Schools Archives - Page 4 of 4

A different kind of school …

Posted on October 31, 2012February 13, 2016 by admin

I have been doing relief teaching this week in a school where every student has a macbook and their textbooks are all stored in their macbooks. So they only bring one ultra light laptop to school instead of a stack of textbooks. They answer the e-book questions in their e-journals and draw graphs using software. At the same time, they are able to access the internet for more info to do their classroom projects. Every morning, because i’m a relief teacher, i have to borrow a macbook from the IT dept to take class attendance and to show science videos on the internet. I don’t go from classroom to classroom to teach Science; I sit in a dedicated Science lab surrounded by scientific apparatus and prepare for students to arrive. And these students are not college students; they are just 12 to 13 year-olds.

Wouldn’t it be great if every school in Singapore is like this, where teachers have dedicated subject rooms and technology is heavily utilised, from primary schools to junior colleges? All schools, instead of just some elite independent schools? Students sit around me instead of facing me. Students sit in groups facing one another instead of sitting individually facing the whiteboard. All classrooms are air-conditioned for comfort and the class sizes are between 20 to 24 (it seems that the school believes that every child is Gifted).

Ilyasa

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EDUCATIONAL SERVICES:

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By EX-MOE TEACHERS & EXPERIENCED TUTORS

@ BLK 644, BUKIT BATOK CENTRAL, #01-68. S(650644).

CALL 65694897 OR SMS 98530744 OR 97860411.

Schools

Direct School Admission (DSA) to Sec Schools …

Posted on May 19, 2012February 13, 2016 by admin

TUITION CLASSES:

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EDUCATIONAL SERVICES:

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By EX-MOE TEACHERS & EXPERIENCED TUTORS

@ BLK 644, BUKIT BATOK CENTRAL, #01-68. S(650644).

CALL 65694897 OR SMS 98530744 OR 97860411.

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ORIGINAL POST (OUTDATED):

According to the MOE, “The Direct School Admission (DSA) Exercise aims to promote holistic education by giving participating schools greater flexibility in selecting students while holding to the key principles of transparency and meritocracy. For students, the DSA provides them the opportunity to demostrate a more diverse range of achievements and talents in seeking admission to secondary schools.”

The 2012 DSA-Sec Exercise will be conducted in 3 stages from 25 June 2012 to late Nov 2012.

For more information on the DSA-Sec, click here to visit MOE’s website on DSA.

List of Secondary Schools Participating in 2012 DSA-Sec Exercise —for Admission to Secondary One in 2013: click here.

Educational Advice, Schools

There’s no such thing as a ‘Top’ Primary School …

Posted on February 28, 2012February 13, 2016 by admin

Yes, there’s no such thing as a ‘top’ primary school, for the simple reason that entry into pri schools is not based on some kind of entrance exam or placement test. So not surprisingly, a student from RGPS can end up in a normal stream of a ‘neighbourhood’ sec school.

I’ve tutored weak math sec students who came from ‘brand name’ primary schs. They are no different from students who come from almost-unheard-of pri schools. In fact, even some students from IP schools are not as academically as good as those from ‘neighbourhood’ schools. The former just happen to be early bloomers.

However, there IS such a thing as a “rich-kids’ primary school”, which arises because the neighbourhood in which the sch is situated consists of mainly landed properties or condos. Well, if you are the kind who feels better only if you mix with people of the same social status as you are, then go to such schools and I wish you all the best in life.

And, there IS such a thing as a primary school with good teachers. You have to seek out such schools if your child is not an independent learner. But please bear in mind that good teachers do move around or get posted elsewhere or ironically get promoted to a non-teaching post.

A good school is one that adds value to your child.

If you think about it deeply, the notion of a ‘top school’ is problematic. Is a school that attracts top students a good school? Bear in mind that teachers in such schools may teach too fast and expect a lot from students yet do minimal teaching work. Is a school that produces good results in national exams a good school? Well, of course a sch that takes in bright students tend to produce above-average results; it’s something expected, and not something necessarily due to the extraordinary skills of the teachers or some kind of super learning programme (I studied in RI and RJC, so I can say a bit about the kinds of teachers back then).

So do all these mean that a primary school that consistently produces good PSLE results is a good school, since pri schools do not admit their pri 1 students based on results? From a pragmatic Singaporean point of view, or from a pure academic one, yes. So is there a primary school in Singapore that produces admirable PSLE results for MOST of its students year after year, and not just for its GEP students (if any)?

Please bear in mind that the primary schools with GEP students are not themselves the ones who produce the gifted students. The gifted students are first identified through a national selection test and then posted to those primary schools with GEP classes.

_______________________________________

TUITION CLASSES:

_______________________________________________________________

EDUCATIONAL SERVICES:

______________________________________________________________

By EX-MOE TEACHERS & EXPERIENCED TUTORS

@ BLK 644, BUKIT BATOK CENTRAL, #01-68. S(650644).

CALL 65694897 OR SMS 98530744 OR 97860411.

A. Math, Educational Advice, Pure Physics, Schools

Just finished Sec 4 IP Math and Physics tuition…

Posted on February 26, 2012February 13, 2016 by admin

Sunday mornings are very tiring for me – 2 hrs of Sec 4 IP Math followed by 1.5 hrs of Sec 4 Pure Physics tutoring. The topics we are doing now are Trigonometry, Differentiation and DC Circuits.

Apparently, some schools are slower than others. Sec 4 students should now already be doing Differentiation and DC Circuits, but some are still at graphs of trigonometrical functions and electrostatics or even sound!

Every year, my tuition students who are weak in Math come from two ‘very good’ schools in the west. I shall not name the schools but I think the lower sec Math teachers in these schools need to get closer supervision from their superiors. This is what I have been trying to tell parents – ‘good’ schools do not necessarily have good teachers. Some of these schools attain good results because their students are academically good in the first place, not because they have outstanding teachers. If you enter a ‘good’ school, chances are, the teachers there think you are already very smart, so they teach fast and make you do a lot of ‘independent’ learning, and justifying these actions using the ‘Teach Less Learn More’ philosophy.

Last but not least, I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: SEC 2 MATH IS VERY IMPORTANT, ESPECIALLY THE ALGEBRA PART.

For our latest timetable, click here =>

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By EX-MOE TEACHERS & EXPERIENCED TUTORS

@ BLK 644, BUKIT BATOK CENTRAL, #01-68. S(650644).

CALL 65694897 OR SMS 98530744 OR 97860411.

Personal, Schools

If you are choosing a sec school, ……..

Posted on November 25, 2011December 20, 2012 by admin

I realise that the green MOE booklet, “Choosing Your Secondary Schools”, only lists the cut-off aggregate score for a particular school. This is helpful to some extent, but you also need to consider the MEDIAN aggregate PSLE score of the Sec 1 pupils of that school for the past 3 years or so, to estimate your chances of getting in, or the probability of being selected for good additional learning programmes provided by the school.

To put it simply, the median is the “average” PSLE aggregate score of the Sec 1 students. So if your score is lower than the median, and you still manage to get into the school because your score happens to be higher than the last student accepted into the school, you’ll find yourself enrolled into the “bottom class” of that school. For some schools, this MAY mean getting “less capable” teachers or less enrichment programmes.

You can find out a school’s median PSLE aggregate score through this link provided by the MOE; http://app.sis.moe.gov.sg/schinfo/.

Of course there are other considerations in choosing a school, such as school type, academic band and distance from home. Well, I wish all of you post-PSLE students all the best in your secondary school selection.

Rgds,

Ilyasa