MMM:

In the kiasuparents website, there is a school ranking by academic excellence. GMPS is no. 27 while Haig Girls is no. 69. It appear that 2007 was the 1st year that Haig Girls has some ranking in the chart. Probably we need to consider the consistency of good performance.


Below is the criteria for the academic excellence ranking.
The KiasuParents.com Academic Excellence Ranking for Primary Schools is based on schools who have at least 1 student having a T-score of 275 or more points in PSLE from 2000 onwards. By noting the number of consecutive appearances for each school, we can get a feel for the consistency of the quality of students passing out from that school.

The system that KiasuParents.com uses in Academic Excellence Ranking is based on how many students scored a T-score of 275 in PSLE. The criteria that i used is to look at overall school PSLE performance, in term of %of A/A* on all the subjects, on average whole school performance.

You judge for yourself which one is more reliable in a school performance: are you interested in a few top students results or overall school results???

snowflake:

aggellim:

HI snowflake Welcome to the forum :lol:


I think Geylang Methodist Primary School is still a much better school than a normal neighbourhood school if you want to compare academic results. Is your child a motivated learner? From what I've heard of friends with kids there ,Geylang Methodist Primary School is very stressful and there's lots of HW. :roll:

If possible, go to the school in the morning when the pupils are walking to the sch or during the dismissal hours. Hopefully you can meet some parents and get to talk to them to find out more about the school.

- An all-girls' education may actually be good for girls who tend to be socially awkward and shy. A girls' school is more likely to be more sensitive to girls' needs than in a co-ed situation. Although the more boisterous girls usually gains attention from their peers and teachers, the shyer girls actually have a larger pool of people to form friendships with.

- Also, research do show that for some subjects like Math, girls tend to not do as well as boys, so in a girls' school, these subjects are usually given more focus.

- Single sex schools have a higher chance of providing a better rounded education because there is no stereotyping as to what subjects or activities are \"for boys\" (e.g. science, math, rock climbing) and what \"for girls\" (e.g. languages, arts, dance), so the kids are more exposed to different things without fear of being labelled .

- government aided schools and Govt schools differ not only in the way they are funded.

- government aided schools are allowed autonomy in the way they transmit school values to aided heir students. Govt schools have to be secular in their teachings, but GA schools are allowed to teach values in terms of their religious beliefs.

- Also,government aided schools tend to have a longer history compared to most Govt schools. This history usually lead to the GA schools being staffed with ex-students, which in turns lead to a stronger sense of school spirit.

-government aided schools also usually have stronger Alumni (which is part of the fund-raising effort), and this usually compels the school to focus a great deal on their school results, so that they can also please the Alumni. Of course, this is not to say that Govt schools don't perform - a great many do for school pride, but in GA schools, the number of stakeholders in the school is greater.

- A great number of government aided schools are single-sex schools (Only 2 Government primary schools are single sex: Haig Girls' and Raffles Girls'). Some government aided schools are linked to either clan associations or religious groups.

i believe For parents who are \"kancheong\" about more preparation for PSLE, this school would \"appear\" to be \"underperforming\"! ke... :lol:

it's really all up to you. There are certainly more factors to consider than whether a school is government aided school or not.

So perhaps some research into these schools would help in making a decision .

Hope to see you actively involved in the discussions here . :mrgreen:

From what you've described, it appears that GMPS may be a better overall school than Haig Girls. But could it be that GMPS has more obvious credentials (given its a government-aided school) and therefore more of what it does is known? And Haig Girls, being a much smaller school (in terms of physical size) does not have so much publicity, and less of what it does is actually known to the public (except of course its PSLE results which of course doesn't look that fantastic)? :idea:

So would anyone care to share their thoughts on pupils from Haig Girls and Geylang Methodist Primary School? These are the two schools that I've narrowed down to for my daughter going to P1 in 2010.

If you are comparing PSLE result, you will be surprise at what Haig Girl had performed over the passed 4 yrs. Its results were not only good but also consistent over the 4 yrs. I was very surprise that it is almost \"half fight\" with top schools, such as, Tao Nan, Nan Hua. And it performed better than Paya Lebar Methodlist, Rosyth, Rulang, Temasek, Ngee Ann,... In fact, if you are comparing PSLE result in terms of % of subject in A/A*, Haig Girl performed much better than St. Hilda Pri. They are all there in their websites...

As for GMPS, its website does not provides much details on passed PSLE results, except on overall passed rate of 99.4%. As to my opinion, as least on minimum, school should achieved 100% passed rate on PSLE.

MMM:

For my opinion, if a sch can have result that is consistently good over 4 yrs, they are good, doesn't matter how others look at it.

Result isn't everything. It is just one side of the coin.[/quote]

Hey, when your child come getting to choose a good sec sch after their psle, the bottom line will be \"RESULT\". The same when they getting to JC, Poly, or U.

You have to come to realize of this truth: This is Singapore education system.

MMM:

I don't seem to see the same info in MBS website. They show the pass rate for each subjects. But they don't disclose the A, B etc... and also the % going to express.


You appear to be a haig girl supporter. But seriously, have you wondered abt the take up rate. So far, I've friends telling me that CHIJ (Katong) is also a good school to consider but this is the 1st time I hear abt Haig Girls. They are all in the same vicinity. To enable apple to apple comparison, they are both girls school. I can understand why some parents prefer mix school eg. TNS as they have children of both sex so they would avoid going thru P1 registration twice.

Similar I was trying to analyse the demand for MBS. In this case, I realised the following :
* They are buddhist school. But people have misconception abt students being forced to practise the religion. This is not true like chief kiasu mentioned before. It's the same thing as going thru mass and morning prayer in the convent school even though you are not a catholic. During my time, I have alot of classmates who are born catholic so that is not a valid reason esp in a country like Spore.
* They don't have PV (as they only depend on existing students' parents)
* One of the criterias was to be a member of Spore Buddhist Federation. But when I called SBF (for a friend), it appeared that they do not accept members any more.
So it's is like out of reach unless they are within 1km or are grassroot leaders? and there are still space. Also the housing choice there is pretty limited too.... as it's near those showroom, tech park,etc...

First of all, I am not sure why some schools, such as, MBS, do not published these important info on their website...which i think they are very important info in deciding which sch is good for your child. But most schs that are proud of their results should put them up... Tao Nan, St Hilda, CHIJ, Kong Hwa,... all have it. Don't you think these data are important, instead of letting it to speculation?

Next is, if you are looking for popularity in choosing schs for your child, then you are really depending on other's opinions in judging a sch. Knowing that these are hard data there for you to see, instead of being led blindly.

For my opinion, if a sch can have result that is consistently good over 4 yrs, they are good, doesn't matter how others look at it.

MMM:

Blessing:

For Kong Hwa, last year 87.5% went express... As for Haig Girl 94.5% went express stream.


Result speaks for itself...

How did you get all this info on % who went to express? I am keen to see the % for MBS.

BTW, it appeared that the take up rate for Haig Girl is not very \"robust\". Not too sure why.

All the data are available in individual school website...

You will be surprise on Haig Girl results over the passed 4 years. They even beated Tao Nan in term of % in A/A* in Chinese, and % of students into Express stream.

Not many people know about it.. but all the data are all available in all their website. Nothing to hide. Thanks to our open society.

for instance, % toward express stream: Tao Nan is 92.8%, Ngee Ann is 77.6%, Paya lebar Method is 89.3%, St Nicholas is 86.9%... and our Haig Girl is 94.5%.

So you think which is the better school???

For Kong Hwa, last year 87.5% went express… As for Haig Girl 94.5% went express stream.


Result speaks for itself…

MMM:

J2mum:

Hi,


Infact, I am old ger of Temasek Pri unfortunately it is too far for me.

How far off are you from Temasek??? Temasek is very popular now and friends have good remarks about it. My impression is that it's all in the east.

Just to share, we used to stay in changi and my girl is at maha bodhi. The school bus picks her up at 11.45am as she is the last and she reaches home by 7.20pm. Now that we move to upper serangoon area, the school bus picks her up at 11am!!! and drops her by 7pm. Nearer but need to go earlier becoz the bus need to ferry other people.

In our case, we were contemplating over TNS as we can try under 1km but I just find it too risky so I still prefer to fall back on maha bodhi as it is definitely a breeze to enter via phase 2A1 or 2A2. No sleepless nites over it and the opportunity cost to me was great if I were to lose MBS for trying at TNS. We are now within 1km from HIPs and around 1.2km for Rosyth. Hubby is \"convincing\" me to put the youngest in a diff school to have a different exposure...I told him that he must be crazy. He didn't realise that we are so fortunate that we didn't have to go through any PV or balloting....

Just different views for thots : )

Who said Temasek is good?

Last year PSLE was not really impressive, only 99.8% passed. 59.8% A/A* for English, 53.1% for Math, ...

ChiefKiasu:

Blessing:

i personally believe that whether a school had produced any top PSLE scorer should not be the main concern for selection of a good school. Rather it should have a good average PSLE result... such as, firstly it must have 100% PSLE passed as minimum benchmark, next is, how many of them had gone to sec's express stream?...

I agree... unfortunately this data is hard to come by and MOE does not release the information publicly because it does not want kiasu parents like us to compare schools and make the imbalance worse. Each year, the only thing MOE releases is the list of top students and schools with top performing students. We have to depend on the individual schools themselves to publish the data as they deem fit. As a result... we see a hodge-podge of varying presentation of information as schools try to show the data in the best light. How to compare like that?

The problem is, some of those top students schools do not take care of majority students on hands. When i visited some of their website, i was surprised at those overall results... though they do produced some top students, yet overall result among the rest was quite disappointing (i think it is better not to mentioned whom they are). And there are many parents rushing to these schools because of those published information.

Ladybird:

In general, academic achievement is one way of judging a school but go and visit the school grounds of Canossa Convent. It is simply beautiful, the traditions and Canossian way (from Italy) is very much alive. One of the few schools left with Canossian nuns in charge of Pastoral care. I left this school 20 years ago and my heart still skip a beat! Also Affliated to St Anthony's Canossian Schools

In 2007, Canossa Convent primary school produced a top 15 PSLE scorer, without any additional frills of gifted teaching... Furthermore, it is linked to Canossian schools around the world.

i personally believe that whether a school had produced any top PSLE scorer should not be the main concern for selection of a good school. Rather it should have a good average PSLE result... such as, firstly it must have 100% PSLE passed as minimum benchmark, next is, how many of them had gone to sec's express stream?

Some schools are concentrating their efforts on top classes while left aside those average and below average classes. I think a good school should rather ensure ALL of their students passed their PSLE, including the worst student in the school, and then make sure most of them can enter into Express stream. That should be the way we judge on the creditibility of a school.