"branded" sch vs neighbourhood sch

[jtoh]

Chenonceau:

jtoh:

Hi Chenonceau,


I always enjoying reading your posts because you make sense. Was wondering, why were the smart girls chopped from the school? Did they underperform and were in bottom two classes of the cohort?

They were smart but did badly. Same as in my daughter's case. Too much time spent gossiping and bitching. I was amazed that little girls could be so bitchy! Idle minds are the devil's playground. When The Daughter went to secondary school, the content of her phone SMS were very different. More healthy and less political. Her secondary school provided enough stimulation to occupy idle minds.

So true.

[jtoh]

DesertWind:

Hi Chenoceau,

But did I interpret correctly what you were saying was the girls were told to CHANGE SCHOOL just before PSLE at Primary 5 or 6?

This is different from what jtoh said to raise COP up. If the girls never get into the school in the first place, there would be no issues. I think no kids should be forced to change primary school mid-way although I think nowadays such is being done.

For eg, I have heard of principal from a \"better\" neighbourhood school telling parents to transfer their kids not performing very well at P3 out to a new neighbourhood school.

That's terrible. My friend was called into the P's office at the end of P1 when her son wasn't performing well. Told her to find a school more suited to her son's ability.

Can faint since I never heard of such a thing during my time.

To me it is a horrifying thought to be told to change primary school halfway because I believe in stability and completing the number of years in the same school.
:idea:

:shock:

[preciousmoments]

Chenonceau:

enne:

Chenonceau: tats very bad!!

cant imgaine that.. how did the girls cope then?

Some powerful person whose daughter got chopped found a way to remove the dinosaur. Now, a powerful person = smart person with high IQ. Why would daughter of high IQ person get chopped if the school had been duly diligent? After all, parent IQ is the strongest predictor of child IQ.

I would think the above is a sweeping generalization and may not hold true for all.

In any case, the dinosaur had since been removed and hence, the said branded school may no longer be under as bad a management as you have described. We should perhaps give the school another chance.

I am very interested in the neighborhood school your son went to though I know you will not reveal. Different people have different views on what makes a neighborhood school. Rosyth for one is right smack in the middle of many HDB flats but I would hardly call it a neighbourhood school.

[Chenonceau]

preciousmoments:

Chenonceau:

[quote=\"enne\"]Chenonceau: tats very bad!!

cant imgaine that.. how did the girls cope then?

Some powerful person whose daughter got chopped found a way to remove the dinosaur. Now, a powerful person = smart person with high IQ. Why would daughter of high IQ person get chopped if the school had been duly diligent? After all, parent IQ is the strongest predictor of child IQ.

I would think the above is a sweeping generalization and may not hold true for all.

In any case, the dinosaur had since been removed and hence, the said branded school may no longer be under as bad a management as you have described. We should perhaps give the school another chance.

I am very interested in the neighborhood school your son went to though I know you will not reveal. Different people have different views on what makes a neighborhood school. Rosyth for one is right smack in the middle of many HDB flats but I would hardly call it a neighbourhood school.[/quote]The sweeping generalization has robust research support in many studies tracking IQ. Parental IQ have strong relationships with child IQ. Nonetheless, it is true that it does not hold true for all. Nothing in the social sciences has 100% predictive power.

Give another chance? That is right. That is why I refuse to divulge the name of the school despite having received so many PMs. That is giving it another chance. The cautionary tale does not apply to the specific school. It applies to the process of applying for branded schools. What happened to one branded school can happen to any. Parents just need to exercise due diligence.

Neither would I divulge the name of the neighbourhood school my son is in. One must show some circumspection whether in praise (so that parents are not unduly mislead by a single person's experience) or in critique (so that the school might be given another chance). Suffice to say that none have yet mentioned my son's school in this thread... and it does not appear in any of the top school exam papers collections that I have bought.

[janet88]

jtoh:

DesertWind:

[quote=\"Chenonceau\"]What parents found in the year my daughter and her friends took her PSLE is that the school is not as loyal as it makes itself out to be.

I trusted the school, and they did such bad job with The Daughter and her friends, and when it came to PSLE, the school chopped away 2 out of 7 classes so that the cut-off at secondary level still looked good.

This is horrifying! :!:

But that's what's being practised at several schools. The easiest way to make your COP look good is to chop off the bottom classes of your affiliated primary school and take in the better students from outside. Why do you think schools have been raising their COP from 200 to 210 to 220 and so on. You lose about 1 class of bottom students each time but get students from outside coming in at >250.[/quote]Yes, schools with affiliated sec schools have COP raised to maintain standard. Daughter's school will be see a rise in COP next year. Also heard that the principal of the sec side have been bringing in students from overseas to raise standard.

[DesertWind]

Chenonceau:

No lah... From what I know they chopped them off after PSLE results were out. Sorry if I wasn't clear. It's still terrible to lose 2 of 7 classes though. It is an indictment of your own teaching quality, especially when the kids are scions of successful families with intelligent parents.

OIC, thanks for clarifying!
Wah...ho....you are very brave to state this in bold. Because thought even our SM could not stand up to public pressure on this...

[kiasu2011]

Chenonceau:

kiasu2011


:congrats: :rahrah: :congrats: :rahrah:

I hope mine in neighbourhood school also will follow in your son's footsteps!!

:thankyou:
you are so knowledgeable , i think your children should be no problem.

[Angelight]

Chenonceau, Kiasu2011,


After reading your posts abt exceling in a neighborhood primary school and went on to a good or elite secondary and tertiary schools, I can totally identify cos I'm a classic example.

Chenonceau, I feel very enlightened after reading your posts. Especially the part about \"looking beyond the glitter that looks like gold but isn't\" Very wise saying indeed.

So you are a psychologist...I love the psychology subject when I studied it as a minor in Uni. (sorry, sidetracked a little)

[laissezfaire]

DesertWind:

Chenonceau:

No lah... From what I know they chopped them off after PSLE results were out. Sorry if I wasn't clear. It's still terrible to lose 2 of 7 classes though. It is an indictment of your own teaching quality, especially when the kids are scions of successful families with intelligent parents.

OIC, thanks for clarifying!
Wah...ho....you are very brave to state this in bold. Because thought even our SM could not stand up to public pressure on this...

SM could not stand up to this because it was bad social science all round, as simplified as Chenonceau's conclusions.

Mentioning studies which have shown strong correlation between parent IQ and child IQ is a simplified version of the tale. These studies have been discredited because of the small sample sizes. Given that you express surprise that \"scions of successful families with intelligent parents\" cannot make it in some circumstances, it's no wonder that your reverse logic quotes the self same studies which only sample upper middle class families and above, the precise ones which have been shown to be self-serving and proved \"evidence\" for anyone ranging from psychologists to supremacists.

Your own experience contradicts your own argument. You took your child out of one environment and it worked, especially considering you probably exchanged one set of social and hereditary circumstances for another. Did you not factor environment or age or class? Giving a nod to alternative argument by saying that no theory is 100% predictive is a cheap way of dismissing factors that are just as powerful as heredity. It's bad social science, no matter which way you look at it.

[Chenonceau]

laissezfaire:

DesertWind:

[quote=\"Chenonceau\"] No lah... From what I know they chopped them off after PSLE results were out. Sorry if I wasn't clear. It's still terrible to lose 2 of 7 classes though. It is an indictment of your own teaching quality, especially when the kids are scions of successful families with intelligent parents.

OIC, thanks for clarifying!
Wah...ho....you are very brave to state this in bold. Because thought even our SM could not stand up to public pressure on this...

SM could not stand up to this because it was bad social science all round, as simplified as Chenonceau's conclusions.

Mentioning studies which have shown strong correlation between parent IQ and child IQ is a simplified version of the tale. These studies have been discredited because of the small sample sizes. Given that you express surprise that \"scions of successful families with intelligent parents\" cannot make it in some circumstances, it's no wonder that your reverse logic quotes the self same studies which only sample upper middle class families and above, the precise ones which have been shown to be self-serving and proved \"evidence\" for anyone ranging from psychologists to supremacists.

Your own experience contradicts your own argument. You took your child out of one environment and it worked, especially considering you probably exchanged one set of social and hereditary circumstances for another. Did you not factor environment or age or class? Giving a nod to alternative argument by saying that no theory is 100% predictive is a cheap way of dismissing factors that are just as powerful as heredity. It's bad social science, no matter which way you look at it.[/quote]Just to be clear, lest we be speaking of different relationships. The relationships being discussed are...

1) IQ relates to academic results
Multiple studies. Large sample sizes. Studies across cultures. Therefore classed as robust finding. In addition, studies include longitudinal ones.

2) IQ relates to socio-economic status
Multiple studies. Large sample sizes. Studies across cultures. However, compared to the other 2, this relationship is less strong in cultures with unequal opportunity.

3) Parent IQ relates to child IQ
Multiple studies. Large sample sizes. Studies across cultures. Therefore, classed as robust finding.

The numbers say what they say. We mustn't reject science and call it bad because we disagree with the results.

The picture, as you say, is more complex than it is simple. This whole discussion started because I took the position that Nurture is Important. We do not disagree. Otherwise, why have schools? If I did not take nurture as important, then why caution parents to do due diligence in researching branded schools thoroughly before they put their children there? We do not disagree.

The worry in Singapore is that the educational standards bar has been raised so high that to do well, a child needs TOO MUCH nurture in the form of tuition. Families unable to afford tuition prejudice their children's future success. I know a child in Normal Stream with an IQ of 120. Frankly, I am not sure I and my kids are that smart. This child in Normal Stream has a dead parent and another parent who doesn't care. This kid, with his brains, is well on his way to create a headache for our police force 20 years from now. He is smarter than many policemen.

This is a child from a family which has found soci-economic success through the past 4 generations. The family has affiliations to the nation's most reputable schools. The parents are smart and have reached a certain socio-economic status because they are smart. But that was because Singapore has had high social mobility in the past 3 decades. In the past 3 decades IQ would relate well to socio-economic status (meritocracy mah...) but in the next 2 decades, unless something is done about the need for tuition and more tuition, we will find that those who go into the top schools are there because...
1) they have high IQ
2) AND they have access to good tutors (or a vigilant parent)
Both conditions are necessary for educational success TODAY.

What this means is that many high IQ children (those without good tutors &/or vigilant parents) will fall between the gaps. In 20 years time, this will be a problem because we have many smart children who, having had paths to legitimate success blocked... will find success in other ways. And these very smart children are the nation's wasted talent.... who will become the nation's bane (for they are smart enough to find alternative routes to success that may not be entirely legal).

I do not dismiss other factors. Nowhere have I stated that NURTURE is not important. Indeed, the whole idea of encouraging parents to perform due diligence on branded schools (and not blindly trust the name) is premised on the belief that nurture matters. If you have an affiliation to a branded school, it is likely that you have high socio-economic status, and therefore high IQ. Your kids are likely to inherit your IQ.

Put that high IQ child of yours in a branded school that provides poor education, and you lose your kids. Where in this line of reasoning do I state that Nurture is unimportant? My line of argumentation is not simplistic. But if readers choose to focus on a single statement and then conclude that it is simple... well...

Happily there is a good side to all this. Neighbourhood schools stand a good chance of evening the score for parents with no affiliations because some branded schools don't value add much. Find a good neighbourhood school, be a vigilant parent and find good tutors. The kid can still do well. This of course, assumes you have the money for good tutors.