All About GEP

[zac's mum]

cutepandabear:

Does anyone else get the sense that GEP is reducing their intake each year? Each GEP Centre seems to have downsized. Some centres only have one class. Is it really cos of falling birth rates or do you think GEP is being phased out?

Yes I also sense sthg going on...the bigger GEP centres are reducing the number of classes over the years. I saw in the Rosyth thread that the 2018 GEP classes are not going to be labelled GEP anymore. Sthg about the form class being half GEP students and half mainstream, then only during GEP subjects they will move out to different classroom.

I don't know about the true take up rate for GEP, but I seem to be seeing more parents (bloggers, friends posting on FB) coming out and saying that their child is not taking up the offer after evaluation & consideration. After the DSA rules changed to offer no further advantage to GEPpers, I believe the pull factor is losing its attractiveness.

That's why I get the feeling that there is some slow phasing out going on...just my feeling.

[cutepandabear]

Me too. I have a feeling as well there’s some sort of phasing out. Maybe it’s also to address the recurring criticism that GEP is elitist. My personal opinion is that GEP really does benefit some profiles of kids. They can’t function as well in mainstream. My kid is a good example. Attention span here there everywhere. Outside looking it, people think GEP kids are given special treatment. I like to think however that GEP kids are given the treatment they need. I would be sorry if there’s no more GEP.

[sky minecrafter]

@cutepandabear. Hi, our school has for years implemented such a twinning program - MS sit with GEP for non-core subjects. :? If ever GEP is to be phased out, I hope MS teachers would be more forgiving towards such children if say he/she were to do his/her own work quietly while teacher coaches the rest of the class. Jmo...

[zac's mum]

@skyminecrafter, can I just double-check with u? These "twinning" programs (which so far I heard only NYPS and NHPS have these)…my impression was that in these schools (like all other GEP schools) the GEP classes are fixed form classes. Everybody in the school knows these are the GEP class. Then for mingling purposes, during certain non-core subjects and MT subjects, the GEP students will move out to join the mainstream students in the "twinning" classroom. That was my impression.


But now, what is supposedly going to be happening in Rosyth in 2018, is a small but (to me) radical mindset change, there will be 4 integrated classes, which are a mix and nobody will know (unless they remember all the names) which is the GEP class because there is no such class name like 4A and 4B.

You are right, there needs to be some catering done for the special learning needs in the regular classroom. So far the rumors say there’ll be an extra teacher in the classroom, not sure how that’s gonna help.

[sky minecrafter]

@zm. I'm sure the cohort will know...What our school does is, say, the G H J are TAG classes. TAG1s are the MS students, TAG 2 & 3 are the GEPpers. So for HCL, say 4G TAG1,2,3 come together to have common lessons, common tests, exams. When it comes to EMS, the TAG1s come together & the GEPpers fall into their respective TAG2s & TAG3s, depending on relative strengths. To a MS student, he may not know exactly which TAG is the GEPpers; but he will know that TAG classes do something different from them. It may not work exactly like this in the present day since HOD is different but the idea is there. Not sure what other GEP centres are advocating, just sharing my experience...

[zac's mum]

sky minecrafter:

@zm. I'm sure the cohort will know...What our school does is, say, the G H J are TAG classes. TAG1s are the MS students, TAG 2 & 3 are the GEPpers. So for HCL, say 4G TAG1,2,3 come together to have common lessons, common tests, exams. When it comes to EMS, the TAG1s come together & the GEPpers fall into their respective TAG2s & TAG3s, depending on relative strengths. To a MS student, he may not know exactly which TAG is the GEPpers; but he will know that TAG classes do something different from them. It may not work exactly like this in the present day since HOD is different but the idea is there. Not sure what other GEP centres are advocating, just sharing my experience...

Thank u! So it would seem that Rosyth is merely introducing what NYPS and NHPS have already been doing all these years.

Within these twinning classes, there are these TAG groups (for admin purposes I suppose). So for those non-core subjects, the teacher will say please split into your various classrooms. Regular mainstream schools are also doing this sort of splitting classrooms for different MTL. So I suppose the kids would not think very much about the splitting unless they wanna probe into it.

[lee_yl]

There’s also this kind of intermingling class in RGPS. The girls split when doing non-core stuff like music, PE, art and HCL.


However, GEP and MS somehow seem distant and some even dislike one another. Maybe RG girls are bitchy? Hahaha. This year, one of the girls even did an IRS topic on why GEP girls and MS girls seem distant.

[sean wife]

https://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2080&start=80


This link was from 2015.. thought rosyth had such intermingling class all along? Not something new this year it seems. Has anything changed substantially? Actually I thought all GEP centres had such intermingling classes?

[Cloud Cloud]

lee_yl:

There’s also this kind of intermingling class in RGPS. The girls split when doing non-core stuff like music, PE, art and HCL.


However, GEP and MS somehow seem distant and some even dislike one another. Maybe RG girls are bitchy? Hahaha. This year, one of the girls even did an IRS topic on why GEP girls and MS girls seem distant.

DD attended HCL with MS students and the lessons were held at the MS students classroom. Once, her bag and her friend water bottle were placed outside the classroom when they went to the toilet. She thought the MS students were responsible. However, she does have good friends from MS, especially her school bus friends.

In Sec, no one really cares about whether one is or not a gepper. Her current good friends are mainly from the MS. They get along very well.

[PlatypusAsia]

cutepandabear:

Does anyone else get the sense that GEP is reducing their intake each year? Each GEP Centre seems to have downsized. Some centres only have one class. Is it really cos of falling birth rates or do you think GEP is being phased out?

I have, on reliable record that GEP is here to stay. But some centers experience class closures (from 4 to 3, 2 to 1 etc) because MOE/GEB wants to optimize teacher:student ratio to 1:25 at least. Some centers are 1:27. The ones that close had teacher:student ratio as low as 1:16.
In 1 year, 1 school had 63 Geppers in 3 classes. The efficient thing was to have only 2 classes of a total of 54 kids and post the other 9 out to other centers.