Principles of Accounts

Introduction

Accounting is an information system based on accepted accounting principles. It involves the recording and processing of business transactions and communicating the information to stakeholders. Accounting information is used to evaluate business performance and facilitate decision-making. What sets the accountancy profession apart is the responsibility to act in the public’s interest.

Principles of Accounts (POA), Syllabus 7087 and 7086, is designed to teach age-appropriate and relevant accounting knowledge, skills and values. In addition, students will understand how businesses use accounting and non-accounting information to make decisions. Through the subject, they will acquire transferrable skills that they can apply in their daily lives.

This subject forms part of a broad-based education to equip students with strong fundamentals for future learning. It is offered as an elective subject at Secondary Three and examinable at the Singapore-Cambridge General Certificate of Education (GCE) Ordinary Level (O-Level) and Normal (Academic) Level (N(A)-Level).

Aims

The primary aim of the POA syllabus is to develop in students the knowledge and skills to prepare, communicate and use both accounting information and non-accounting information related to business to make decisions.

Students need to understand the purpose of the information and how business activities are measured and represented before becoming users of accounting information. Hence, the syllabus aims to first equip students with the basic knowledge and skills on how to prepare and present accounting information and communicate with them in a useful manner that can be understood by others.

The syllabus then aims to help students to become users of accounting information and make informed decisions using both accounting and non-accounting business-related information. By learning to become users of information, students understand:

• what business decisions are
• how decisions are made using accounting information
• the limitations of relying only on accounting information; and
• the consideration of non-accounting business-related information.

Approach and Pedagogy

• Adoption of Mixed Mode Delivery (MMD) such as case study, demonstration, discussion, explicit teaching, games, inquiry, pair work, and think-pair-share
• Linkage of concepts that students learn in the classroom to authentic businesses
• Practice of Assessment for Learning through relevant toolkits
• Usage of Differentiated Instructions (DI)
• Participation in competitions by external organisations and learning journeys
• Infusion of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) through platforms such as Student Learning Space (SLS), Classkick, Google Classroom, Screencast-O-Matic and Zoom and applications such as Kahoot!, Mentimeter and Padlet
• Formation of POA Networked Learning Community (NLC) East Zone
• Collaboration between schools on the sharing of Question Papers and Marks Schemes of Weighted Assessments, Mid-year Examinations, End-of-year Examinations and Preliminary Examinations

Links

Syllabus 7087: Singapore-Cambridge GCE O-Level
Syllabus 7086: Singapore Cambridge GCE N(A)-Level

Scheme of Assessment

There are two compulsory papers.

Syllabus 7087: Singapore-Cambridge GCE O-Level

Syllabus 7086: Singapore Cambridge GCE N(A)-Level