“ARE YOU READY TO CHOOSE ONE?”- A/L student awareness seminar on subject selection

Why Subject selection critical?

The O/L examination is regarded as the qualification examination for starting on GCE(A/L). Specialization streaming is depended on the grades obtained for subjects in the O/L. The country's reputed schools admit students to their A/L, depending on the O/L grades.

Senior Secondary (O/L) education lasts for two years, grade 10- 11, after which students have to sit for the G.C.E. ordinary level to qualify for Senior Secondary G.C.E. (A/L) education which lasts another two years until students are prepared for the G.C.E. Advanced level examination.

Since the students nowadays are used to have extra classes for almost all the A/L subjects, they have to make a decision on which stream they are going to follow without having the advantage of deciding based on their O/L results. At this situation the students are in a confused period of time and we thought to give them a helping hand to ease their pressure.

How it was done…

First we thought of the place where it would be the best to conduct this event. Since Welimada is an area where a lot of students come from, we thought it would be the best place and We chose the main hall of the school as it was very convenient and it is a place where we could gather students from a larger area.

Awareness session

Leo Kanishka Pubudu was conducted this session. As he mentioned as his speech that he was also really confused and was in the same position as all the participants are. He told them that he has asked from several elder students and a number of teachers what he should do and has followed almost all the classes in the beginning, because he was unable to take the correct decision at once. He has provided many important tips in his speech and was a very enjoyable one indeed.

Group activity

Since the students were listening to speeches for a while it started to get a bit uneasy. And it was the best time to have the group activity. They were grouped and then given topics to do a presentation based on the topic they were given. All the groups did short dramas and most of them were very much entertaining.

We all had a great time with the students and we shared our experiences with them. They were very happy about the whole session and they asked us to do it in the next year also.

API AKURATA MELI NOWEMU- A HELPING HAND FOR O/L STUDENTS OF Madewela Maha Vidyalaya, Welimada

It was the end of November and the Ordinary Level exams are closing in. We, Leos of Leo Club of University of Moratuwa decided to give a helping hand to a set of students who are not having the guidance of a mathematics teacher in their school. Since those children do not have enough facilities to learn privately and they do not have enough learning material, we have chosen Madewela Maha Vidyalaya, Welimada as the place to conduct the seminar on 11^th November 2011 from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Objectives of the project

• Motivate the students to face the exam in a comfortable manner
• Since they were not provided with adequate learning material, provide them a standard set of papers which could be used as a model paper.
• Teach students the missing parts of the syllabus, and through their knowledge in certain areas
• Give a practice to them in facing a real exam
• Motivate students to carry out their careers towards higher education
• Give them an idea about Leoism..
• Teach them about the world they are going to step into, the challenges they have to face and the knowledge the world heavily depends on.

The workshop began at 8.00 am at the main hall of Madewela Maha Vidyalaya, Welimada. More than 150 students participated in the event from a number of schools in the area. One week before the seminar we have sent letters all the schools to participate in the seminar. We had good response from almost all the schools, which resulted in the lack of space in the hall on the day event was held.

All the students were willing to answer the problems which were shown on the screen(multimedia) which showed their appetite in learning new methods and techniques. We could teach them easy ways and methods of solving problems, how to remember certain important points and how to manage the remaining time to prepare for the exam.

The students were given a complete model exam paper and some other additional notes. We could discuss the problems they had regarding the exam. We could give some solutions to their problems. They were clearly advised how to spend each minute at the exam in the most effective way. How to read the paper, select questions, manage time and many more tips which are priceless when facing an exam paper.

We have given them an idea about Leoism and what we do as a University Leo Club. The videos shown to them have given them a lot of hope and motivation to go and do higher studies without stopping education after O/Levels. We educated them about the areas they can steer their careers and how to get in to those paths and what will they achieve.

Finally we could motivate the students to face the exam in a confident manner using our experiences as well. At the end of the day it was a great experience we had teaching them, and it is our hope that they will do well and achieve the best results in the exam.

“Tips to succeed in your O/L” – Workshop for passing O/L with fine colours

Leo Tharindu Gallappatthi had organized a workshop in a different theme, ‘Tips to succeed in your O/L’. It was launched on 11^th of November in the afternoon. All the students were very interested on that hearing the topic of the workshop, as they are facing to ordinary level exam this year or next year.

The very first activity of the workshop was an exercise to improve our memorizing ability, done by Leo Tharindu. Then he discussed about time management. The body of his lecture was about how to manage the limited time given to answer to a paper effectively. And also they did some methods used to memorize the subject matters easily.

And also in his lecture Leo Tharindu spoke about how to prepare a time table to study for the exam effectively. There are about 1 month left to this year’s ordinary level exam. Leo Tharindu advised to manage the time from now on and start preparing for the exam from now on.

All the students were given a chance to question if any doubts. They asked lot of questions on the way of answering the exam papers. They were able to clarify a lot of doubts they had regarding the exam.