GEP 2015 - Class Starting P4 in 2016

[Hiaweh]

Are there anyone who is on the fence? Undecided as to whether to let their DC do the program?

[Cars2]

Yes i am one of those…


Anyway quite chill about it all. go for briefing on 14 Nov, see what they are offering, and come back and decide next week. Deadline for decision is 18 Nov, so there is still plenty of time to decide after that.

[Hiaweh]

So what are the things that you will take into consideration in deciding if your DC is suitable for this program? Half of me wants my DC to experience the challenges that this program offers but on the other hand I am afraid that this program may pull her PSLE score down as compared to if she had stayed in MS.

[melodyrain2]

Hiaweh:

So what are the things that you will take into consideration in deciding if your DC is suitable for this program? Half of me wants my DC to experience the challenges that this program offers but on the other hand I am afraid that this program may pull her PSLE score down as compared to if she had stayed in MS.

I am also undecided. Very undecided and have the same concerns as you. :nailbite:

But so far from what I read and heard, it seems the child will enjoy the program ultimately........

[Hiaweh]

Plus with the change in EL exam format, will they get enough practise/ exposure before they sit for PSLE.

[melodyrain2]

I am not too worried about the new EL format. It affects the whole cohort and I suppose all teachers will be trained…


I am more concern about waking up early for school bus, coming home later and how many days they will need to stay back.

[melodyrain2]

Any one from the West?

[davidchan67]

It has been recently brought to my attention that the MOE has been distributing different papers for the GEP selection test.


I would firstly like to question the ministry’s decision in making the pupils sit for different papers. The selection tests are all done on the same day (with the fair exception of papers taken separately due to medical absence), and setting different papers inevitably creates an inherent unfairness in the system.

The unevenness that this designs was most recently (and emotionally) felt by my son, who had sat for a particularly difficult mathematics paper. My son is an individual whose IQ was confirmed to be within the 99th percentile of the population by an independent IQ test, and has prepared months in advance for the selection test. After sitting for the paper, he proceeded to tearfully recount how none of the questions that he had studied appeared in the paper, and was further angered when he discovered that his peers had sat for a different paper. Two of his friends at the same tuition centre did not recognise the questions my son was given in the paper, and correspondingly did not know how to solve them. My son handled their questions with the practice ease that was expected of him.

My son was not selected for the programme. Nearly a week has passed since my son’s visceral reaction and inconsolable heartbreak upon not beng handed the envelope. From the perspective of a parent like myself, the ministry has no reason to overlook (or manufacture?) such an apparent disparity in the difficulties of the papers. I have also learned that his school this year produced a very small number of GEP pupils, significantly smaller than previous years, clearly indicative of the difficulty of the paper.

Not to sound dissident, but it’s difficult to overlook how easy it is for school bias to be perpetrated, but I won’t insinuate anything blindly. I am interested to hear how other Singaporean parents look upon what seems to me like a groundless abrogation of fairness and meritocracy in the system. I, and more importantly my son, will always be upset that he was not able to join his sister in the GEP programme possibly because of this.

[Moustacher]

Actually when i first read somewhere in the forum that there were different sets of papers, the thought of unfairness/fairness did come to my mind. davidchan67, i absolutely can understand urs and ur child’s pain. Is it possible to appeal?