School Of The Arts, Singapore

[ballet charm]

dasalo:

ballet charm:

Sorry I'm a bit confused with this current situation going on here. On SOTA's website, they said transfer students get to know their results a month later. But when I asked the teachers at SOTA, they said a one to two weeks after. So if I was accepted, I would just hav to fly back one more time just to go through the one-day immersion? They also mentioned that they would like tote applicant to go to school ASAP. So even though I went to the immersion n didn't get in I would still hav to wait for the results there?? SOS

Transfer students are usually faster, tell them about your situation about living abroad and see how they can arrange for the immersion.
Best to call the student affairs for clarification.

Thanks for the advice. If anyone else has any other solutions, do share.

[JRLam]

Hi. Can any parent with dd in Dance faculty share the following -


1. What's a typical day's schedule? A timetable will be ideal

2. What subjects do they take in their 1st 4 years? How different are those from the mainstream curriculum?

3. Is it true that the girls need to go back to school very often during June / Dec holidays?

4. Are there any performances to showcase their hardwork? If so, is it only for the better ones or every student?

5. How many students are there in a typical class?

6. Other than ballet, I understand they learn other dance genre too. What is the weightage of their time spent on ballet vs non-ballet classes?

7. Are they academically focused?

8. Are the girls allocated to their class depending on the Ballet grades they achieve respectively?

9. Do they continue to take their respective RAD or CSTD graded exams in SOTA?

Thanks alot for advice.

[delsa]

Hi everyone, we have just registered for the Open Symposium which will be on this Friday,13th April.As my daughter who’s in Primary 4 this yr is set on her goal to be part of the SOTA cohort… Lol… Yes, she decided that she wants to be in SOTA since she’s in Primary 2!! So we decided to sign up and see for ourselves what the environment would be like and for my daughter to experience and hear more on what commitment and dedication is required in order to be one of SOTA’s students.For those interested go to the school’s website and reg. for the Open Symposium… Even though it is stated that reg. is closed on 6th April… we still managed to confirmed our attendance;))

[JRLam]

delsa:

Hi everyone, we have just registered for the Open Symposium which will be on this Friday,13th April.As my daughter who's in Primary 4 this yr is set on her goal to be part of the SOTA cohort.. Lol.. Yes, she decided that she wants to be in SOTA since she's in Primary 2!! So we decided to sign up and see for ourselves what the environment would be like and for my daughter to experience and hear more on what commitment and dedication is required in order to be one of SOTA's students.For those interested go to the school's website and reg. for the Open Symposium.. Even though it is stated that reg. is closed on 6th April... we still managed to confirmed our attendance;))

Hi. Ya, I signed up too, and my DD is only P3 :oops: What faculty is your dd aiming for?

But I am trying to gather more info about the Dance faculty from the SOTA parents (dance faculty) via this website but so far no one responds . I reckon the Open Symposium will be quite general but seems like that's the only way to know more.

Do you know if there is any performance / show case by existing students during the Open Symposium? Or is that done on another day/event?

[delsa]

Hello JRLam,

My daughter will be aiming for dance(non ballet)faculty as wellshe's been doing competitive Latin dance since 7 years old. Used to do ballet in her pre- nursery years till Grade 2 but dropped it off since she discovered Latin dance.Currently doing other dance genre as well like hiphop,jazz,contemporary.oh well.. Guess she wants to try every dance n I can only support her passion.
From my awareness, there will be talks,Q & A,showcases? Been reading through this thread fr pg 1

[Ragamuffin shinobi]

JRLam:

Hi. Can any parent with dd in Dance faculty share the following -


1. What's a typical day's schedule? A timetable will be ideal

Heard they can end late when they go higher levels. Went for the earlier Symposium and the speaker said she just finished a special class with some year 4 at 8pm. The younger ones finish around 3-4.

2. What subjects do they take in their 1st 4 years? How different are those from the mainstream curriculum?

Think this info can be found in the sch site.

3. Is it true that the girls need to go back to school very often during June / Dec holidays?

They didn't say of a lot but they did say that if the kids stop dancing for too long during break, they will find it hard to get back into shape etc.

4. Are there any performances to showcase their hardwork? If so, is it only for the better ones or every student?

Er...the Open House? And think some grad concerts?

5. How many students are there in a typical class?

Small...about 20 -25 if I remember correctly.

6. Other than ballet, I understand they learn other dance genre too. What is the weightage of their time spent on ballet vs non-ballet classes?

Don't think I heard this....

7. Are they academically focused?

Pretty much coz they stressed that they are not a vocational school so their end point is still to get their students into higher institutes of education.

8. Are the girls allocated to their class depending on the Ballet grades they achieve respectively?

Apparently all mixed with kids doing other art forms too.

9. Do they continue to take their respective RAD or CSTD graded exams in SOTA?

Have spoken to a few of the dance kids and they said that stopped their dance classes outside coz it clashed with the prev weekday dance class. Guess its up to the individual...and whether they want to dance everyday of the week.

Hope this helped!

Thanks alot for advice.

[Ragamuffin shinobi]

Have been curious about what types of questions SOTA will ask the students in the interview and written test. Some egs would be good :boogie:


Anyone knows when the Open House is this year? My girl who is in P3 also wants to enter the dance faculty and has been bugging me to bring her there.

[Pixie28]

Ragamuffin shinobi:

Have been curious about what types of questions SOTA will ask the students in the interview and written test. Some egs would be good :boogie:


Anyone knows when the Open House is this year? My girl who is in P3 also wants to enter the dance faculty and has been bugging me to bring her there.

hi!

The open house will be held on 12 May. Based on what I recorded in my calender Either I saw it on the steps leading to the school or they mentioned it during the earlier symposium.

[Ragamuffin shinobi]

Thanks for the info, pixie28!


Next question , those whose kids are doing dance , has there been a change in minimum age requirement for exam or is it just my kid’s dance school. Heard its both for cstd and rad.

[sotaparent]

I have read thru some of the postings in this thread.

My kid is in SOTA year 1. I will add some info that I think you all need to be aware of.
I will put down some points/vignettes that have been related to me.

Well, it has the highest teacher to student ratio among all schools in Singapore.
And probably is the toughest, time wise among all the IB schools.
From year 3 I think, there is a culling process. Bottom 5% of the cohort will be asked to leave, according to my kid.
The graduating batch, started in 2006, is down to 25 students. Had maybe 100+ at the start? My kid says they bury their faces into their Macbooks during assembly busily typing away and stay at the library into the night.
4 students from the 2012 batch have decided to drop out.

The teachers are very resourceful and make an effort to make things fun. The rules in the schools make things fun. Boys start with long pants and fashionable ones right from the start. There are almost no rules (colour, etc) about shoes that can be worn.

Can u imagine PE where they play tag using NERF guns? Catch is, the game area is spread out all over the school. That's 10+ floors. Students aren't allowed to use the lifts. That's a lot of stairs to climb up and down. This gives u a very good sense of SOTA.

But there is also no compromise on the art/theater/music/dance (from now on I will just use arts) lessons. Its not an ECA. Never optional.
The first years are having common tests now. If they are having the test in the afternoon, they will have 4 hours of arts lesson in the morning before going for the test, and if in the morning, the arts lesson will in the afternoon.

They are also somehow able to infiltrate their students FB groups though uninformed of or invited knowingly. (There's free wifi in school. So pack sniffing?)

Day starts at 8am with some students getting there earlier to buy breakfast from McD, sausage muffin or something and will end in the evening or early night depending on the stream. My kid leaves school at 6 most of the days. Some days are short days. End at 3pm or so. I was in the Arts faculty at NUS and my kid has longer hours (possibly as long as the Engineering fac) than I had.

The most popular food item from the canteen apparently is instant cup noodles. My kid says food quality tastewise is poor but there is also that matter of him being fussy. However cup noodles are take and go items and are quickly wolf down. Lunch times are often use to study a bit. So dinner will be an important meal for you to look into.

Academically my kid is doing very well, likes anime but has voluntarily reduce the amount watched. This didn't happen in primary school, so it is maturity or lesson content appeal? For dance students, the hours are the longest and physically most demanding obviously.

The essay questions are like JC1/2 GP style questions. You give initial reports/summaries of what you intend to write, get feedback, go do more research and finally do the paper. And the teacher gets to see the conceptual development process.

For art, for a still life drawing sesson, sometimes a teacher would do this as was related to me. Goes around to each student, then says \"not nice\" (not \"no good\"), tears up the paper in front of the student and says do it again (not at the end, in process monitoring). Supposedly the highest number of tearings a particular student got was more than 30 papers. Now, I take this as training the students to develop a thick skin. Not all responses to your art work from the public is going to be favourable. Heck it can be outright nasty for whatever reason. But at the same time, you need to understand the level is not that of a starters development class. You are measured against the cohort and remember, bottom 5% gets asked to leave from year 3 onwards. The hours are such that your kid better like that particular type of arts enrolled in. Its cannot be just a hobby thing. Apparently that student came in via appeal and according to my kid's assessment, has poor technical skills in sketching. So consider carefully about coming in on appeal whether it was due to being lacking for Talent Academy or for grades.

During parent visit events, the kids that are still around acting as ushers are rather cheerful and happy looking.

In reference to a previous post, the school of sports may downplay academics but here both are required here at a rather high level of rigour. Some kids maybe better off being in an GCE school and attend art lessons at say NAFA or something where they can control the hours.

A high premium placed is on general knowledge. There are bonus questions during assessments, things not covered in lessons (yet) but would demonstrate interest and effort in the subject matter. They give a considerable boost the grades. Interesting reward scheme eh? Getting the answer right would yield extra points like 10x or more from a normal question.

With regards to preparation for TA, my kid has been prep for the visual arts side for 6 years or so. And there are other kids like him. Again to remind you, ranking is done within the cohort.

SOTA's system has a lot of good things going for it but its not like in Finland, no ranking (which has the best results worldwide in terms of effort/results) http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/. So technical drawing skills are very important, if you don't this means, well... . Dancing/drawing/acting once or twice a week for an hour or two each time or so may not be a good gauge of ability/inclination to do it 4 hours of related activity everyday after a 6/7 hours of academic work. And for the next 6 years for that matter.

The art school he went to, the teacher has her own kid in SOTA. So she was able to prep her students for the TA with role playing sessions on TA presentation process. She related an interesting account to me. Early on, SOTA thought they had to make some concessions to academics in relation to arts standards. Then after 2 or 3 batches, they started getting students that were good in both that \"spoiled the market\".

Prepare your kids accordingly for what to expect. If it is the right thing for them, they will tired but happy. If not, they will be just tired and perhaps a little sad.