All about Transferring to Other Primary Schools

[hoskins8h]

mwchua:

What will you do if you are me?????? Thanks for your advice

Rgds,
Ming

My own 2 cents opinion - transfer to the ends of Bukit Timah Rd makes sense compared to staying in the middle. I moved house to get into good affliated school and am glad for it. Since I couldnt tell at K2 how my children would do academically, having the safety net was important.

[janet88]

I seriously did consider this, esp since I used to have sleepless nights whenever there is CA or SA. My son makes lots of careless mistakes…so we are reminding him how much MORE marks he could have scored if he didn’t make those careless mistakes. Not only that, checking means re-do the whole paper from start, and not glancing through.


The ‘teach less learn more’ is really bullsh!@. How can the school teach less and expect the child to learn more ? Doesn’t this ultimately mean that parents have to spend extra money to send kids to enrichment lessons and MORE tuition ??

I’ve heard from someone whose daughter is in a reputable school. She says that teachers in the school are not teaching much and parents are sending their daughters to tuition centres.

[mwchua]

hoskins8h:

My own 2 cents opinion - transfer to the ends of Bukit Timah Rd makes sense compared to staying in the middle. I moved house to get into good affliated school and am glad for it. Since I couldnt tell at K2 how my children would do academically, having the safety net was important.

I like the way you put across your 2 cents worth problem is - I am not a HNWI who can move freely along Bt Timah Road

Will seriously think about this whole issue. From next week onwards the stress starts again....all the class tests will begin !!!!

tgif :lol:

[Honey]

My recommendation is to go for a school with affliation. It’s like buying insurance. If you need it, you’ll be grateful that it’s there. Bear in mind that PSLE is base on that 4 days + Oral days of performance. No matter how good your child have been during the past 6 years don’t count hor. Unless you are that kind of parents who believe that whatever school your child goes to, she will still excel then you may not want to go thr’ the stress of putting your child on the wait list. And if you can, try to get your child transferred by end P3 latest cos there is streaming at the end of P4. Your child will need 3 - 6 months to get adjusted to the new environment & get settled down.

[mwchua]

Honey:

My recommendation is to go for a school with affliation. It's like buying insurance. If you need it, you'll be grateful that it's there. Bear in mind that PSLE is base on that 4 days + Oral days of performance. No matter how good your child have been during the past 6 years don't count hor. Unless you are that kind of parents who believe that whatever school your child goes to, she will still excel then you may not want to go thr' the stress of putting your child on the wait list. And if you can, try to get your child transferred by end P3 latest cos there is streaming at the end of P4. Your child will need 3 - 6 months to get adjusted to the new environment & get settled down.

Thanks

Yes I do understand the benefit of having the necessary \"insurance\".

Frankly speaking there are only 2 primary schools with affiliation that I will seriously consider for my girl to transfer to. But those 2 schools typically have a long waiting list. Not considering for now the 2 schools at extreme end of Bt Timah Road mostly because of the perceived elite and \"atas\" culture there. My girl might end up as the only girl in the class who stays at HDB and does not have a car

Just wondering: for those of you with kids at affiliated primary schools, do you feel that the kids there are more complacent about school work as typically as they only need max 220 to go onto their affiliated sec school? I do know this talk on \"holistic\" education but frankly everyone is at the IP bandwagon now.

Will appreciate the feedback of parents with kids at affiliated pri school now and how do you think your kid's school stack up against other primary schools without affiliation in the academic and other aspects?

Thanks

Rgds.
Ming

[hoskins8h]

mwchua:

Frankly speaking there are only 2 primary schools with affiliation that I will seriously consider for my girl to transfer to. But those 2 schools typically have a long waiting list. Not considering for now the 2 schools at extreme end of Bt Timah Road mostly because of the perceived elite and \"atas\" culture there. My girl might end up as the only girl in the class who stays at HDB and does not have a car

Just wondering: for those of you with kids at affiliated primary schools, do you feel that the kids there are more complacent about school work as typically as they only need max 220 to go onto their affiliated sec school? I do know this talk on \"holistic\" education but frankly everyone is at the IP bandwagon now.

Will appreciate the feedback of parents with kids at affiliated pri school now and how do you think your kid's school stack up against other primary schools without affiliation in the academic and other aspects?

Majority of those who go to the \"atas\" schools live in HDBs. Not all affliated schools are equal. The 2 girl schools at the ends of Bkt Timah have PSLE results in the top band (ie 10-15) schools, and that's without GEPers in the school. Some GEP schools are not even in the top band.

Relax? I think they push the kids at the right time though probably not as hard as those 2 GEP schools in middle of Bkt Timah. Parents still demand results. There's a significant diff between atas affliated and neighbourhood affliated in terms of resources. eg atas affliated will offer external courses (e.g. Math Olympiad training) for example, whereas the neighbourhood ones dont. I think the parents of atas schools believe in a balance between work and play. The 2 IP secondary schools on the other hand believe in stretching the children, sometimes, I feel for the glory of the school and not for necessarily for the child. Then again one can argue that it's preparation for adult life.

Just my 2 cents..

[mwchua]

hoskins8h - Tks for haring your experience


Talking about pushing hard the kids - yesterday my girl got back her Chinese test, due to some careless mistakes, she only scored 17/20, and that makes her the 2nd in the class - counting from he bottom

And she knew she did badly, without me even saying anything, she started to cry, maybe it's her tactic to prevent me from scolding her :roll:

[jtoh]

As someone who’s had experience in both affiliated and non-affiliated schools, I will say for sure that most definitely the kids in affiliated schools take it easier. The teachers may be pushing them harder now because both schools at the ends of Bukit Timah want to boost their results, but the kids’ mentality is still there. The mentality that even if they don’t do that well, they will still be able to get back into their secondary schools. And these are very good secondary schools, second only to the top IP schools. There are of course the exception. Girls (and their parents) who want to do well so that they can get into IP schools. These will work very very hard.


At the non-affiliated schools, the girls themselves want to do well. This is because they (and their parents) know that if they don’t score >250, their chances of getting into a good school are very low. So they all push themselves to give their best. There is no safety net. I’ve seen girls at both schools and I’ll say the ones without affiliation are a lot more driven.

So that’s the situation academically. In terms of holistic education and CCA, I find that the affiliated schools place more emphasis on the CCA and fun activities. There’s a more holistic development. The non-affiliated school had fun activities too, but having experienced what the affiliated school offered, I can tell you it’s a far cry. The school in the middle of Bukit Timah was very academic-oriented although kids and their parents who’ve never experienced the ambience at an affiliated school will tell you otherwise.

So having had the experience of both types of school, if I had to choose again, I’d say go for an affiliated school. There’s less stress. I personally prefer my child to have a happy childhood than one that’s constantly stressed out by his PSLE grade.

[mwchua]

Thanks jtoh for sharing your insight


Yes, my girl is at the school in the middle of Bt Timah, and I used to feel that the environment is so relaxed. Homework is a rare occurrence, my girl seems to be enjoying her school very much. I had the chance to do PV work a few times with her school and got to observe her class dynamics also, all looks quite relaxing....

I also had the illusion that she is doing quite well as she scored decently for al her tests. Only recently then I realise that actually at her class, >95% is actually the expected norm. Anything below than that is deemed as poor already......

They do have character development prog on every Wed, and luckily her classmates all seemed quite good and do not display any spoilt kid syndrome...Like what you said, maybe it's because the girls' mothers (if their moms are alumni) know that since there is no affiliation, they better stand on their own 2 feet and start to inculcate this awareness right from young.

I think now that I am more in tune with the stake involved (thanks to the insight provided by the parents in this forum), I have grown to appreciate more on the eventual game plan......

Buying insurance is important, at least it provides some options in case the unexpected happens.....

[verykiasu2010]

which ends of bukit timah ? where is the middle ?