Some students fail to thrive on Integrated Programme scheme

[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.

[Funx3]

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.

Agreed. There is an Un-published cut off.
Spoken to the Coach, And Apparently there is an Appeal Case still Pending as the kid is Scoring 1 pt below the Sports-DSA Cut Off - Which is about 10 points below the S1 posting cut-off ....

[Funx3]

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.

ksi-jie, U Never Fail to Amaze!
Ha Ha ....
Must Ask My Gal to Read your Post - U R A Really Inspiring Good Role Model!
:udawoman:

[looking4Tutor]

ksi:

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.

Wow, it is great to hear from someone who had being there and done it. But, hor, can expand the BGR story or not?

[less kiasu liao]

I was in a school team during those days and remembered never passing a single school test during the 2 years in JC (fairly common during those days). I distinctly remember getting hold of a F Maths textbook after competitions were done, doing all the sums from 1st page to last page, and getting an A for the prelims!


But…but is it possible to study like this nowadays???

Studying is so er…‘professional’ nowadays. Look at the long…threads just to prepare for PSLE, and the 2013 thread has already started!

[jtoh]

ksi, you're amazing! Thanks for sharing your side of the story.

[Chenonceau]

less kiasu liao:

I was in a school team during those days and remembered never passing a single school test during the 2 years in JC (fairly common during those days). I distinctly remember getting hold of a F Maths textbook after competitions were done, doing all the sums from 1st page to last page, and getting an A for the prelims!


But........but is it possible to study like this nowadays???

Studying is so er....'professional' nowadays. Look at the long.....threads just to prepare for PSLE, and the 2013 thread has already started!

This year's A levels this is still done... I am not sure when my DS gets to A levels though since of late, PSLE is so \"professional\" as you put it... :rotflmao: My DD's PSLE was far less \"professional\".

[Pen88n]

Chenonceau:

less kiasu liao:

I was in a school team during those days and remembered never passing a single school test during the 2 years in JC (fairly common during those days). I distinctly remember getting hold of a F Maths textbook after competitions were done, doing all the sums from 1st page to last page, and getting an A for the prelims!


But........but is it possible to study like this nowadays???

Studying is so er....'professional' nowadays. Look at the long.....threads just to prepare for PSLE, and the 2013 thread has already started!

This year's A levels this is still done... I am not sure when my DS gets to A levels though since of late, PSLE is so \"professional\" as you put it... :rotflmao: My DD's PSLE was far less \"professional\".

Let's hope A Levls remains this way and less \"professional\" (and parents less hands-on leaving it to the youngster to manage themselves). The more \"professional\" it becomes, the more stress to parents and kids