Some students fail to thrive on Integrated Programme scheme

[Funx3]

jtoh:

tisha:

[quote=\"FanFanX\"]
Raffles Institution said it was looking into starting an O-level class. Principal Lim Lai Cheng said that if this happens, it will be 'to open up options' for those wanting to go to polytechnics or abroad.

This is ridiculous! You don't go to RI to end up in poly! :siam:
Actually these top notch IP school where every student is academically streched in an accelerated environment should set up some kind of minimum TScore(240? 250? the school can decide based on past experience) for those DSAed. In such an environment, it does not make sense to say that as long as you have a confirmed offer we welcome you with open arms even if u score 201(express eligibility). Aren't the schools being greedy to get these students in just to bring medals and glory to the school at the cost of the child?
From now on I guess parents should approach this DSA thingy with caution.

It takes two hands to clap. If you know your kid's academics aren't that strong why apply for RI where most everyone's T-score is >260?[/quote]Actually this Sports DSA thingy got a First Hurdle to Pass ....
Remember the Sch Ask for P5, P6 (Some even ask for P4) Pri Sch Results to be Submitted?

Let's Be Realistic ....
If A Kid score in the Region of 60's consistently, U think they will be Shortlisted?
And they have to clear the Next Hurdle for the GAT / HAST Tests as Well ....
If the Kids Fare Bad-ly in these, Don't think they Will be Shortlisted in the Interview Round ....
(The Few Sports DSA kids whom I Know who got to the Interview Round in RGS, has Sch Results Avg of above 70's to above 90's, With quite a number of them being Sch Prefects ....)

So the Sch does exercise some control in their selection, in choosing those kids who R likely to Fit academically into their IP Prog.

To Share with U, the Teacher-in-charge for Chinese Dance in NYGH has actually inform parents that the Sch May not offer CO to her Top choice of candidates. And It ALL depends on the sch assessment of the Kids' fit to the Sch Prog (Implying academic, I presume). And She Advise ALL Gals to Study hard to get Good Results in PSLE, coz that is the Best Way to enter the sch.
And she will Welcome them with Open Arms in her CCA when they R posted successfully to the Sch!

[phankao]

Chenonceau:

The thing to note is that you don't rise to the top of your sport if you have low IQ. A high IQ child may however have the wrong type of body or may be physically lacking somehow. If you have a high performing sports child, that child has necessarily high IQ.

If you believe this, it is only a matter of wise resource planning and time management from primary school onwards so that the child can manage both sport and studies reasonably well. It CAN be managed. Just because you have a DSA sports child does not mean he/she cannot be good academically. I know many sports people with stellar results too.

This conclusion is from your experience working with children? So does it apply to children who are high-achievers in other areas, e.g. music, drama,..etc? But not exactly high-achievers in the academic area (probably just average only)?

[Chenonceau]

phankao:

Chenonceau:

The thing to note is that you don't rise to the top of your sport if you have low IQ. A high IQ child may however have the wrong type of body or may be physically lacking somehow. If you have a high performing sports child, that child has necessarily high IQ.

If you believe this, it is only a matter of wise resource planning and time management from primary school onwards so that the child can manage both sport and studies reasonably well. It CAN be managed. Just because you have a DSA sports child does not mean he/she cannot be good academically. I know many sports people with stellar results too.

This conclusion is from your experience working with children? So does it apply to children who are high-achievers in other areas, e.g. music, drama,..etc? But not exactly high-achievers in the academic area (probably just average only)?

Kekekekekeke!! I have very little experience with children lah (except for my own kids)... but basically high performance in every area is linked to intelligence... simply because every area of the arts or sports requires a lot of problem-solving. I said \"if you believe this\"... which means to say I didn't bother to go and look up any research evidence so I'm being very tentative here.

Were there some studies linking musical talent to Math ability? A friend with a PhD in engineering put himself through university by playing piano gigs in bars at night and on weekends.

[phankao]

Chenonceau:

Were there some studies linking musical talent to Math ability?.

Ah, but to what degree, yah? Maybe of High IQ, but High IQ can also be relative. ;D Maybe it's also somewhat like how people say Breastfeeding increases IQ or promotes better health. In reality, the child would just be more intelligent or more healthy THAN if he/she has not been breastfed.

So maybe the child would just be more intelligent than if he/she was not a high achiever in area of sports or music or other areas. May not be top in academic, could be average only, but may be just better.

[Chenonceau]

phankao:

Chenonceau:

Were there some studies linking musical talent to Math ability?.

Ah, but to what degree, yah? Maybe of High IQ, but High IQ can also be relative. ;D Maybe it's also somewhat like how people say Breastfeeding increases IQ or promotes better health. In reality, the child would just be more intelligent or more healthy THAN if he/she has not been breastfed.

So maybe the child would just be more intelligent than if he/she was not a high achiever in area of sports or music or other areas. May not be top in academic, could be average only, but may be just better.

Eh? What? You mean that sports and music training causes intelligence hah? Or do you mean that someone with IQ high enough for top notch sport and music is also likely to do well in academics if given enough time to study.

Sorry... I can't make you out.

[phankao]

Chenonceau:

phankao:

[quote=\"Chenonceau\"]
Were there some studies linking musical talent to Math ability?.

Ah, but to what degree, yah? Maybe of High IQ, but High IQ can also be relative. ;D Maybe it's also somewhat like how people say Breastfeeding increases IQ or promotes better health. In reality, the child would just be more intelligent or more healthy THAN if he/she has not been breastfed.

So maybe the child would just be more intelligent than if he/she was not a high achiever in area of sports or music or other areas. May not be top in academic, could be average only, but may be just better.

Eh? What? You mean that sports and music training causes intelligence hah? Or do you mean that someone with IQ high enough for top notch sport and music is also likely to do well in academics if given enough time to study.

Sorry... I can't make you out.[/quote]haha - bc you said that if they are high achievers in those areas, they should have high IQ too. Maybe some don't' have as High IQ as others, that's what I mean.

[janet88]

Just curious…supposing the child made it to RI using DSA, does his results have to be as good as the sports activity he used to gain entry ? No matter what, RI is elite and if his sports activity is very good but results are so-so, won’t he be struggling ?

[corneyAmber]

jtoh:

Chenonceau,


Your dd is so lucky to have you looking out for her. I just can't get over the insane hours your dd was asked to train. Missing 2 hours of school + up to 7pm on weekdays and full days on weekends! That's bordering on child abuse. Can the child's body take that kind of intensive training? And how do you possibly keep up with schoolwork? I hope things are different now for the younger DSA students after your intervention.

Then I have been abused and by the same school incidentally. But I was \"happily abused\". I missed 3-4 MONTHS of lessons DAILY (with all my teachers scolding and cursing me for doing so) and trained full days on weekends but I still emerged amongst the top in my class and scored the highest in one of the subjects, so I meant it when I said I was \"happily abused\" and \"abused\" was still correct because no help was rendered by the school but I believe that became the biggest help in my life as I learned the lesson of efficient studies due to this. Perhaps because I knew I had lesser than most people in terms of guidance in schoolwork and time, I put in doubly hard effort unknowingly and I was actually more efficient. It brought my studies to another level I never knew. The more I trained physically, the better I became in my studies, my brain was running so efficiently, it was unbelievable...everything I studied on my own was like Archimedes shouting \"Eureka!\" each time I solved it. In fact after training, I had to return home to spend at least an hour to prepare the items for next day's training and yet I could complete all homework assigned daily without fail(without attending the lesson and figured out how to do on my own using textbooks only; sec textbooks are pretty decent I must say) and never slept a night late or got up with dark rings over my eyes. No teacher ever knocked at my parents' door to complain about unhanded or undone assignments. I never did badly in any tests during that period, maintaining a pristine record academically. In fact my parents were oblivious to me skipping classes in school and often wondered why I spent so many hours in school on weekends and lugged so much stuff to school daily. Since my parents knew nothing, I decided everything. It was a crucial streaming year too because we were either streamed to science or arts and I was streamed to the oversubscribed pure science class which there were only 2 out of 10 classes.

I am sharing this not to trumpet that I was good, certainly I had no clue at all but there was one thing that kept me going...we wanted to win the gold trophy to glorify our school and we DID! I am sharing this experience as an alternative view that sometimes we may not know what magic such schedule can do for us. When pushed to our limits, the unknown side of us surfaced. I actually got to know myself better in that year and I never fell sick throughout the ordeal. The lesson I derived from this experience was priceless and left indelible memories of my best days in school. Everyday I share with my child, don't underestimate the steel under herself.

But of course I must qualify....those might be deemed as the days that \"mata wear shorts\" days when I was receiving my sec education....so please read this with a pinch of salt as an alternative view.

Ironically, the thing that caused my studies to show any warning signs of falter was never the hectic schedule during my school-life between CCA and studies but it was the complexities of BGR during my 'A' levels. :rotflmao: So now as a parent, I am eye-balling this more than time spent on CCA.

[Chenonceau]

ksi:

I am sharing this experience as an alternative view that sometimes we may not know what magic such schedule can do for us. When pushed to our limits, the unknown side of us surfaced. I actually got to know myself better in that year and I never fell sick throughout the ordeal. The lesson I derived from this experience was priceless and left indelible memories of my best days in school. Everyday I share with my child, don't underestimate the steel under herself.


But of course I must qualify....those might be deemed as the days that \"mata wear shorts\" days when I was receiving my sec education....so please read this with a pinch of salt as an alternative view.

:udawoman: Waaaaah!! You're an amazing woman!! I'm really impressed! Good at Math and a prize-winning sportswoman. I was a fat potato in secondary school and never been good at Math. :udawoman: I also think you speak like a true sportswoman. My DD sometimes says this too. I don't think this aspect has changed from the time mata wore shorts Your sharing did effectively round out the discussion somewhat so that people can get a more accurate view of the joyful demands of being a sportswoman.

[Chenonceau]

janet_lee88:

Just curious...supposing the child made it to RI using DSA, does his results have to be as good as the sports activity he used to gain entry ? No matter what, RI is elite and if his sports activity is very good but results are so-so, won't he be struggling ?

Nowadays, I dunno. In the year my DD was in Sec 2, her school set a cut-off for DSA and looked very carefully at the screening test results before admitting CCA talent. Even though the cutoff was a good 20 to 30 points below the PSLE cut off, some of these kids ended up doing very well in their studies. Others, who did make the PSLE cut off point, flunked out instead.

It is very intuitive to believe that a child with a very low PSLE score will struggle amongst children with very high PSLE scores. This is not a given. So many variables feed into performance. Some with high t-scores refuse to study just to piss their parents off. Others with low t-scores wanna prove themselves capable. Then, as Ksi's inspiring personal experience demonstrated, some kids just really come into their own when pushed to the limits. They underperform otherwise.

My biggest bugbear with the system is that there is a stark difference in the type of opportunities for learning further open to you just because of the PSLE t-score... or your results during the streaming year... or whether you're in best or 2nd best class... or whether you're in a top school and not so top school... or if you are in GEP.

The MOE has promised to even out the opportunities and talent amongst schools, and to start with, it has locked down the DSA Appeal. This will allow students of a wider band of varying abilities to interact and build social ties... and learn about the natural diversity of abilities and skills. It is not a bad thing really. Of course, the ability banding cannot be widened too drastically at this point or else our system will get unstabilised...

Just because a child has a low t-score at PSLE does not necessarily mean poor grades at A levels. A high t-score also does not mean high grades at A levels. There is a statistical correlation between the 2 scores no doubt but there are other variables that come in to play...

A child can have a low t-score because his mother died of cancer during his PSLE year. He goes through some upheaval and then begins to focus in 'A' levels. The way our system works, the child needs consistent good results year on year to be considered worthy of some of the juiciest and most fun learning opportunities.

If RI wants a child with a low PSLE t-score to win medals, then good for the child. It's a transaction, but the child benefits from being in a milieu where exciting opportunities abound. It's a bonus... especially if RI is gonna start an 'O' level class to catch some of these who underperform for one reason or another.