Convent JB's SPM top scorers feted

Top SPM girls who scored straight A+ in all subjects

High-Performance School, SMK IJ Convent Johor Baru, has a tradition for excellence and stayed among the top ten schools in the nation for scoring highly in SPM results since 2010.  At a recent event, Johor State Education Director, Tuan Haji Aminudin Adam, congratulated the 93 students who scored straight A’s and praised them for raising the prestige of the school with the best SPM results in Johor for 2014.  Based on the results, Convent JB is ranked sixth nationwide for SPM 2014, which is a proud achievement for a day school.  He praised the students as the pride of JB and encouraged them to work harder to get to the top five schools in the nation.

Top-scorer Sua Zi Yee, 18, who scored A+ in 11 subjects, attributes her success to family and teacher support.  With Chemistry and Biology as her favourite subjects, she aims to pursue studies to be a Pharmacist.  Besides studying, she also plays the piano and guitar and enjoys playing volleyball.  “Just do your best and don’t waste time chatting or playing phone games,” she advised.  She was among ten top students who scored straight A+ in all the subjects.

SPM top students with their teachers, principal and VIPs

A common sentiment among straight A’s students, Tan Sher Min, Lim Kai Li and Cailin Ho Cheng Shan, was the constant encouragement and advice they received from fellow classmates.  “We would ask questions and shared any helpful tips,” said Ho who is doing her A Level studies now.  She said all the teachers were always ready to help whenever they were approached.

Parental support, especially from their mothers, played a vital role in helping these all-rounder students excel in their studies.  For instance, Ho also plays the piano, dances ballet and swims. Tan, who joined Convent JB after completing her primary education in a Chinese school, also plays basketball with a club outside as the school does not have a basketball team.  As for Lim, she also sings in the school choir, plays the piano and badminton and is involved with service projects with the Red Crescent society.

School principal Ng Lee Wan values the support from parents and her team of teachers and attributes the school’s success to good rapport and close working relationships.  Out of the 60 strong staff members, only 4 are male and because everyone has family responsibilities, she is aware that all will work with more commitment when they have peace of mind.  Ng knows that students are well motivated by their teachers and this is why she has an accommodating attitude towards staff members who may have family emergencies and need to apply for leave.

Convent JB's award-winning choir presented
several songs

Ng also believes in the parents’ involvement in their students’ progress.  As a High-Performance School, they have a system of intervention in place to help students meet the desired target.  The after-exam post-mortem exercise aims to analyze results to ascertain how students who can do better may be helped to achieve better results.  “Poor results may be caused by simple reasons like exam fever but when students with weaknesses are identified, counseled and guided, they tend to perform better in exams,” said Ng.

She also said the Heads of Departments and the senior assistant also give their support by doing needs analyses and training junior teachers to observe students in class.  In fact, teachers are trained throughout the year under the Continuous Professional Development programme to keep themselves abreast of developments in the Education Department.

The award-winning SMK IJ Convent Johor Baru choir presented several songs including Lagu Johor and their rendition of Wind Beneath My Wings, was dedicated to their parents and teachers.  They also sang a Spanish song, Lascia Ch’io Pianga, which means “don’t weep” and ended with an impressive performance of Gemilang, our Malaysian Idol’s winning song.

A version of this was published in The Malaysian Insider on 18 April 2015