Porky Pig:

No harm trying but i do not think you will be able to get a refund. Just keep trying to reschedule her replacement lesson until it fits your schedule. Good luck!

hi Porky Pig, my dd ballet school do not let us choose replacement date (not only that, my dd ballet school will even replace the replacement lesson with a very short notice). I am surprise that you can reschedule your dd replacement lesson accordingly. I am interested to know the ballet school/teacher you dd is taking from (could you pm me?).

The latest cancellation we are going through seem to be the straw that has finally broke the camels back. We cancelled an important plan due to a replacement lesson. We were than later told the date of the replacement lesson has changed to another date.

hi porky pig. Thanks for the reply. My dd has been doing ballet for the past 7-8 years now. Same school all this while. She has missed countless lessons due to a whole variety of reasons. Her ballet lessons has in the past clashed with school activities, tuition activities, family commitments, and family vacations. All in all she had probably missed 3-4 months of lessons (without refund) in all these 7-8 years. You will probably encounter this soon enough, especially when you dd goes to secondary school. My dd ballet school schedule additional classed on weekdays. So her lessons are on Sundays and a weekday.


Most of these missed lessons are due to our own fault. So it is ok.

But what I am not happy about is when lessons are cancelled by the teacher/school. And then they will replaced it on a day that has been designated as a holiday by the ballet school. People had already planned their vacation months in advance according to this ballet school schedule. And now people have to cancel their plan because of this replacement. People has no choice but just skipped the replacement. We have been doing this in the past.

But what you think. Should I can ask for a refund instead next time?

Hi there anyone who has dd taking ballet lessons? What is the policy of your dd ballet teacher/school regarding cancelled lessons?


In my dd ballet school, cancelled lesson is usually replaced. The problem is the replacement date is usually during the school holidays or public holidays. Meaning she will missed the replacement date because sometimes we will be on holiday (when else can we with school going children go on holiday except school holidays right).

So do your ballet teacher/school return the fee for one day missed lesson if you absolutely cannot make it on the replacement date? Have you ever successfully got a refund in such case?

New Woodlands South MRT station along new Thomson Line.


SINGAPORE — The Land Transport Authority (LTA) today (Aug 23) said that it has awarded a S$144-million contract for the construction of the Woodlands South MRT station, which is scheduled to be completed in 2019.

The Woodlands South station, which was first announced by Minister for Transport Lui Tuck Yew in August last year, will be situated at the junction of Woodlands Ave 1 and Woodlands Dr 16, close to Christ Church and Woodgrove secondary schools. According to the LTA release, the Singapore Sports School is a three-minute walk from the underground station.

When the planned Thomson Line is completed, commuters will take only 45 minutes to get from Woodlands to Gardens by the Bay via the Thomson Line, 25 minutes less than the current travel time. http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/new-mrt-station-woodlands-due-2019

Here is a bit of a news for secondary 4 students and parents. The sports school is taking part in the DSA-JC.

http://www.sportsschool.edu.sg/GeneralPageDetails.aspx?id=93

2013 Direct School Admission (DSA) - JC Exercise
For Admission to IBDP Year 1 in January 2014

From 2013, the Singapore Sports School is taking part in the MOE DSA-JC Exercise.

The Sports School offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) which is an academically challenging and balanced pre-tertiary programme of education with final examinations that prepares students for success at university and life beyond.

We are looking for promising Sec 4 students who demonstrate any of the following:
a. strong intellectual potential;
b. leadership potential;
c. outstanding talent in sports; and
d. qualities like integrity, resilience and excellence.

Successful applicants will be offered a place in SSP at the start of January 2014 on the condition that they satisfy the minimum criterion for admission to junior college based on their GCE O-Level result. Once a student has accepted the DSA offer, he/she will not take part in the Joint Admission Exercise.

Eligibility Criteria

Applicant must be a Singaporean/Singapore PR or international student who is currently studying at Sec 4 (or equivalent) in a Singapore school.

A) Sports
- Represented Singapore Schools Sports Council and/or National Youth Team level.
B) Academic
- The selection criteria for DSA into Year 5 (equivalent to JC 1) are as follows:
Academic performance in Secondary 3 and Secondary 4 school examinations

IBDP Scholarship
Academic and Sports Scholarships are available for talented IBDP student-athletes.

Ok, this mean a sec4 student who has done well in sports and studies can look forward to doing their JC education at the sports school. The one great advantage over mainstream JC would be being able to continue elite sports training.

BTW, I understand that the IBDP program is part on the sports school 6-year intergrated program (IP). Meaning they take in students at secondary 1. These students will bypass O’level and continue into the JC1 at the sports school. Basically it works like the way ACS(I) does it.

I do recall ACS(I) taking in students at year 3 (Secondary 3) into their IP. So similarly, if I am not mistaken, there are oportunity for secondary 2 students from the mainstream school to get into year 3 of the sports school IP program. What I am saying is, if you are highly sports\\academic talented, you don’t have to wait to secondary 4 and DSA-JC to sports school. You can actually “DSA” anytime into sec2, sec3 or sec4.

Hi ohms. Yes you must definitely visit the school during the open house…and get to see the facilities that are often not accessible to the public. Btw, I believe the date for the open house this year is on the 6th April and not this weekend. Have a good time...

Hi chien6,

Yes, you are right about the difficulty of gathering information about the school. This can be attested by the fact that you will only get a posting every now and then…like this one , a reply more than one month after your post…lol.

I have not heard of incidence of bullying. On the contrary I have often heard about the close rapport and friendship the boarders eventually forge throughout their stay. And I don’t think there have been disciplinary cases involving BGRs either. The school are rather strict when disipline is concern and I do recall the case of several student athletes being expelled from the school for smoking offences. I guess since the staff-student ratio is so low, the students cannot escape the close attention of the school. There are boarding house masters living together with the boarders and infact the principal and some key high level staffs live there too.

I am not sure exactly what you really meant by “challenges”. What I am going to mention now are just my opinion. The Sports school is a relatively new school. It does not yet have a rich history or strong alumni support. You do not hear many stories from colleagues, neighbours or relatives that their ds/dd has got into the sports school. You tend to only hear self-congratulatory stories about how they got into a popular/elite/branded IP school. To many of us (kiasu) parents, this immediately becomes a minus point when it comes to choosing the sports school. Due to ‘herd instinct’,’kiasuism’ or whatever it is called, we will only go for ‘branded schools’ just because everyone is doing it. So the challenge for the sports school will be to change the mindset of us kiasu parents - a mind that has set us up to only appreciate popular/elite/branded secondary schools. The Sports school options is sometimes a superior option but many parents are not aware of it.

worriedbypsle:

Before my girl enrolled for Singapore Sports School, we were given the assurance that she can pull out anytime. Now we try pulling her out from there and they are singing a very different tune.


It has become so frustrating to deal with all the bullshits from Singapore Sports School and regret sending my girl for their dsa.

Any advice from parents here?

From your posting it seems your girl had sat for the PSLE this year? Since it is the 4th of December, you probably had already register your girl in the sports school for 2013? And if your girl was also successful in the DSA to a mainstream school, you would have being given a LOA from the sports school. Did you submit the LOA to the mainstream school and got the principal to sign it? If yes, this would involve that mainstream DSA school too if you intent to let your dd go there. So it is complicated.

You probably did not manage to get in touch with the right person from the sports school. At this stage in time the enrolment cycle is already towards the end. So reversing the whole process (de-registration) from the school will involve a lot of coordination. If you had sign some scholarship with the sports school for your dd then it becomes even more complicated.

Hope things get better for you. Do share more details about your frustrations. But it is funny how things sometimes turn out. I have come across parents who were fustrated with the school because their dd or ds wanted so much to get in but could not...So this is probably a good time to contact the school (for that vacated slot).

Btw, care to let us know which sports your dd got into?

Many parents are not aware that the Singapore Sports School is a secondary school. It may seem a strange statement but you will be surprise at the number of times parents will ask, “So what do they study at the sports school?”


Best answer I have come across from parents with DC in the Sport school: “It is just like any regular secondary school with one distinction – all the students there must do sports for their CCA”

The curriculum is the same as what students in regular secondary school covers. There are classes for N(T), N(A) and express. There are sec 1, sec 2, sec 3, sec 4 and sec 5 students. They study EL, MT, science, maths, history, geography, literature, bio, physic, chem, add maths etc. all the usual subject learned in regular schools. They will then sit for their GCE N-level or O-level.

School lessons start later than in regular school – 9:00AM and ends later. The reason school lesson starts later is because sometimes (some sports) they train in the morning in addition to the afternoon 4:30PM session. Sport training is of course very very important. So important that is gets equal emphasis. It is not a CCA, it is part of the curriculum. But then again not important enough that a student can ignore his/her studies. If they start to slack in their studies the school will not hestitate to ban the student from training as punishment.

And the students stay in the school (boarding) from Monday to Friday (check-out on Friday evening and check-in on Sunday evening) during the term. And just as with regular schools, they have the same school holidays.

The above are the basic academic route most parents in regular secondary school can recognise. But the sports school want to groom the student athlete as long as possible. Spending 4-5 year in sports school and then leaving after the O-levels or N-level could be a wasted effort. Effective sports training for young athlete goes beyond 4-5 year. Leaving the sports school and going into a poly or JC will disrupt the training these student have been going through since sec 1. So to prolong this academic-sports benefits the sports school has come out with other pathways beside this basic N-level and O-level route.

Since 2010, the Sports school has also started the International Baccaulaurette (IB) Diploma program. So the Sports school is now also a IP- intergrated program school, whereby student get into Sec 1, study up to Sec 4, then bypass the O-Level and go straight to JC1 (but it is called year 5) followed by JC2 (year 6) and then take the IB Diploma. So the sports school is now also similar to some independent school like ACS(I), RI or HCI. They can graduate straight from the sports school (with an IB diploma) and go into a U.

There are also other pathways available. Some are unique and only available at the sports school. There is a Sports school-RP-NTU pathway. In this pathway, students will by pass O-level and enter Republic poly after sec 4. On completion of 3 years at RP, some will go on to NTU.