your_attorney:

Hello

May I check if Manuka honey (14 umf) is suitable for 4yo?
I have her half teaspoon last night as she is complaining her throat is v painful.

If anyone is aware I am not allowed to give UMF 14 Manuka honey to kids, pls let me know. Thank you.

You can give to children above 1 year old! Do let me know if you need to buy manuka honey, I import authentic comvita in small quantity and I am quite sure it is below retail price compared to stores. https://carousell.com/p/33813342/

Hi everyone, you may want to try this Comvita Medihoney Natural Derma (previously known as eczema) Cream. Comvita is the world’s only publicly listed company producing honey products.


A rich emollient cream with Medihoney Manuka honey, Aloe vera and Chamomile extract to soothe skin prone to eczema and minor skin irritations. Enriched with natural moisturising ingredients that replenish and condition dry skin.

• Helps relieve itching
• Fragrance free
• Dermatologically tested
• Effective for the whole family
Directions for use:Apply a small amount onto clean dry skin three times daily or as required. Smooth onto skin in the direction of hair growth. Reapply after bathing.

Just reply here or pm me if you want to buy them. Prices are definitely lower than retail because I get them from my distributor in New Zealand.

Hi everyone!


Check out the UpGrades complied list of open house dates!
(Currently, there is more than 40 schools and the admins are furiously updating more!) so bookmark the page and spread the word!

http://blog.upgrades.sg/2015/secondary- ... use-dates/

If you do not know when to hire a tutor, you can create more harm than good to your child’s learning.


Parents often either hire a tutor when their children request for one, or when they notice a dip in their child’s school performance.
If you are reading this article, you are probably at one of these junctures. From here, how do you make a good decision whether to proceed with looking for a tutor?

1. HIRING A TUTOR WHEN THERE IS A DROP IN PERFORMANCE

First, you need to determine if the decline in your children’s performance has been ongoing for some time — it could be just for one test. If the decline in performance is for a small, routine test then you should not be too anxious to hire a tutor.

However, if it applies for a milestone examination, you might want to consider the possibility that your child has not coped well for the content that has been taught in the past semester. Hiring a tutor at an early stage is crucial here, as the upcoming syllabus is likely to build upon this foundation. It would be a good idea to provide guidance to help your child cope.

The most common junctions where students face difficulties are:

Primary 4
Secondary 3 — especially with the sudden addition of subjects such as Additional Mathematics; the various sciences also have steeper learning curves
JC 1 — where students feel demoralised because their results look totally different from what they experienced in secondary school, largely due to the huge jump in rigour required for the ‘A’ levels
However, it is imperative to note that hiring a tutor nearing the critical examinations (e.g. 2-3 months before ‘A’/’O’ levels) might backfire as the tutor doesn’t have sufficient time to understand your child’s weakness and strengths. If the tutor piles on worksheets which do not address the gaps in understanding of your child, it might cause additional stress while not offering much improved performance. A tutor needs to know your child well, and this can usually take up to one month. The tutor can then tailor the lessons and work assigned to your child.

Subsequently, it will also take time for the tailored material to be absorbed by your child. All in all, it would be prudent to give the tutors about a six-month runway before the milestone examinations . For example, if help is required for the ‘O’ levels in November, hire your tutor in April.

Having that said, there are always benefits to be reaped by starting early. It is totally fine to hire a tutor in June of Secondary 3 if your child needs guidance — sometimes all it takes is a little guidance in their studying methods or content areas to ensure that they feel happy learning in school, and there will be fewer last minute panic attacks.

2. HIRING A TUTOR AT YOUR CHILD’S REQUEST

If you are at this juncture, there are two somewhat closely-related points to note:

Age
Your child’s ability to recognise specific needs for help

Firstly, you must be discerning if your child is relatively young — e.g. in Primary School. It is absolutely common in Singapore for parents to give in to such requests because there is a common syndrome of “Cindy has a home tutor, so I want one too”. Parents love their children, and between spending more on education versus the latest console game, most parents will not hesitate to help their child hire a tutor. However, this may create an “I cannot do without tuition” mindset when they grow up. This could be problematic when they reach the Junior College level because their time available for tuition shrinks and the level of difficulty jumps.

Secondly, if your child is older, then there is a need to recognise the specific help required — it will be highly ineffective if the tutor becomes just a babysitter to supervise your child. Granted, there will certainly be some improvement because this “forces” your child to do work, but in the long run, this lack of self-discipline will be detrimental to their character development. Sometimes, you will need to proactively identify your child’s weakness — instead of just taking their claims at face value.

A successful example would be one in which the child can identify that he/she has certain weak areas in Additional Mathematics because he/she is constantly stuck at Trigonometry and Logarithm problems during practices. It is not due to a lack of practice but the practice is ineffective because there are mental blocks that keep him/her from getting the “aha!” moment. Therefore, a tutor will be highly effective to clear these blockages and improve his/her grades!

Credits: http://www.upgrades.sg

I am glad you found it useful! feel free to share with your fellow parents!

Joanneseah:

zeemimi:

[quote=\"Joanneseah\"]Hi all, my daughter is jc1 this year. As you all know that jc doesn't have many assessments book available so i was thinking if anyone have other jcs resources for extra practise? Thank you !

Usually the school will compile for the students.

I feel that it will be good to have other school's tutorial for my daughter to practise [/quote]Honestly, as a a current jc tutor, I feel that it is really not necessary. Her own school tutorials will be more than enough. As a parent, if you can ensure that your daughter has the consistency to finish every tutorial qns before her lesson and do pre-readings for her lectures, that would be a very ideal scenario.

Learning is a lifelong process, spanning way beyond the classroom. we should guide our children to learn effectively, so that they can start reaping the compounded benefits from a young age. Here are three ways to improve your child’s learning.

METHOD 1: RELATE; DON’T MEMORISE

Our brain remembers information by relations—unlike computers where information is stored in discrete files. When we try to learn something new, our brains try to relate it to a piece of knowledge we already have. This is why mind maps are sometimes recommended as effective learning tools.

Memorising concepts without understanding how they fit into the big picture is therefore similar to building sandcastles in the air—there is no solid foundation, and this knowledge will come crumbling down in no time.

Therefore, when reading a new chapter in the textbook, instead of simply going page by page, we should take a quick glance through the material to get the big picture, identifying the main concepts, how they are related to one another and how they are related to something we already know.

METHOD 2: USE SPACED REPETITION; DON’T OVER-LEARN

A good way to internalise a piece of knowledge is to revisit it often. Spending 3 sessions of 20 minutes learning and revising a concept beats 1 session of 60 minutes repeatedly hammering it into our memory.

We often hear about students “hugging the Buddha leg” (a colloquial term for studying at the last minute), attempting to spend a large chunk of time—most likely one or two days before an examination—to aggressively and intensively get themselves up to speed with the curriculum.

They may succeed in ramming the facts into their brains to tide them through the examinations, but this information does not get retained well. After a holiday break, when the new academic year starts, they may not remember what they had learnt, and in turn face difficulties learning new content which builds on this knowledge.

METHOD 3: USE THE FEYNMAN TECHNIQUE
This method is similar to the one above—it also makes use of the fact that every time we retrieve a memory, we make it stronger. While the previous method focuses on the “when”, this method focuses on the “how”.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrNqSLPaZLc][/youtube]

In the Feynman Technique, students should pretend that they are teaching a 5 year old kid about the concept that they are trying to internalise. This means that they must break it down into simple words so that the 5 year old can understand. The crucial step here is that if they get stuck, they must fill the gaps in their understanding by reviewing the materials or seeking help from tutors. By breaking down the concept, it deepens the understanding of what students already know and also raises awareness of what they don’t know.

Here’s an example of how a student can apply the Feynman Technique to understand the concept of “heat capacity” by explaining it to himself, using his own words:

HEAT CAPACITY

A property of a material that describes how much heat energy it can store before its temperature changes.

For example, Jack uses the same burner to heat up both substances A and B for 5 minutes. He notices that substance A ends up having a higher temperature than substance B. In other words, the temperature of substance A is “more responsive/reactive” to heat. This means that substance A has lower heat capacity—less heat energy is required for a rise in temperature.

Credits: Upgrades.sg

sapphiredreams:

Hi, I'm a Y5 student in an IP school. I did alright in Y4, finishing with an overall GPA of 3.47 + 0.2 CCA bonus points. I used to be a very driven/motivated student who really strives to improve every test/exam. However, ever since I entered JC, the workload and subject difficulty suddenly increased tremendously and I find myself unable to cope with the rigour of the A level curriculum. I can't really absorb well in lectures. I've also lost my motivation to even complete my tutorials. It's like when the academic workload was manageable last year (I signed up for a couple of leadership activities), I was able to pace myself and set tiny milestones to work towards the bigger goal (to get 4H2s). Now, I'm just aimless and living a very empty life. I live in a motion and I know that all the trust and respect I've garnered from my friends are also decreasing because they see that I don't complete my tutorials/giving my best shot/studying/revising for any tests. Yes, I do procrastinate but it seems even worse than before because I was able to play catch up previously but now, I just accumulate a backlog of things undone, unsure and I kept clearing my \"debts\" by telling myself that \"I will get my shit together\" but I never seem to be able to do so after a week. I just find myself slacking and I have no 'energy' to pull myself together, knowing that I'm wittingly walking into the lion's den.

Here is the estimate of my recent results:

GP - B/C
Math - B (but i screwed up the last test)
Chemistry - U
Econs - U
History - D

Admittedly, I've not been putting much effort studying and I know this is my own fault. I just feel like the sky is falling down and I can't muster any strength to prevent it. Do you have any advice for me?

Honestly, face up to your fears! Put your debt in front of you, every single piece of work. This is similar to a bankrupt cutting away their credit cards and looking at every single bank statement.
1. Start a regime for catching up!
2. Tell your close friends your regime with exact details and gain some social support! let down your pride a little(correct me if i am wrong but i feel that you do have some sense of self pride when you start talking about respect from friends), we all need our good friends in life!
3. Assess your progress with full honesty.

Your attitude is what makes or break you but not these \"plans\". so Don't Give Up!

Students should be sleeping 6-7 hours a day which is normally what doctors recommend. From my experience as an educator, a lot of students sleep very late at 2-3am which is totally not ideal because their body systems get disrupted. They should be sleeping at 11 or so and waking up at 6.


The issue should not be about the number of studying hours, it should be about the method of their studying. We should be asking how effective is their studying.
1. Some students can spend ridiculous amount of time in their room just purely reading. They do not assess how well they learn. These kids will tell their parents: "I studied for 10 hours today!" Parents may feel lost especially if the kids results don’t improve and they take heart that "oh not everyone is cut out for academic but my son has put in effort". It is important to know how well your kids time is spent.
2. Some do their practice without assessing their own mistakes or do not seek help if they are in doubt. Some students might be shy or some simply are afraid of assessments.
3. Earlier a parent mentioned about burning out, honestly, burning out is an excuse of a very smart kid. A possible question here can be so how do we prevent burn outs? The easy solution here is a study plan but the effective solution is a study attitude. Throughout sec 3 and 4 or jc1-jc2, 1.3-1.5 years is spent on new content, you are absorbing new knowledge, refining it and connecting knowledge together, effective mastery of new content is essential to doing well for the final exams. Having the attitude to apply new knowledge to new areas will help prevent burnouts which is more often due to repeated drilling of similar content and the kids’ have no new insights. Discovery and connections is what keeps the fire in learning.