GEP 2012 - Screening & Selection

[NotKiasu]

Ragamuffin shinobi:

baobei:

[quote=\"monmon31\"]

:udawoman: :udaman:

U r v strong to resist the urge to send your kid for any lessons. All of us would hv succumbed to 'peer' pressure to a certain extent w our kiasu streak... Tats why we join the kiasuparents forum...haha

Not that I can resist, child did not do well in academic, however, have always believed that one should not depend on tuition to do well. When do we need to stop child from having tuition? Importantly is to cultivate the thinking process and learning, they need to enjoy their childhood. What happens when you drill a child? Will child be able to response well when she come across a problem that she has never encountered? Will she know what to do? If the tuition centre focus on child to remember the steps instead of guiding her or reasoning wih her why the steps need to be done, I do not see any advantage except in term of academic grades.

Why do you say that tuition centres focus only on the child remembering the steps and not guiding them? Are ALL tuition centres like that or are you over generalising?
I don't think we should depend on tuition or deprive our children of their childhood but sometimes, we are not the best in coaching our kids. I couldn't help my kid in science so I sent her for class. She learnt the logic behind the lesson a lot easier and faster than I could read/understand and explain to her.
Just my two cents worth here.[/quote]Tuition itself has no right or wrong, but your motive do. If our kids are doing 80-90 marks already (think most our kids going for round 2 GEP have no problem), yet you send the kid for tuition to achieve perfect score. This I do not agree.

If a kid is always at borderline, by sending for tuition he score 60-70. Will you? I will!

[iRabbit]

NotKiasu:

I have asked myself many times if this really happen, what I should react. :shock:
I have told DS1 that it is prefectly ok if he is not selected, and DS1 is not very keen to go for GEP as he does not know what to expect. But to be frank, I will feel a bit disappointed for sure. But that is live, you lost some you gain some.

From the statement in red above, I can tell your nick suits you very well.

[NotKiasu]

pecalis:

NotKiasu:

Assume the 1% is 500 students, and you know your child is around 450th position. And you know a lot of parents prep their child for GEP. What will you do?

My DS1's Kindergarten principle keep remind us to send him for GEP prep class as she has identified him as gifted at end of K1. Her reason being not to let him be at a disadvantage ground.

In the end, we still did not send him for any prep class, want him know he get in by his own merit. Assume he is selected.

Not sure if the story of my son will encourage you - I knew he is good at math since young - he did not attend preschool as i taught him myself - he would tell me what he wanted to learn, say addition, then move on to subtraction and multiplication and so forth. He also asked about negative numbers at 5 yo and i briefly explained to him. I've always thought he's special but not sure if gifted or just advance. I sent him for testing, partly to confirm my suspicion but this cert came in handy when we relocated and had to transfer school at the end of P2.

I let him do Math Olympiad by Terry Chew, simply becos both of us enjoyed it. So is this considered training for GEP? He did not attend any other classes except for Chinese tuition. The 3 yrs in GEP was a struggle and learning process for him. He failed (did not make the 70% mark) the 1st math test in P4 and thus, had to go for math remedial by tr and he began to think that he is also not gd at math. Of course, this mother of his firmly believe that he is very good at math still and i was proven correct when he went into the special round of NMOS without any training - even his sch tr was surprised.

The purpose of agreeing to him attend GEP was to stress him a little and to humble him and i believe, it was achieved

Hi pecalis, thanks for your sharing.
I know there are other more important things in life. Knowing my DS is good academically, I have been trying not to be so kiasu, telling myself and DS to focus more on character building.

[NotKiasu]

FQW:

NotKiasu:

I have asked myself many times if this really happen, what I should react. :shock:
I have told DS1 that it is prefectly ok if he is not selected, and DS1 is not very keen to go for GEP as he does not know what to expect. But to be frank, I will feel a bit disappointed for sure. But that is live, you lost some you gain some.

From the statement in red above, I can tell your nick suits you very well.

Thanks! I can't say that I am not kiasu but I am trying not to be one. :oops:

[iRabbit]

pecalis:

Not sure if the story of my son will encourage you - I knew he is good at math since young - he did not attend preschool as i taught him myself - he would tell me what he wanted to learn, say addition, then move on to subtraction and multiplication and so forth. He also asked about negative numbers at 5 yo and i briefly explained to him. I've always thought he's special but not sure if gifted or just advance. I sent him for testing, partly to confirm my suspicion but this cert came in handy when we relocated and had to transfer school at the end of P2.

I let him do Math Olympiad by Terry Chew, simply becos both of us enjoyed it. So is this considered training for GEP? He did not attend any other classes except for Chinese tuition. The 3 yrs in GEP was a struggle and learning process for him. He failed (did not make the 70% mark) the 1st math test in P4 and thus, had to go for math remedial by tr and he began to think that he is also not gd at math. Of course, this mother of his firmly believe that he is very good at math still and i was proven correct when he went into the special round of NMOS without any training - even his sch tr was surprised.

The purpose of agreeing to him attend GEP was to stress him a little and to humble him and i believe, it was achieved

Yours is the first post I read that said your ds struggled with GEP despite the fact you didn't prep him in advance.

Very often we read things like: \"If you prep your child, he'll struggle in GEP ... and so on and so forth.\" Well, I've friends who didn't prep their kids for GEP, and their kids are struggling too.

All these made me wonder, are those prep classes as bad as they are made up to be? Is the GEP standard stretched beyond that of the average GEP candidate. Interesting food-for-thought.

[iRabbit]

3Boys:

FQW:

[quote=\"NotKiasu\"]
My DS1's Kindergarten principle keep remind us to send him for GEP prep class as she has identified him as gifted at end of K1. Her reason being not to let him be at a disadvantage ground.

In the end, we still did not send him for any prep class, want him know he get in by his own merit. Assume he is selected.

Hypothetically speaking, if your ds didn't get in and you realised that your friend's ds - though not as gifted as your ds - got in and he went for prep class, will you be sore about it?

No.[/quote]That makes you non-kiasu too. But most of us know that already.

[25hr mama]

I did not send my dd to any GEP Prep class, but I'm not against other parents doing that. After all, itz 天下父母心. Kids who attended such classes & got selected, may or may not be naturally gifted, nobody knows.


Before the GEP selection test, my dd (including myself) had not heard of the term \"GEP\" n knew nothing abt it, call me ignorant if u like. We just told her to do her best, like what she had done for any other school tests or exams so far, but better this time as she need not do any preparartion or study for it, it was stated in the MOE letter.

My dd was lucky enough to be selected. But my point is, even if she had not been selected, I guess she would still feel ok, as there was no pressure on her.

For parents who sent their kids to Prep classes, I may be wrong, but I guess it could be both parents n kids, or juz the parents or juz the kids who are putting high hopes in getting into GEP. Some kids may feel that they wud be a big disappointment if not selected, as their parents have spent so much money to prepare them for the test.

Regardless of whatever reason, whether its bcos of the GEP curriculum or due to peer pressure (siblings, cousins, friends in GEP), parents play a very important role in managing the kids expectation n emotion.

Personally I feel too much discussion abt GEP, especially in front of the kids sometimes do them more harm. I have seen a group of parents praising one child in front of many parents n other kids, \" dun worry...ur son no problem one lah, top student every year, if he cannot get in, who else can...\"

No problem if they were to be selected, but what if they are not. Before the result come out, prepare for the worst, plan what want to say to ur child, I dun think any parent wud want to see their child hurt bcos of a test like this. U may not need to wait until the result day, it wud be even better to start talking n conditioning them now, there's no harm to prepare for the worst while u r hoping for the best.

All the best to everyone...

[Chenonceau]

I didn’t send mine for GEP testing even… but if I had to do it again… I would send for prep and try hard for GEP. My biggest reason would be class sizes of 25 children only, better quality materials and teaching.

[baobei]

Yup being gifted must also have the right attitude.


Everyone is gifted in one way, some in terms of academic.

Gifted child generally need shorter time to grasp a concept in the area that she is gifted in without much practice.

[jershejos]

My DD is 2nd kid of mine and she’s intellectually and academic better than my DS1, hence I had always wanna put her to the limit. However, through the years, I’d realised that she is not interested in scaling the limit beyond the curriculum, so I let her be. When she was selected for 2nd round, I msg my DH "surprise, surprise". I intend to do little preparation on the GA before the test so as to let her has some idea what it will be, but she was vomitting the day before test. Was already thinking for not letting her going but she pull herself up the night to ask me to go through the GA with her, that I know she is interested and not willing to give up her chance. DH was a little unhappy of me letting her continue with the test but I know if I do not let her taking the test, she may be sad and I may regret. Luckily she went throught 2 days and it’s done!

What I wanna say is, there are some kiasuism and some none-kiasuism in various situation but parents should understand the kid’s ability and interest and practice the kiasuism at their best interest!
There’s no right or wrong in many case, we are human after all.