at what is in store for our Form 4 students in 2020.
Going Streamless
Beginning 2020, students in Form 4 can take SIX (6) core subjects, ONE (1) Compulsory Subject, and a maximum of FIVE (5) elective subjects. This means students can take up to a maximum of 12 subjects.
Core Subjects
Bahasa Melayu
Bahasa Inggeris
Sains
Matematik
Sejarah
Pendidikan Islam/Moral
Students must also take up Pendidikan Jasmani dan Pendidikan Kesihatan (from the compulsory subject list).
Elective Subjects
Here are the 6 elective groups available.
Language Group [11]
Here's what you can choose from in the Language Group.
Bahasa Arab
Bahasa Cina
Bahasa Tamil
Bahasa Iban
Bahasa Kadazandusun
Bahasa Semai
Bahasa Perancis
Bahasa Jepun
Bahasa Jerman
*Bahasa Korea (beginning year 2021)
*Bahasa Cina Komunikasi (beginning year 2021)
Humanities and Art Group [11]
Here's what you can choose from in the Humanities and Arts Group.
Prinsip Perakaunan
Ekonomi
Perniagaan
Pendidikan Seni visual
Pendidikan Musik
Geografi
Kesusasteraan Melayu Komunikatif
Kesusasteraan Inggeris
Kesusasteraan Cina
Kesusasteraan Tamil
Pengajian Keusahawanan (Sekolah Menengah Teknik only)
Islamic Studies Group [13]
Here's what you can choose from in the Islamic Studies Group.
Quran and Sunnah Education
Syariah Islamiah
Tasawur Islam
Usul Al-Din
Al-Syariah
Al-Lughah Al-Arabiah Al-Mu'asirah
Al-Adab wa Al-Balaghah
Al-Manahij Al-Ulum Al-Islami
Hifz Quran
Maharat Quran
Turath Dirasat Al-Islamiah
Turath Bahasa Arab
Turath Al-Quran wa Al-Sunnah
STEM Group [4]
Here's what you can choose from in the STEM Group.
Fizik
Kimia
Biologi
Matematik Tambahan
Applied STEM Science and Technology Group [12]
Here's what you can choose from in the Applied STEM Science and Technology Group.
Grafik Komunikasi Teknikal
Asas Kelestarian
Pertanian
Sains Rumah Tangga
Reka Cipta
Sains Komputer
Sains Sukan
Sains Tambahan (cannot be taken with Core Subject Science)
Pengajian Kejuruteraan Awam (Sekolah Menengah Teknik only)
Pengajian Kejuruteraan Mekanikal (Sekolah Menengah Teknik only)
Pengajian Kejuruteraan Elektrik dan Elektronik (Sekolah Menengah Teknik only)
Lukisan Kejuruteraan (Sekolah Menengah Teknik only)
Vocational Subject Group [22]
Here's what you can choose from in the Vocational Subject Group.
Pembinaan Domestik
Pembuatan Perabot
Produksi Reka Tanda
Menservis Peralatan Elektrik Domestik
Rekaan dan Jahitan Pakaian
Katering dan Penyajian
Landskap dan Nurseri
Tanaman Makanan
Reka Bentuk Grafik Digital
Produksi Multimedia
Pemprosesan Makanan
Akuakultur dan Haiwan Rekreasi
Pendawaian Domestik
Menservis Automoil
Gerontologi sas dan Geriatik
Penjagaan Muka dan Penggayaan Rambut
Asuhan dan Pendidikan Awal Kanak-Kanak
Hiasan Dalaman
Kerja Paip Domestik
Kimpalan Arka dan Gas
Menservis Motosikal
Menservis Peralatan Penyejukan dan Penyamanan Udara
How to Choose Subjects
Students must take 6 core subjects and 1 compulsory subject. However, there are two exemptions they can apply to their choices.
[1] If you take any TWO Pure Science subjects, you can be exempted from taking Science as a core subject.
[2] If you take any TWO of the following subjects, you can be exempted from taking Islamic Studies as a core subject.
Pendidikan al-Quran & al-Sunnah and Pendidikan Syariah Islamiah
Turath Dirasat Al-Islamiah and Turath Al-Quran wa Al-Sunnah
Usul Al-Din and Al-Syariah
With that in mind let's dive into how to choose the elective subjects.
STEM PACKAGE
The STEM Package has 3 options. Bear in mind that these are the minimum packages of subjects you need to take. Once you have chosen the bare minimum subjects, you can top up with other electives from any of the elective groups mentioned above.
Option 1 (Pure Sciences)
Physics
Chemistry
Biology
Additional Mathematics
This option makes things straightforward. You end up with 5 core subjects (exempted from taking Science), 1 compulsory subject and 4 elective subjects. In this case, you can still take one more elective e.g. Visual Arts (see below) making the total subjects taken at 11 subjects.
Option 2
Take TWO (2) Pure Sciences subjects
Take at least ONE (1) elective subject of Applied STEM Science and TechnologyORONE (1) non-STEM elective subject
If you don't want to take all four Pure Sciences, you can take only two Pure Sciences subject and then opt for 1 from the Applied STEM Science and Technology group OR 1 non-STEM elective subject. This is the minimum. You can top up with other electives (maximum of five).
Option 3
Take at least TWO (2) elective subjects from Applied STEM Science and Technology OR ONE (1) Vocational Subject
If you do not want to take any of the Pure Sciences, that's doable. You just need to take at least two subjects from the Applied STEM Science and Technology Group OR one vocational subject.
The first example below shows two subjects from Applied STEM Science and Technology Group and one from the Humanities and Arts Group (total: 10 subjects).
The second example shows two elective subjects from Applied STEM Science and Technology Group and one from the Pure Sciences Group (total: 10 subjects).
The third example (above) shows just one elective vocational subject (total: 8 subjects). You can leave it as this or top up with four more electives.
Humanities and Arts Package
Things are not as restrictive if you are not taking the STEM Package. For the Humanities and Arts route, you can take elective subjects from Language, Islamic studies, Humanities and Arts AND/OR ONE (1) STEM elective subject (except Vocational Subjects).
The first example shows the a choice of the 5 core subjects, 1 compulsory subject and 3 elective subjects. The electives are from the Language group and two from the Islamic Studies group.
This second example shows a choice of 3 elective subjects from the Humanities and Art Group.
Finally, the third choice shows three elective subjects from the Humanities and Arts Group, and one from the STEM group.
Constraints
Understandably, while students can make subject choices like what has been explained above, feasibility is dependent on school capabilities, such as availability of teachers, availability of classes, clashing schedules etc.
Some of the Vocational Subjects are available only in Sekolah Menengah Teknik.
For some of the elective subjects in the language group, students may need to seek classes outside of school, particularly for foreign language elective subjects.
If you want to see the circular in its entirety, please follow this link.
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