Hua Cheng Education Centre - Discussion

[LisaAnne]

Hi, sorry for late reply.

I enrolled my dd at Hua Cheng Bukit Timah , she enjoys the lesson. At first , i thought she could manage (especially HYPY), because I enrolled her in the middle of the year. My dd said , in every lesson they did revise and learned new HYPY. I looked through the worksheet of my dd, she learnt a lot in this centre, most of she learned was about P1 vocab,compre,and etc. Besides that , the centre also distirbuted a small booklet all about HYPY to every parent which i could have something to revise with her at home. (It was very helpful).
XRDkid, try to call them up and check directly with the counter, as i remember they are going to have a free seminar talking about how to help k2 kids smoothly get through the transition to P1 Chinese around this september. ...... oh, their number is 64696337
i hope it will helps~~~~

[psle_stressed_mum]

vlim:

So at the moment will try out group tuition for him ... And if by chance can come across a good private tutor in teaching sec school chinese , then I might persuade my Ds to take 1-1 tuition ....
Anyway will check with hua cheng if they follow RI HCl syllabus closely or not .....

Hi can you advise whether you found a good secondary school Chinese tuition centre?

[ZJMummy]

Right, there is also another seminar to be held in Huacheng for PLSE preparation for P6/P5, which is supposed to give tips and hints for both parants and students. I registered for my ds who is P5 now, hope to get some lobang... too early? :scratchhead:

[XEK3]

Hi, comparing Hua Cheng and its neighbough "Xuelin" at Bukit Timah, which is better?

[ZJMummy]

XEK3:

Hi, comparing Hua Cheng and its neighbough \"Xuelin\" at Bukit Timah, which is better?

Hi XEK3, it is pretty hard to give a quick answer of which one is better by simply comparison.
It is actually depended on many factors to draw a conclusion and different people with various preferences may lead to completely different results. I was ever in the same dilemma when trying to sign up one of the centres for my P5 son, as these two seems more popular around my place. Thus, I collected info by personal visit and feedbacks of my friens who had experience in the both centres.

Some people may had the same difficulty as me to make choice btw these two centres when going to the Bukit Timh plaza looking for chinese enrichment programmes. It is not only because of their same location, also because they are operating in some ways in common:

1) They both have good teaching materials well designed to boost learning interesting and in-depth practices for foundation build-up.
2) They are same in small size classes (normally less than 8).
3) Their teachers are nice and caring with motivated way of teaching as well as well education backgrounds, are trained and familiar to MOE syllabus.
4) They provide all range of chinese enrichment programmes from k1 to Sec students

Of course, there are also quite a lot different areas.

Although both of them applying newspaper cutting approaches, unlike XL using newspaper articles for all levels even k1s, Huacheng is more on encouraging upper primary students to embrace it as reading supplementary material. They said that this approach is not suitable for lower primary as they are still too young who required more firm foundation work and further brain development in order to better understand, and they are still in the age to be lured by colourful pictures and fairytale stories and get motivated by role playing games. Otherwise, it may spoil their potential interest in reading Chinese if it is too early overrun. My friend's k2 gal quitted from XL because she was afraid and quite resistant to join newspaper readings. Huacheng's AppleTree approach is quite appreciated for effective way of motivating lower primary and preschool students.

Another important factor for making decision is the flexibility of registration and makeup lesson option. There is a little difference here, XL doesn't have trial lesson available for first registration while HuaCheng allows to give four trial lessons before parents make final decision. If parents drop the lesson after trial, there is no registration fees charged.

However, both of them give free makeup lessons in kind and flexible manners. Unlike some centres they won't give makeup lesson unless medical certification is present for sick for example. My DS is P5, he sometimes had to take makeup lessons for his missing ones as unexpected activities happened in school.

As to the most important criteria to choose a centre is the quality and proven results. The comments of quality maybe varied from one to another, but the proven results may give more concrete hints. As far as I know, Hua Cheng had a longer history of being recognized as an established brand in Chinese enrichment for more than ten years. Same as its sister company Learning Point which is famous in english enrichment, some people comment that their ways of teaching may be too drilled and result-oriented with much stress especailly for upper primary. However, its results turned to be promising with almost 100% scored A & A* in 2011 PSLE. For XL, although hasn't shown much more outstanding results as still quite new with shorter history, it is getting more popular recently with their colourful teaching materials and some fresh teaching approaches like newspaper cuttings. It may be more welcomed for lower primary and pre-school students.

The last and the most crutial factor is the course fees. XL has no much competitive advantage over its neightbour. XL charges about $550 for 11 lessons per term while HC charge about $350 for 11 lessons. From only cost perspective, it seems obvious which one to be chosen. But as I mentioned it should be the one with better cost-effective outcome, so you may want to check your own needs first before you decide
Hope above info will help you make right decision which just fits for your own needs. :xedfingers:

[iFirefly]

Thanks ZJMummy for your sharing..


May I ask if anyone has any comments on Hua Cheng @ Thomson Plaza? Is it as good as the one at Bukit Timah?

Thanks in advance..

[phtthp]

Thank you so much, ZJMummy for your insightful, valuable sharing...

very much appreciated !

may I ask if anyone has comments on Hua Cheng @ Simei, Eastpoint Mall shopping centre, level 3 (beside her sister school, Learning Point) ? Is it as good as the one at Bukit Timah?

Thanks in advance..

[XEK3]

Hi ZJMummy, thank you so much for the info and advise…it’s really hard to make a decision. Most important, I need a centre that will help my kid to build up their interest in Chinese. On top of you valuable info, i think i still need to make a trip down to understand the centre.

[XRDkid]

XEK3:

Hi ZJMummy, thank you so much for the info and advise....it's really hard to make a decision. Most important, I need a centre that will help my kid to build up their interest in Chinese. On top of you valuable info, i think i still need to make a trip down to understand the centre.

Hi XEK3,

Do you have any update? I am looking forward for it ... Thanks!

[jedamum]

any more feedback on Hua Cheng? thanks.

any comparison to berries? for upper pri.