National Junior College (Junior High)

[breezie80]

Hi my son got a CO from NJc. Would also like to find out more about the students in Njc and the culture tks

[laserprinter]

Hi, I read several negative posts on NJC and will like to seek feedback. My child has DSA CO.


1. Someone mentioned the secondary (junior high) teachers being good while the A Level teachers not being so. Any feedback on the teachers?

2. Is it true that the A Levels results are slipping in recent years?

3. We read about compulsory boarding school, which we are not keen. How does this work? Eg. Does it start in sec 1? Is it 1 term for each year?

4. There was a particular post on how bad the project work (PW) department was. We read, MOE will change it from graded to non-graded. So, getting a pass will be sufficient to be considered for local universities. Will this be accurate?

Thanks a lot.

[anxious789]

Hi,


My son is in NJC secondary (Junior High) this year and his experience has been pretty positive so far.

1. So far the teachers have been good. There are some teachers that are better than others. Am sure if your child has been in local primary schools, you will agree that there are some teachers that are better than others and sometimes, the 'better' teacher might be teaching your child's class and vice-versa might get the 'not so good' teacher so it all depends on luck.

From what I see, if a child is falling behind, school will arrange for remedial classes to help to catch up. My son has not been in remedial classes but I know they arrange for remedial classes to help students catch up.

NJC's Science and Math's syllabus is accelerated. In Sec 1, you will be learning some Sec 2 topics. In Sec 2, they already asked you to purchase Sec 3 and 4 Math books and for Science/Math they teach some A level topics before JC. There were instances that some of the topics taught for Science in NJC were not even taught in RI and RI only teaches it the following year. So far, NJC suits my son as he is good in Science and Math and weaker in languages. For Chinese, the school is kind enough to allow the student to pick the best marks out of 3 compos to be included for their weighted assessment marks. According to the school, this is to instill love for learning the language which I believe will not be practiced in HCI/NYGH?

I can't comment for A levels as he has not reached Senior High yet.

2. After PSLE, if you score between AL4-6, if you are a boy, most will likely chose HCI which is across from NJC. If you are a gal, most will likely chose NYGH which is just right beside NJC. Hence, I would think that if you are choosing school based on location, majority of the top scorers will chose HCI/NYGH over NJC because these two school's campus are much nicer, which naturally will translate to a better A level score for HCI as they had top PSLE scorers to begin with.

Those that choose NJC are likely to be those that prefer a co-ed school (I think minority parents will chose co-ed)/ a non-SAP school/ school that focus a bit more on Science and Math/ a school that is less stressful than HCI/NYGH given that distance is no longer a consideration when comparing these schools. Or perhaps if you get AL7M, you might have placed HCI/NYGH as first choice and NJC as your second-choice.

For JAE admission, the cut off for NJC is 7 compared to HCI at 4, hence more top O level scorers go to JCs with higher cut-offs which translates to better A level scores at other JCs.

For some schools with dual track like CHIJ St Nic, SCGS and CHS where the students go to Eunoia JC, their A level score might be better simply because those that are not doing well in their IP programme will be asked to transfer to SEC (olevel), hence those that continue to Eunoia JC in Year 5 and 6 are those selected students with good results anyway?

For NJC, there is no O level track, I think you might have to repeat another year if you miss the criteria for promotion to next level.

If your child is consistently a top-scorer with PSLE AL results of 4-5 and loves a competitive environment, then choose HCI/NYGH or RI/RGS as he/she will probably thrive well there and their A level results are better. But if you think your child might be stressed, think again whether these schools fit your child?

For me, I think NJC provided my child with more opportunities that he probably will not get in a more competitive environment as he will probably lose out to the super high achievers. Eg the students that are selected for olympiads or enrichment programmes in NJC might probably not stand a chance in the super-top schools since the competition there are super stiff?

If you look into NJC's Facebook, there are also scholars just like other JCs (of course lesser than the super top JCs), hence I believe if you are hard-working, you can thrive anywhere.

If you look at historical JC results, am sure you also have friends/heard of those who excel/did not excel in life though they were from super top JCs and vice-versa there are those who excel in life from non top JCs as well and we can see from A level results that not 100% of those in top JCs do very well. Hence, I always tell my kids work hard, do not blame the external environment but ask yourself had you put in your best effort instead?

3. The boarding programme was cancelled due to covid, hence unable to comment. However, I did research about it last time and saw that some things that they teach such as independence / life skills like cooking might be useful for him.

4. Yes, it is now changed to pass/fail. Hence, hopefully with the reduction on emphasis on getting high score for PW, we can see better A level scores nationwide assuming they can channel the extra time to study for the H2 subjects.

Positive aspects:-
1) More opportunities in a lesser competitive environment compared to HCI/NYGH if chosing school based on distance since all these schools are very near each other
Eg: Students can be selected for Advance inquiry in Science/Advance Inquiry in Math/ Art-Elective-programme/etc which I assume competition will be much stiffer in the super top schools.

Caveat: If you kid has always been super high achiever, then choose HCI/NYGH as your kid will likely clinch all the opportunities that exist in HCI/NYGH/RI/RGS.

For us, happiness for the child is of most important, hence we are happy that he found a school that he really enjoys going to. After all, the worse thing for a parent is when a child constantly feels that others are better him/her and constantly feels demotivated or stressed instead and there's a potential to give up altogether. He did qualify for HCI via PSLE score but eventually we chose NJC.

2) The entire cohort is given opportunity to participate in Specialised Programme in Inquiry and Research where they start planning in Sec 2.

https://www.nationaljc.moe.edu.sg/research-at-njc/Special-Programme-in-Inquiry-and-REsearch/

In some other schools, research might start later or only available to selected students who successfully applied?

3) There are some subjects that you may be qualified to take Sec 3 if you do well like Advanced Science, Advanced Math, Python, etc.

You can also participate in The Science Training and Research Programme, a flagship programme of Research@NJC.


3) Although CCA choices are limited, they allow students to try-out all CCAs for 2 weeks during orientation and allow them to chose 1 CCA for Sem 1 Sec 1 and another CCA for Sem 2 Sec 1 before committing to the CCA till Year 4.

I think this is great for students who have not decided on which CCA to choose for next 4 years. For some schools, I think there's no chance to even try their sports CCA if u are not playing competitive in primary years or require a certain grade for music / dance CCA but I felt that NJC is open to training you as long as you show interest and willing to put in effort.

4) The students here are quite well-behaved in my opinion. I find the boys less rowdy as compared to all boys school.

5) Class size and cohort size is smaller than some other schools, hence the students are quite closed to each other.

Cons:-
1) Facilities not new but my kid says he doesn't mind and they have everything that a school needs to function anyway like labs, dance studios, lecture theatre, halls, field, courts, etc

2) I cannot withhold his phone unlike primary school times as the teachers do communicate with them via Whatsapp. They submit lots of things via google classroom, hence need the Ipad as well. This is probably the same in all secondary schools and not specific to NJC as the kids are using technology much more than our time. Pro is that he is better than his parents in most technology related stuff and I see some him doing some interesting computing related lessons which I have not learnt before.

3) IP curriculum is really customised unlike structured O level, hence parents can't really catch up with what they are learning. Again, this is probably not specific to NJC as all IP schools have their own set of curriculum that is different from other IP schools whereas you can pick a reference/workbook in Popular for O level subjects and can't really do so for the IP programme.

[breezie80]

Thanks so much for your candid sharing. Very useful at least for me . Appreciate it!

[breezie80]

Hi anxious789

Can I PM you to find out more? We will most likely take up the CO but need to confirm a few things tks

[laserprinter]

Thanks anxious for sharing !

[anxious789]

breezie80 sure, but don’t just take my word, speak to other NJC students/parents too and also NJC’s teachers.


Nway, I can see that there’s lack of response from NJC parents here which isn’t surprising. To be honest, I have not visited kiasuparents since my ds went to NJC. This is because once he was in, the other parents set up a grp chat. We have a whole cohort group chat (because the cohort is not that big) and also class group chat. We also have some teachers’ whatsapp contact. Hence, there is no need to visit kiasuparents as we can easily ask in d group chat or PM our queries to some other parents that we have made friends with.

The only reason why I chance upon this forum is because my dd was trying for DSA this year so I was trying to look for info for schools that we wanted to DSA her to. We chose gals’ school to DSA to instead of NJC in the end as she has already been in co-ed primary school for 6 years and was always paired to sit with a boy in class as teachers think that that’s the best way to maintain less talking among the students in class. Hence, we thought it will be a good time to swap to an all gals environment.

For boys, since they have NS, I think that there is no harm that they go to co-ed Sec school since they will be in all boys environment during NS. Also, a kind soul from kiasuparents was kind enough to PM more details about his daughter’s experience in the gal school that we chose to DSA so I thought I should do my part to share my kid’s experience at kiasuparents too.

[breezie80]

Hi anxious, I have PMed you tks

[LeeTaiTai]

I was told by a friend that some tuition centres like TLL does not accept or encourage NJC students to join as their syllabus are very different…any idea if NJC is really advance or just simply teaching very different topics. With all aiming towards A levels, how could it be so varied?

[lazygal21]

I hv a child in NJ and I can understand why some tuition ctr dun accept njc students. for LA, the testing of the reading skills aka compre is very diff format fr the O level qns and I find it difficult. They hv a Thinking module inside LA curriculum time (though is a separate subj n is gradedbut not reqd for promotion) which is like practically impossible to outsource. Then for Maths in Sec 1, nearly finish half of sec 2 syallabus. For Sec 2, they ask u to buy Sec 3, Sec 4 and A maths textbook. Sci by itself diff schools r teaching diff topics at diff times. Sec 1 already touching one Sec 3 topic. In short, will be hard for the tuition ctr to cater for NJ students unless they can form a grp specially for them. NJ yearly cohort is only 200 afterall. But on the bright side, think of it as saving money on tuition since hard to find. I am only speaking for the sec school section.