West Spring Primary

[Garfield2882]

Hi there,


Anyone whose child took 2019 Psle, how did your child do? Able to share the top score? Heard so much about the school, but what is the real test results, everyone seem mum about it…

Thank you.

[Garfield2882]

Can anyone share how did the school do? So much hype but no one share abt the school academic results for 2019 and 2020?

[parent_to_be]

sidrobson\" post_id=\"1946114\" time=\"1573615827\" user_id=\"124724:

I have been reading these posts on and off. I am what you would call a lurker and not an active poster in the forums. However some recent events this year has made me extremely disappointed to the extent that I regret putting my son and faith in this school. So here I am to both vent out and get opinion and also to provide support to those who don't agree with the overly sugar coated, Disneyland version of the school painted by the uber positive supporters.

Note to the cheerleaders - other posts in this forum corroborate some of my experiences so you may want to restrain the general offence you seem to take for every dissenting comment on the school.

My son will be going to P6 next year. Like all parents we have been monitoring his grades which took a huge dip in P5 and when we asked the teachers we were told that P5 is a huge jump from P4 and it is natural for children to struggle. That is the common consensus generally across the board in other schools as well and am okay with that. What I am not ok with is

a) When an entire class fails their maths in the exams regularly over the year.
This is after we felt that we had prepared my son well enough - the usual drills - assessment books, top school papers, everything that every normal parent would do for their child.
This is after the maths teacher told me that my son has a good chance of improving in SA2 when I spoke to him to see what help we parents can do to help my son do well.

b) When teachers can't give honest answers to parent's feedback and instead rely on stock answers. This happened during the PTM. The form teacher kept giving stock answers when I questioned why some papers were being set so tough.

c) When the school doesn't allow parents to speak to all the teachers during the PTM. And when they have just one PTM a year - what about end of the year review? Isn't that another opportunity to take stock of the situation?

d) When the school focuses more on students repeating verbatim word by word and not testing their knowledge. Had an exchange with the science teacher who insisted that scores were not given because the keyword was not there. But the explanation of the concept was correct in normal english and easy enough for a layman to understand. So the school is obviously more concerned about students who are able to vomit without understanding. My son was disappointed naturally so I told him am happy with his knowledge to cheer him up.
(And we wonder as a society why we are not creative enough - ministers tell us to be more creative when the entire system is hell bent on destroying it)

e) When, in the name of preparing students to be resilient for failure, the school sets really tough papers to the extent that students get demoralised. And the stock answer is that it helps them to be resilient. It does when they fail once and they fail forward. Meaning they get up and can do well the next time around.
Sadly that is not the case. When they set tough paper after tough paper and every time the child has to work harder for no reward, it only demoralises the child and eventually apathy sets in. which means they stop caring about their studies and sets them on the wrong path eventually.

I am also aware that there are a lot of parents who are disappointed with this school and are slowly venting out (like me) so dont be surprised if you hear more comments similar to mine.

I do also have to credit this school though. They have a fantastic marketing spiel on holistic education and learn through play. Fantastic enough for me to get sucked into it - carrot head as they say.

There are some good things though - CCAs are part of the day's timing so the kids can come back home before 3 or 4 pm, focus on values and character etc.

That said, the weightage for those things is lower than the primary purpose of the school - educate and impart knowledge.

Looks like Disneyland from outside but frankly it is a Halloween park.

Really looking to change school if possible. Either Greenridge or Beacon. It may be too late in the day but if I can do something to salvage a year for my son, and an important year, why not?

Encounter this chat and just want to give some input. During my time, my school set the paper so tough tht only less than 20% pass the paper but we all were so happy if we were the one tht pass the paper. Those tht failed the paper also not very disappointed bcos we all know tht the paper was very tough. We ourselves managed our own expectation as we knew tht tough paper is to enable us to be tougher and become more competitive. As parents now, we always encourage my son to be tougher and dun get complacent if he get high score as there is always tougher paper around. Tough paper always prepare you better for the actual exam.

[dragon-dad]

set too easy, then psle results underperformed also complain. set too hard, psle outperformed people forget about the hard exams. everyone happy.


Deal with it. don’t see the point of complaining about hard exams.

[parent_to_be]

dragon-dad\" post_id=\"2004820\" time=\"1606450706\" user_id=\"183140:

set too easy, then psle results underperformed also complain. set too hard, psle outperformed people forget about the hard exams. everyone happy.

Deal with it. don't see the point of complaining about hard exams.

Yup. Just give encouragement if they fail. Tough exam paper is always better than easy exam paper.

[Fussytassy]

Any idea how the kids did for PSLE in 2019 and 2020?

[snowybebe]

Just to share my personal opinion of the school as a parent with two children studying at West Spring, and my older child has just graduated from P6 this year.


Throughout the year, I have been talking with friends, whose kids are also taking PSLE, to encourage each other along the way. Inevitably, we compared the level of support given by our kids’ schools, though their kids are at branded schools, while mine is at a neighbourhood school. I am really appreciative of the extra revision given to the P6s at WPS (though he had to stay till 3.30pm daily) as I did not send my child for any tuition classes. This surprisingly wasn’t provided at the branded schools (after hearing my friends’ complaints). As my child’s weakest link is oral, his teachers also went the extra mile to give him additional oral practices daily before school assembly.

Like many parents at West Spring, I was concerned about how my child will do for PSLE, given that the school does not have a proven track record as this year is the 2nd batch of students taking PSLE. With its play-based focus, I was also worried if the school’s papers were of "lower" standard than other schools. The results are out and I am happy to say that my child has done well enough to enter IP schools.

Overall, I feel WPS is a good school as my younger child is also happy there (I am not part of PSG nor a "cheerleader") and perhaps positive experiences from other parents have helped elevated it to a popular school that needs balloting each year.

[springin2020]

snowybebe\" post_id=\"2005784\" time=\"1606670656\" user_id=\"21665:

Just to share my personal opinion of the school as a parent with two children studying at West Spring, and my older child has just graduated from P6 this year.

Throughout the year, I have been talking with friends, whose kids are also taking PSLE, to encourage each other along the way. Inevitably, we compared the level of support given by our kids' schools, though their kids are at branded schools, while mine is at a neighbourhood school. I am really appreciative of the extra revision given to the P6s at WPS (though he had to stay till 3.30pm daily) as I did not send my child for any tuition classes. This surprisingly wasn't provided at the branded schools (after hearing my friends' complaints). As my child's weakest link is oral, his teachers also went the extra mile to give him additional oral practices daily before school assembly.

Like many parents at West Spring, I was concerned about how my child will do for PSLE, given that the school does not have a proven track record as this year is the 2nd batch of students taking PSLE. With its play-based focus, I was also worried if the school's papers were of \"lower\" standard than other schools. The results are out and I am happy to say that my child has done well enough to enter IP schools.

Overall, I feel WPS is a good school as my younger child is also happy there (I am not part of PSG nor a \"cheerleader\") and perhaps positive experiences from other parents have helped elevated it to a popular school that needs balloting each year.

appreciated sincerely sharing. hope to have more parents with kids from WP to share ur WS experience?
thx

[Garfield2882]

snowybebe\" post_id=\"2005784\" time=\"1606670656\" user_id=\"21665:

Just to share my personal opinion of the school as a parent with two children studying at West Spring, and my older child has just graduated from P6 this year.

Throughout the year, I have been talking with friends, whose kids are also taking PSLE, to encourage each other along the way. Inevitably, we compared the level of support given by our kids' schools, though their kids are at branded schools, while mine is at a neighbourhood school. I am really appreciative of the extra revision given to the P6s at WPS (though he had to stay till 3.30pm daily) as I did not send my child for any tuition classes. This surprisingly wasn't provided at the branded schools (after hearing my friends' complaints). As my child's weakest link is oral, his teachers also went the extra mile to give him additional oral practices daily before school assembly.

Like many parents at West Spring, I was concerned about how my child will do for PSLE, given that the school does not have a proven track record as this year is the 2nd batch of students taking PSLE. With its play-based focus, I was also worried if the school's papers were of \"lower\" standard than other schools. The results are out and I am happy to say that my child has done well enough to enter IP schools.

Overall, I feel WPS is a good school as my younger child is also happy there (I am not part of PSG nor a \"cheerleader\") and perhaps positive experiences from other parents have helped elevated it to a popular school that needs balloting each year.

May I know do the teachers gv extra lessons to weaker students regardless whether they are in top class or not?

[snowybebe]

Garfield2882\" post_id=\"2007631\" time=\"1607736920\" user_id=\"188233:

snowybebe\" post_id=\"2005784\" time=\"1606670656\" user_id=\"21665:

Just to share my personal opinion of the school as a parent with two children studying at West Spring, and my older child has just graduated from P6 this year.

Throughout the year, I have been talking with friends, whose kids are also taking PSLE, to encourage each other along the way. Inevitably, we compared the level of support given by our kids' schools, though their kids are at branded schools, while mine is at a neighbourhood school. I am really appreciative of the extra revision given to the P6s at WPS (though he had to stay till 3.30pm daily) as I did not send my child for any tuition classes. This surprisingly wasn't provided at the branded schools (after hearing my friends' complaints). As my child's weakest link is oral, his teachers also went the extra mile to give him additional oral practices daily before school assembly.

Like many parents at West Spring, I was concerned about how my child will do for PSLE, given that the school does not have a proven track record as this year is the 2nd batch of students taking PSLE. With its play-based focus, I was also worried if the school's papers were of \"lower\" standard than other schools. The results are out and I am happy to say that my child has done well enough to enter IP schools.

Overall, I feel WPS is a good school as my younger child is also happy there (I am not part of PSG nor a \"cheerleader\") and perhaps positive experiences from other parents have helped elevated it to a popular school that needs balloting each year.

May I know do the teachers gv extra lessons to weaker students regardless whether they are in top class or not?

From my experience, WPS mixes students of different academic grades together in one class, so there is no top class. Each class will take the non-core subjects like PE and social studies together but during the core subjects, the students will move around and change classrooms to attend classes with students from other classes who are at the same academic level. This used to be the arrangement prior to COVID-19, so perhaps they might switch to having students of same level of learning in the same class moving forward to reduce the movement of students.

From P2 to P5, students who are identified as weaker in certain subjects will be asked to attend remedial lessons after classes to help them to catch up, while students who are identified as strong in academics will be asked to attend enrichment after classes to develop them further (like ELAP for English, Critical Thinking for Maths, CLAP for Chinese). I know this cos I have one child attending enrichment and the other attending remedial, but I think majority of the students who are coping fairly well in school will not need to stay back.

As for P6 to prepare for PSLE, ALL students will need to stay back daily till 3 plus for extra lessons (which they called PLUS but not sure what it stands for).