2009 GEP Screening And Selection

[leeven]

atutor2001:

When kids are very active they may have very mild ADHD. Usually such kids are more intelligent than others. Their patience needs to be \"nurtured\" through extra effort from a very young age.


Most parents think that it is normal for small children to be inattentive and with short attention span. However, if we study the profile of a top gifted kid (not genius - they are in a different category - genius and lunatics are separated by only a very fine line), usually we will be looking at a child who can stay focus for a longer time than others. In fact one of the greatest gift of a gifted kid is the ability to stay focus at a young age no matter whether the subject is of interest to him or her i.e. they listen and digest.

Educators are clever. To overcome a child's short attention span, methods such as \"flash card\" was invented. However, if the kid is indeed with mild ADHD then we will be reinforcing his short attention span with the use of such method. Therefore, for such kids, a necessary approach may be to spend effort in teaching him/her to stay still for a longer period of time, regardless whether he/she has finished the work (a social life skill)

We believe that children will grow out of this when they are older. True, when they are older, most will learn to keep still when the occasion requires. However, mentally, they are very impatient and have lost the ability to \"listen\" and empathise. Sometimes we call them \"elitist\". However, I think it is the way the child was brought up that created such mental state.

atutor2001, agree with you. My DS very impatient ,gets angry, tensed very fast and lose interest in any very fast except for reading but ya his grasping power is very good and studies well too .Only he accepts what his FT or LT says and no one else ,lucky he is having very patient teachers in school and reminds him again and again to slow down and gives tips for before exam for him . Only thing he can sit down is when reading books :lol: which he can do sit for hours, lucky me in that.

[TwaTau]

tracy2009:

Kiasu101:

Is it true that most of the kids who got admitted to GEP are those who top their classes in Pr 1 and 2?

For my kid’s school, there are two top classes. Those make it into gep are all from these two classes.

Some info gathered from my friends for last year (with student selected into gep): Nan Yang-30; RGPS-18;Tao Nan-18; Catholic-7

Rookie here. Just to add my 2 cents worth of info.

My son is in GEP P4 this year. He was from neighbour school, and in the top class (3A). In his year, there were about 30-40 qualified for the GEP 2nd round, mostly coming from his class. Eventually, 11 got into GEP, and I believed all of them left the school to join schools that offer GEP. His current GEP school arrange the class in the opposite way, GEP classes is 4K and 4L, and top mainstream class 4I.

[Puffer]

Hi TwaTau, Is your kid from RVPS? The info you’ve given coincides with what my kid’s FT told him.

[TwaTau]

Puffer:

Hi TwaTau, Is your kid from RVPS? The info you've given coincides with what my kid's FT told him.

Right on. Yours from the same batch or is taking the GEP test this year.?

Mine wasn't too keen to leave the school at first. Last year after getting the yellow envelope, it took us almost to the last minute to convince him to join GEP. Eventually, after he has agreed, we fax the consent form to MOE. Reason he cited was mainly of his attachment to his previous school and his knuckle head and very strong will. We cited that 1/4 of classmate will be leaving and with them gone, we are worry that he will lost all his competition. We told him to try it out and if he is not able to cope, we are OK for him to withdraw and return to mainstream.

After one year of GEP, I can see that he is enjoying the curriculum and his results is also OK. Social Science, Science and Maths he enjoy alot. English ok and HCL was the toughest for him. At end of second semester, first time he fail (Chinese composition) something in school. That really wake him up, getting us to buy Chinese story books from his reading list, which we gladly oblige. It was a good experience for both us parent and child.

[leeven]

I checked my DS school , the admin lady said :imsorry: no such info at all :? . Either probably the school dont have any students selected or still not send to the school. I totally now lost .00009 % hope to . Good Luck to other mums ...

[Puffer]

Hi TwaTau, My DS is awaiting result. There are more than 30 in his class alone who took the 2nd round, and I heard there are another 8-9 from the 2nd class. I think this year RV will reap better result in terms of the no. of students qualifying for GEP. This year DS is fortunate to be in good hand. His FT is a former GEP teacher, and I could see the quality in the assignments given to the class. The class has been undergoing something like the GEP-style of teaching. DS also told me that almost all who took the 2nd round voiced their intention to remain in the school.


Did everyone from your DS’ class who qualify for GEP leave the school in the end?

[Ah Beng]

[quote]I will be happy for the 1% of children that get selected for the GEP, but I will cry more for the majority who are bright kids who just could not make the cut, and left wondering if they will forever be inferior to the 1%[/quote]
Unfortunately, these children will always be inferior to the GEP students. According to Malcolm Gladwell, once a child has a certain IQ, what defines him/her is the training and the number of hours of education.

In the GEP, they are taught ?4 different ways of solving maths problems. Even in Pri 4 they are given problem sums that they need to solve in less than 4 steps. So as they try the different ways to solve these questions, they learn to identify the best and easiest methods for a given problem. By the time they reach PSLE they would naturally be far ahead of their cohort (and looking at the difficulty of PSLE maths this year, they would be at an advantage). And this is just in maths. Their reading list for English stretches their ability to think and appreciate the nuances that will again help them ace the comprehension passages.

Just my 2 cents worth as an Ah Beng

[TwaTau]

Puffer:

Hi TwaTau, My DS is awaiting result. There are more than 30 in his class alone who took the 2nd round, and I heard there are another 8-9 from the 2nd class. I think this year RV will reap better result in terms of the no. of students qualifying for GEP. This year DS is fortunate to be in good hand. His FT is a former GEP teacher, and I could see the quality in the assignments given to the class. The class has been undergoing something like the GEP-style of teaching. DS also told me that almost all who took the 2nd round voiced their intention to remain in the school.


Did everyone from your DS' class who qualify for GEP leave the school in the end?

I think all 11 left the school and join schools that offer GEP. 3 of them in his current GEP school and the rest I think end up in NYPS.

We were quite ignorant about GEP and just sign off the consent form not knowing what was it for, :oops: When DS came back to say he will go to the second round, then I started to snoop around for information, and that's how I came to this forum.

We were not aware of any special teaching that his previous school did for them. He is not among the top in his P3 class but come to school work, he is pretty much on autopilot and we are very much handoff,

[Emelyn]

Kiasu101:

Come to think of it...are we really anxious because of the good that GEP can do to our kids or because of our pride? For them to pass the first screening test was already a great achievement as that made them top 8% of the cohort. I have a friend whose kid is in GEP and who is depressed because of the endless homework and projects he has.

Have a fren whose son is in GEP P5 this yr. His son is very slow in doing things. EVERYTHING. Will take 3 hours to finish 1 page of Chinese compo. So, many times, he has to sleep at 12midnight just to finish up his project. And my fren has to help him burn the mid-night oil too. And in the morning, he has to wake up at 5:30am as he needs to leave for school at 6am.

He is really struggling. And because his group of friends are fast worker and smarter too.... he kind of feel that he is not good in everything.

However, my friend, probably because of face, still insisted that he stay in the GEP.

So, everytime i see the son, I feel v sad for him.

[glchua]

Ah Beng:

[quote]I will be happy for the 1% of children that get selected for the GEP, but I will cry more for the majority who are bright kids who just could not make the cut, and left wondering if they will forever be inferior to the 1%

Unfortunately, these children will always be inferior to the GEP students. According to Malcolm Gladwell, once a child has a certain IQ, what defines him/her is the training and the number of hours of education.

In the GEP, they are taught ?4 different ways of solving maths problems. Even in Pri 4 they are given problem sums that they need to solve in less than 4 steps. So as they try the different ways to solve these questions, they learn to identify the best and easiest methods for a given problem. By the time they reach PSLE they would naturally be far ahead of their cohort (and looking at the difficulty of PSLE maths this year, they would be at an advantage). And this is just in maths. Their reading list for English stretches their ability to think and appreciate the nuances that will again help them ace the comprehension passages.

Just my 2 cents worth as an Ah Beng
[/quote]Inferior? Definitely not. As explained in many previous posts here, the relationship between PSLE and \"giftedness\" is not as strong as percieved.

Any person with \"average intelligence\" can be trained in particular task to a high standard. A study on chess masters:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-expert-mind

Maybe someone in the \"top 1%\" might learn whatever PSLE material faster. But that is it - faster. Any other child given the correct environment , training and time, would also reach the same state eventually.

And again, we shouldn't tranfix on this thing called PSLE. Look back at your own results and you can see that it's effect is much diluted by many other factors after a while.