Anglo-Chinese School (Independent)

[Curious mum]

Hi, would like to confirm if there is school on Tues (27/8/13)…thanks

[breezy]

Curious mum:

Hi, would like to confirm if there is school on Tues (27/8/13)...thanks

Hi curious mum,

Next Tuesday is declared as a school holiday in recognition of the overall good performance for various CCAs.

[centralpark]

Hi, can any of the experienced parents here offer your advice on subject combination for year 3? My son is in IP, more inclined to Humanities, loves History and Geography since preschool, can get A in Maths and Science subjects provided I’m around to guide. Autopilot for History and Geo. Does not pay attention to details.


Is it safe to say that since he is not aiming for triple science combination, we can be more relaxed about the SA2 result? This is after making sure he works hard to do reasonably well to maintain a healthy self esteem?

TIA

[autolycus]

centralpark:

Hi, can any of the experienced parents here offer your advice on subject combination for year 3? My son is in IP, more inclined to Humanities, loves History and Geography since preschool, can get A in Maths and Science subjects provided I'm around to guide. Autopilot for History and Geo. Does not pay attention to details.


Is it safe to say that since he is not aiming for triple science combination, we can be more relaxed about the SA2 result? This is after making sure he works hard to do reasonably well to maintain a healthy self esteem?

TIA

Not sure if focussing on self-esteem is as important as focussing on self-mastery...

That said, the point of an education is to develop; to develop, one must move out of one's comfort zone. Since your son is a humanities student who does not pay attention to details, it's a safe bet that he will suffer in the humanities in Year 5 and 6, but that the teachers will try to rescue him.

From a holistic perspective, he should be doing both core and advanced math, probably chemistry and physics, IHS and history (probably not geography) and his language/lit subjects. A lot of people would say, \"Why force a young person to do subjects he is not naturally inclined to do?\" My response would be, \"Humans wouldn't be toilet-trained, otherwise...\"

On the other hand, if you want to cater to his strengths rather than his all-round education, you could a) switch biology for physics so that he won't need so much guidance; and b) switch geography for history, or try for single-science (that would be chemistry) and do both geography and history. That's overkill, from a professional perspective. In the long term, perhaps not so useful to him. In the short term, results will be fine.

[centralpark]

Thank you autolycus!


Why do you recommend History instead of Geography? Is it because Geo has a data analysis section that is more science based?

What is IHS?

Is double humanities (Hist and Geo) available in years 3 and 4?

Self mastery is definitely one of the aims of education. The tricky part about parenting a lower sec child is determining the rate of giving the child freedom to make mistakes in time management and thus self discipline matters without the parents getting a heart attack when reading the report card. I mentioned self esteem as I feel that even with aptitude in an area, a lazy person usually does not find success without hardwork and end up thinking he is lousy in it.

[autolycus]

centralpark:

Why do you recommend History instead of Geography? Is it because Geo has a data analysis section that is more science based?

History has a larger scope in human terms; human geography is almost a subset of history. However, the physical geography — climatology, meteorology, geomorphology etc — is indeed more science-based. Doing geog/bio/chem is almost too easy, in that sense. Generally, historians learn more about human activity than geographers do, and their skills have broader application. Put another way, historians learn more geography than geographers learn history.

centralpark:

What is IHS?

'Introduction to Human Societies' is a unique ACS(I) IP subject. It is designed to be a 'gateway' to the humanities, combining components of human geography, history, economics and sociology. It's the main reason why ACS(I) IP students can in theory go on to do any humanities subject in Years 5-6. (It was also one of my personal projects. )

centralpark:

Is double humanities (Hist and Geo) available in years 3 and 4?

In theory, yes. After all, ACS(I) IP students don't have to do social studies (that's incorporated into IHS. So they could possibly do only Chem, or only Core Math, and take extra humanities subjects. However, it's a rare combination and I'm not sure they'll allow it unless there is sufficient student demand. There have been such classes in the past.

[Curious mum]

breezy:

Curious mum:

Hi, would like to confirm if there is school on Tues (27/8/13)...thanks

Hi curious mum,

Next Tuesday is declared as a school holiday in recognition of the overall good performance for various CCAs.

Thank you breezy

[centralpark]

Hi autolycus,


Thank you for sharing your wealth of information generously.

I think the best option at present is History and Biology.

DS is more interested in Human Geography than Physical Geography. He has always enjoyed long museum visits. A trivia buff. He is too careless in dealing with numbers in Physics. Biology has less room for careless mistakes. I think what suits him at university will be PPE. Are there overseas universities that offer a good PPE? Other than Oxbridge?

TIA

[autolycus]

centralpark:

DS is more interested in Human Geography than Physical Geography. He has always enjoyed long museum visits. A trivia buff. He is too careless in dealing with numbers in Physics. Biology has less room for careless mistakes. I think what suits him at university will be PPE. Are there overseas universities that offer a good PPE? Other than Oxbridge?

Wow... PPE will kill him if he's not able to construct and sustain long and careful written arguments. He doesn't sound like he's quite PPE-ready type yet, so he'll need to prepare to use those trivia-buff skills to retain a lot of reading material, and to structure it for appropriate use.

PPE is really an Oxford thing; you won't find it at Cambridge, and it's not commonly found elsewhere as a degree course. But an education in one of the small and exclusive liberal-arts colleges in the northeastern USA might suit him well. Dartmouth (NH), Swarthmore (PA) etc — and then off to Harvard for postgrad studies!

[DadOfGirl]

autolycus:

centralpark:

DS is more interested in Human Geography than Physical Geography. He has always enjoyed long museum visits. A trivia buff. He is too careless in dealing with numbers in Physics. Biology has less room for careless mistakes. I think what suits him at university will be PPE. Are there overseas universities that offer a good PPE? Other than Oxbridge?

Wow... PPE will kill him if he's not able to construct and sustain long and careful written arguments. He doesn't sound like he's quite PPE-ready type yet, so he'll need to prepare to use those trivia-buff skills to retain a lot of reading material, and to structure it for appropriate use.

PPE is really an Oxford thing; you won't find it at Cambridge, and it's not commonly found elsewhere as a degree course. But an education in one of the small and exclusive liberal-arts colleges in the northeastern USA might suit him well. Dartmouth (NH), Swarthmore (PA) etc — and then off to Harvard for postgrad studies!

What is is PPE degree?