Comparing Science Enrichment Programs

[ChiefKiasu]

[quote]
Hi, I would like to buy The Pique Lab notes and the practice series(new).
...[/quote]Please note that The Pique Lab notes are copyrighted and are NOT for sale.
We have removed the above posts.

[Data]

Blokus\" post_id=\"2071460\" time=\"1655994948\" user_id=\"68342:

Thanks!

I came here so that others won’t experience the same cold approach I received by pique lab.

But putting my ill-feelings aside, here’s my personal comparison between pique lab and tll and blue tree.

*PIQUE LAB*
Teachers are fun and engaging. It makes the lessons pretty fun. That’s why even though I did not like the fact that they merely reprint exam questions from other primary schools, I chose to stay on because my kid enjoyed the class.

They drill the kids very well in open ended. But the flaw is they only drill the kids in commonly seen questions. In fact they drill the kids in similar questions in and out so much so that there’s a risk for the kids to start (unconsciously) memorising the answers blindly.

Hence I will only recommend pique lab for p3-p4 kids. Because p3/p4 science questions are pretty standard and as long as you follow the pique lab’s model answers you will be alright.

However come upper primary, the students need to be able to tackle higher order thinking questions which I don’t think that pique lab trains the kids very well in this aspect (because they only drill the kids in common questions and the kids answer questions by drawing from memory rather than thinking).

*LEARNING LAB*
From my own observation with my elder kid and speaking to a number of friends with kids who had attended tll- we all felt that tll laid down quite a strong foundation in our kids. Also, comparing the notes given by tll to pique lab, tll notes are more in depth, detailed, resourceful and ‘mature’ (🤣 pique lab uses a lot of colors, cartoon pictures - hence again more suited for younger p3/p4 ). Pique lab notes again- only tackles commonly seen questions.

Tll sets their own questions (or so I think) and they are less commonly seen, tricker hence the students need to rely more on their thinking skills rather than recalling on similar questions that they have done before.

So my take is that tll suits more for upper primary students.

I read some parents here who felt that tll syllabus is out of the psle syllabus- good and bad. As one of my friend feels that it helps the kids to gain more knowledge and makes the science lessons less static. However, I think because of the depth of tll science lessons it may be too overwhelming for some kids who need concise, straight forward lessons.

*BLUE TREE*
Thanks to being kicked out by pique lab, I got to trial with blue tree. While I was happy that they set their own questions- hence honing the kids to think (ie the students can’t rely on memory on how to answer the questions) but it’s worksheets and the notes were the least of the lot. I felt there was little depth and it feels kind of like they only focus on the main key areas in a given topic. That being said, I think it suits lower primary kids who need less of the clutter, less drilling and more concise notes and straightforward lessons- I say can try blue tree.

My take:
If your kid is weak in the fundamentals and need alot of drilling in the basics of basics - pique lab

If your kid can be pushed to take in more - learning lab

If your kid only needs to know the gist of the topics- blue tree ( maybe?)

I want a tuition center that expose my kid to unfamiliar questions so that it trains my kids in their thinking skills hence my personal choice is tll (I’m not a fake, paid-for-ad parent ok).

Hope the dues of my trauma will help someone out there. 😅

My experience with pique lab is that they don't teach according to moe textbook syllabus and this does not help children to revise according to their weighted assessments. This method of teaching will affect grades. Be aware of this.

[Zeal mummy]

mummyof3angels\" post_id=\"2071581\" time=\"1656064749\" user_id=\"194437:

I don't recall meeting a Kenneth at Pique Lab before. Is he new?

He’s the boss & co-founder. He taught a masterclass that my DD attended during the holidays years ago. No, not new.

[Zeal mummy]

Data\" post_id=\"2072182\" time=\"1656438721\" user_id=\"198550:

My experience with pique lab is that they don't teach according to moe textbook syllabus and this does not help children to revise according to their weighted assessments. This method of teaching will affect grades. Be aware of this.

Hi Data, there isn’t a fixed schedule to do a specific topic for science in our primary schools. The primary schools are free to decide which topic to teach first. As such, all the schools could be doing different topics at any given time.

[Grr_roxy]

Zeal mummy\" post_id=\"2072358\" time=\"1656505015\" user_id=\"58173:[quote=\"Zeal mummy\" post_id=2072358 time=1656505015 user_id=58173]
Hi Data, there isn’t a fixed schedule to do a specific topic for science in our primary schools. The primary schools are free to decide which topic to teach first. As such, all the schools could be doing different topics at any given time.[/quote]

Agree with Zeal mummy. The only centre that follows the sequence of topics taught in school is only TLL (as far as I know). TLL group students into clusters based on sch. But this also means that you have lesser slots/options to choose if you want to follow strictly the grouping.

[san20sg]

Grr_roxy\" post_id=\"2072741\" time=\"1656662386\" user_id=\"123375:

Agree with Zeal mummy. The only centre that follows the sequence of topics taught in school is only TLL (as far as I know). TLL group students into clusters based on sch. But this also means that you have lesser slots/options to choose if you want to follow strictly the grouping.

TLL has only 2 different clusters. However, every MOE school has their own sequence of topics, so even TLL may not be able to follow the exact sequence of topics in the different schools. It is wise to ask the tuition center what will be taught for the term or year before signing up.

[thepiquelab]

Dear Mummies & Daddies,


This is Kenneth, Academic Director from The Pique Lab.

I would like to thank the parents that have given us the opportunity to be a partner in their child’s learning journey for their trust & support. Without you, we will not be able to grow and improve to provide the best learning experience for our students.

To begin, I appreciate the kind words about our teachers & I’m glad to hear that most parents share similar sentiments on this forum.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to address the feedback and concerns brought up by Blokus in this thread and shed some light on our strategy for making Science simple for students.

#1: Curating Questions For Practice

Blokus\" post_id=\"2070492\" time=\"1655203049\" user_id=\"68342:

It’s known that past-year examination questions are integrated into our worksheets, which are used in our weekly classes. We do that for a good reason - to expose students to commonly tested question types and hone their answering techniques.

There’re many ways a particular Science concept may be tested during the examinations. Let’s broadly categorise questions into two types:

(a) “Commonly tested”
(b) “Out of the box\"

We approach this challenge using a data-driven approach. We focus on analysing past year examination papers (our data set has hundreds of papers & growing) & categorising questions into various “question types”.

By breaking the questions down into question types, we’re able to help students approach each Science topic methodically, getting them up to speed for “commonly tested questions”.

Students who typically come to us for help (especially in the open-ended section) struggle to handle commonly tested examination questions. This is typically attributed to weak fundamentals (e.g. misunderstanding a concept) or even a lack of vocabulary to answer these questions.

Now, let’s talk about the effectiveness of this approach.

We’re able to shorten the learning curves for students in the above group by:

(a) Sharing with them exactly what the concepts they need to know
(b) Tips on how to remember concepts easily
(c) How questions may be tested – i.e. the question types
(d) How to answer these questions by having the right vocabulary – i.e. equipping them with useful key words, key phrases and even template answers, which will essentially be part of their ‘prep work’.

As for out-of-the-box questions, these may also be understood as “challenging” or “tricky” questions that school teachers set from time to time. Similarly, they will be covered in our lessons as and when we encounter them.

Parents familiar with our YouTube Channel would also have seen us discussing these types of questions online. These are also the exact same questions that were taught in our weekly classes.

Now, let’s talk about inventing new questions:
[quote]Would we be able to help more students tackle “out-of-the-box” questions?

Well, the short answer is maybe.

Typically, most examination papers are made up of questions with varying difficulties & the out-of-the-box questions tend to be the ones that help to separate the high scorers apart.

Assuming that our students are all fantastic at tackling every “commonly tested” examination question because of their rigorous, regular practice, they would have secured a significant portion of the marks in their examination.

As for those challenging questions in the same paper, they’ll have to rely on their own judgement, which is based on their aptitude, analytical skills & how well they can connect the dots. Our examination answering techniques will definitely come into play when they’re trying to put together a coherent answer.

If our curriculum is designed strictly on the “out-of-box” or “challenging” questions, we wouldn’t be able to help the majority of our students. Even if we create our own questions, it does not make past year examination questions less relevant or useful in helping students understand and apply concepts.

#2: CCI Course As A Pre-requisite For Primary 5 Students

In order to best cater to the majority of our students, the P5 Complete Concept Integration (CCI) Science Course is designed to complement the weekly classes and help students consolidate their understanding of what they’ve learnt over the past 2.5 years.

Blokus is correct that this is a mandatory course for students enrolled in our P5 Grade Accelerator Programme (P5 GAP - weekly classes).

As mummyof3angels has pointed out, we have been very open and upfront about the compulsory CCI course before any student enrolls in our P5 weekly classes.

mummyof3angels\" post_id=\"2071225\" time=\"1655869438\" user_id=\"194437:

... they were quite open and upfront about the compulsory CCI and trial lesson required for new students before I signed my daughters up.

It is news to us that the P5 CCI Course came as a surprise to Blokus.

Blokus\" post_id=\"2070492\" time=\"1655203049\" user_id=\"68342:

Based on our written correspondence with Blokus, the CCI Course requirement has been brought up several times before and during enrollment. In fact, Blokus also provided her feedback and concerns in March, and our Customer Care team subsequently reached out and addressed them, before they proceeded with the registration.

Blokus pointed out:

Blokus\" post_id=\"2071310\" time=\"1655893261\" user_id=\"68342:[quote=Blokus post_id=2071310 time=1655893261 user_id=68342]As compared to most other tuition centers where holiday workshops are optional and yet these centers are able to cover all the syllabus + revision in good time. It just puts pique lab in a very bad light. How to have faith in pique lab like that?

I can’t speak for the other tuition centres because different centres have different strategies. For us, we chose to do it our way & we have been very transparent and open about the entire learning progression and fee structure from the get-go.

Now, this leaves two main issues to unpack:

(a) How essential is the CCI for Primary 5 students enrolled in our regular classes? … or did we intentionally make it mandatory to “milk more money from parents”, as Blokus put it? (See 3A)

(b) If it’s as essential as we say it is, could this issue stem from a misalignment of expectations? (See 3B)


#3A: About The CCI Course

Let’s talk about the rationale behind this arrangement.

As we know, more topics are taught in the P5 year (as compared to the P6 year) as the P6 year is shorter, given that the PSLE is conducted at the end of September.

Before the P5 CCI Course was implemented as a requisite course to the P5 regular classes in 2017, we observed:

(1) Many of our students tend to forget the content learnt at the start of the year and the previous years (P3 & P4) when they move into the revision phase for their P5 SA2 Science examinations.

(2) One of the key challenges for students transitioning from lower block to upper block Science is that they tend to use the P3 & P4 style of answering questions to tackle P5 questions. As a result, students tend to lose marks unnecessarily as they miss out on the correct key words/key phrases. Hence, students are expected to “upgrade” their answering techniques to meet the expectations required at a P5 & P6 level.

(3) Once the overall revision is completed, more time will be required to gain exposure to applying the important structures of writing and key words/phrases by tackling past-year examination papers. If we only commence revision in September, it would mean a shorter runway for preparation and less desirable outcomes.

(4) Most students who are revising their examinations tend to jump straight to using past-year examination papers for revision without undergoing an overall revision of content first. This method is ineffective as students tend to get “stuck” when answering questions, further reinforcing that Science is a difficult subject to master.

(5) We have seen many hardworking students read and memorise content that they’re then unable to apply correctly, leading to frustration. As many of the resources students use usually provide only the content and not the techniques to tackling examination questions, students tend to answer incorrectly based on “feeling” instead of “rules”.

Students often face a dilemma at this point:

If they were to spend their time on overall content revision, they will have less time to work on past-year examination papers. Additionally, the method used for overall content revision may not be effective. Conversely, if they were to focus their time on past year examination papers only, they may get \"stuck\" because their foundation is not strong enough.

To address these challenges, we adopted a slightly unconventional strategy as compared to many other tuition centres:

(1) We aim to teach the P5 content at an accelerated pace (compared to the syllabus in school). We have consistently been able to complete the syllabus by July during our weekly classes.

(2) Next, we leverage the June Holidays to ensure that all students undergo one round of overall revision with our teacher with the P5 CCI Science Course. This aids students by consolidating the content they have learnt in the past 2.5 years. Students are also provided with an aggregated set of materials they can use as a reference to phrase their answers in a scientific manner.

(3) Completing the above steps by late July allows our students to have a headstart of 3 months (Aug to Oct) to practise past-year examination papers (both graded and ungraded).

This strategy has proved effective in helping our students bridge the learning curve for Science. Despite the additional fee for this 4-day content-packed workshop, we’ve over a thousand testimonials from parents sharing that this recap has been worthwhile.

So why did Blokus’ child have a completely different experience from others?

#3B: Expectations

Blokus brought up her main gripes:

(a) The CCI was very basic & catered more to students who have not been exposed to the topics OR have completely forgotten these topics.

(b) She wouldn’t have minded so much if the CCI was more in-depth.

Students who enroll in our classes at The Pique Lab have different academic abilities – ranging from average to high achieving. They come to us because we came highly recommended by their friends or family or their existing tutor/ tuition classes are not working out well for them.

What we’ve noticed for some high achieving students is that they don’t know what they don’t know. As such, it is challenging to impose a standardised assessment to determine the necessity for the CCI as it is unlikely going to be comprehensive enough to identify all areas of weaknesses and potential misconceptions that even high achievers may have and do not know about.

Now, is the P5 CCI not useful to this group of students?

There are above-average, highly intelligent students who have found the CCI beneficial because it served as a great recap & helped them identify misconceptions that they did not know they had.

We take our work very seriously & we actively check in with parents on what they think about our classes - the good, bad or ugly, because having these feedback will help us improve the quality of our programmes. Amongst the reviews that we've gotten, we also hear of below-average students who find it challenging to keep up with the pace because it’s too fast.

So, where do we then draw the line in terms of what’s necessary or not?

We leave it up to the parents’ discretion to select a programme that best suits their needs. Additionally, we also make trial lessons a compulsory requirement for all regular classes, so that students can get a quick feeler about the lesson experience before taking up a long-term commitment with us.

It all boils down to managing expectations. Think about it: If the child did not enjoy the lessons, nor benefitted from them, parents would feel upset that they wasted time and money.

And in this case, unfortunately, we did not work out for Blokus’ case & we heard her concerns.

#4: Offering Alternative Solutions

(c) Blokus also pointed out that her kid fell sick during the week that the kid was scheduled to attend the P5 CCI & was forced to attend the P5 CCI course while being sick.

When we were told that Blokus’ child was sick and was not in the best shape to attend lessons with us, replacement lessons were offered in any of the upcoming intakes, which could also have been attended after she felt better.

However, Blokus refused to consider any replacement lessons, requested to skip the rest of the course entirely and refund the CCI fee while remaining enrolled in our weekly classes.

As we were not able to accommodate such an arrangement, it was regrettable that we are unable to reach an agreeable solution. Following this, Blokus made the decision to withdraw her child from both the CCI & GAP.

As a gesture of goodwill, we also refunded the fees for the unattended lessons in the CCI, as well as that of the weekly classes, according to her intentions.

Moving Forward

We hope to seek Blokus’ understanding on this matter. We’ve also reflected internally on how we can better improve our communication of The Pique Lab’s strategy to parents to avoid a similar misunderstanding as this.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post! We wish you a pleasant week ahead.

[ChiefKiasu]

Thank you, @thepiquelab for taking the time to post a comprehensive response to @Blokus's posts. We hope your post can help clarify certain aspects of the case and put parents' minds at ease with regards to The Pique Lab (interesting name ). As a young and growing service provider, you have certainly proven that you listen to and act on feedback. Well done!

[mummyof3angels]

thepiquelab\" post_id=\"2073125\" time=\"1656906796\" user_id=\"95938:

Dear Mummies & Daddies,

This is Kenneth, Academic Director from The Pique Lab.
...

Hi Kenneth!

Just want to add : Keep up the good work!

[thepiquelab]

Hello,


It's Kenneth, Academic Director here from The Pique Lab.

Please also allow me to address the feedback left behind by Data:

Data\" post_id=\"2072182\" time=\"1656438721\" user_id=\"198550:

My experience with pique lab is that they don't teach according to moe textbook syllabus and this does not help children to revise according to their weighted assessments. This method of teaching will affect grades. Be aware of this.

Thank you Zeal mummy, Grr_roxy and san20sg for sharing how curriculum is usually covered in schools:

Zeal mummy\" post_id=\"2072358\" time=\"1656505015\" user_id=\"58173:[quote=\"Zeal mummy\" post_id=2072358 time=1656505015 user_id=58173]Hi Data, there isn’t a fixed schedule to do a specific topic for science in our primary schools. The primary schools are free to decide which topic to teach first. As such, all the schools could be doing different topics at any given time.[/quote]

Grr_roxy\" post_id=\"2072741\" time=\"1656662386\" user_id=\"123375:

san20sg\" post_id=\"2073066\" time=\"1656833630\" user_id=\"76391:[quote=san20sg post_id=2073066 time=1656833630 user_id=76391]TLL has only 2 different clusters. However, every MOE school has their own sequence of topics, so even TLL may not be able to follow the exact sequence of topics in the different schools. It is wise to ask the tuition center what will be taught for the term or year before signing up.

Just a couple of weeks back, we got to know of a parent who was distressed upon realisation that the topics taught in school are not synced perfectly with our Secondary 2 Science curriculum.

Our initial response was similar to what the three parents brought up. We explained that different schools teach different topics at any point in time. In fact, it is only possible to have perfectly synchronised curricula that can cater specifically to a student’s school if:

(a) The student is taught by a private 1-1 tutor, who is able to cater his/her curriculum specifically to what the student’s school is teaching.

(b) The Centre is able to organise groups of students from schools that teach the exact same set of topics.

Given the different possible permutations in terms of topic sequences, it is typically logistically and commercially challenging to do so. This is because the Centre has to account for sufficient replacement lesson opportunities, in the event if the students are unable to attend the lesson in their original class.

Even centres with bigger cohorts of students cannot run a tailor-made curriculum as they are giving group tuition, and not individualised tuition. In the latter arrangement, a larger degree of flexibility may be exercised because the teacher only needs to take into account the learning needs of one student.

(c) The Centre takes in groups of students, but covers different topics concurrently within the same session, depending on what the student needs. With this approach, there are likely to be certain limitations in terms of the depth of content the teacher is able to cover (again – it depends on the diversity of schools within the group).

How Do We Manage The Topic Differences?

The sequence of topics that we decided on was based on our curriculum team’s experience and discretion. It is important to note that we do take into account the logic when assessing the order of the topics to be taught.

For example: if we’re teaching a Biology topic on Transport in Animals, it will be counterintuitive not to cover Transport in Plants, since they belong to the same theme.

Based on our Secondary 2 Science curriculum, we are expected to cover entire level’s syllabus by July, giving us a comfortable bandwidth to revise topics that were previously taught for the final year examinations.

While the topic mismatch is bound to exist at varying scales, we try our best to help our students within our means:

(1) Learning materials for each term are typically sent to our students 6 to 8 weeks ahead of time. Students with a different curriculum from what we’re teaching are able to make use of these materials to catch up with what was taught in school.

(2) All students enrolled in our regular classes have a direct line of communication with their teachers via WhatsApp message. Students with a different curriculum from what we’re teaching are able to seek help from their teacher – be it asking questions on a topic that has not been covered or even having the teacher give them a quick crash course on a particular topic.

Students who made use of the available support channels were able to better prepare for their weighted assessments. However, to demand a perfectly synchronised curriculum is too big of an ask for a group tuition provider.

Actions Taken After The Feedback

(1) When the feedback was first brought up, the parents requested to speak to the Principal. Within our operations, each teacher is responsible for their own students and communicates directly to them & their parents.

The student’s teacher returned a call promptly to address his questions and how we typically handle the topic mismatch for affected students.

(2) We intended to dig deeper into the grades for the affected weighted assessment as we wanted to see if which topics were impacted. However, we were informed that the paper was withheld by the school and we couldn’t diagnose that student’s challenges.

(3) The support channels were not explored over the past 6 months, which unfortunately amounted to a mismatch in expectations. If the parent had raised his/her concerns earlier, we would have been able to explore the support channels together as a parent-teacher cooperative.

(4) At the point when the feedback was raised, the fees for Term 3 (July to September) had already been paid. As the parent disagreed with our curriculum direction, it is within reason that we arrange for a refund for the fees for Term 3 since the lessons have not been attended.

(5) However, the parent further requested for a refund for previous term’s fees on the basis that the topics were mismatched and that was an arrangement we could not accommodate.

Ultimately, we understand that different students have different needs & expectations for their learning progression in Secondary Science. While we're glad to be able to benefit most students, we are regrettably unable to cater to students with specific needs at this point.

Moving forward, we hope to seek Data's understanding in this matter and wish their child all the best in their journey in learning Science.