Thank you!

Thanks for your input. May I know where I can get the book you recommended?


Will have to talk to my DS on his preference

Happy Chinese New Year!

Thanks 24-Hr mum.


I just had a talk to his form teacher and she mentioned that P5 is the level where student will be involved in many school activities cos every schools believes that P5 is the best age for them to learn and grasp as much knowledge due to their maturity level. This is the level where they develop most in terms of life skills like leadership and people skills if given great exposure. She said more to come for students they believe can excel not only academically. My DS just told me enthusiastically that he is involved in debating training…

I guess I have to give him and myself more time to adjust…

Well, to the authority, this is definitely not an option. MOE may be not as strict now but I believe the day will come. Unless you don’t intend to do it as a long term business, I suggest you go with MOE registration. You can ‘delay’ a bit though but you really need to make sure your premise passes the fire safety requirement.

adbie:

HappyFaye - Is 300sf the floor area for each classroom or for all 3 classrooms? The MOE guideline for private schools recommends 1.5sqm (=16.15sf) per student. So for small group tuition, I suppose 100sf is sufficient for a classroom?


Also, would you mind sharing how you did the initial marketing of your services? Was it very challenging? Were parents unwilling to try out a new centre?

I have some more questions related to registration with MOE and many more other questions - is it ok if I pm you directly?

Yes MOE does have a guideline. The 300sf capacity can be 15-18 students. If the room is too small, it may limit your potential growth, unless you strongly believe in small class size. Some experienced teachers are really good and 20 per class is good for the class dynamic especially language lessons. It is just more fun to have more students joining the activities. Don’t forget that the new-age teaching requires activity space hence the proposed 300psf.

You can try as many marketing strategies as possible but again it involves cost. The initial marketing avenues include mailers by Singpost to your surrounding residential area near your centre to create awareness of your presence (Cost ~ $3k for 30K flyers but I can’t really remember the cost as I don’t do mailer anymore). If you can do door-to-door mailer is ideal but of course it is more expensive. The community magazines within your premise like Spring Magazine or Contact magazine may be another choice. Popular magazine is a good choice too. In your flyer, you should give promotional discount like try 4 lessons at promo rate or allow students to sit in for 1 lesson free. The most effective measure for me was the referral fee which you reward students/parents who refer friends.

Was it challenging? Yes! You need to pitch your sale speech well and you must have confidence in your teachers. As mentioned, this is a people business and hence sincerity and honesty are very important as it is widely spread by word of mouth.

But once your centre is established, there is not much marketing effort needed. I spent quite a lot on marketing at the initial stage but not anymore now. What you need is the financial holding power and good teachers!

With regards to MOE registration, I don’t know of anyone getting the approval first before running the business and I don’t think MOE will grant an in-principal approval. The tricky part of is to ensure your get the fire-safety cert for your premise so you need to get a certified engineer to do it for you. Try to get a contractor that is familiar in renovation for school and the contractor should be able to advise you. MOE registration is not difficult actually so long as you have the fire-safety cert. The safest way is to look for a place that has some schools/education centres.

Disclaimer here - The information is true based my own experience only.

Third week into school re-open, my P5 DS already has 3-4 days staying back in school till 5.30pm every week. By the time he reaches home, he is exhausted but he still has school work to be done after dinner.


He never needed to do school work at night for the past 4 years.

We had a talk during the December holidays about the different secondary schools and their niche learning environment. He was very by Hwa Chong & NUS High's IT environment and set his mind to achieve 260 for PSLE. He is average in Chinese ~ 80% for his past 4 years exam results. So he asked me to help him improve his Chinese.

I planned out a daily programme for him to revise but have never the chance to execute it because of his busy schedule.

Chinese is not a subject that can do last minute work and the worst thing is - he has no interest in Chinese.

I am stressed by looking at this busy schedule - Robotic training, scrabble training, preparation for stamp competition, Maths Olympiad etc. I love the different exposure he has and he loves the challenge too. But we just simply have no time to work on Chinese.

I asked him just now if he could accept his Chinese to be 60% - 70% for his SA1 due to lack of revision. He is not willing to.

If I were to go according to my plan, I think he could maintain ~80%. But it will be very stressful for both of us during this period of time. But if I don't work with him, he doesn't like to accept the low mark.

Should I stress him (and myself) or should I let nature takes its cause?

Tough decision :frustrated:

Anyone know of any Chinese teacher or centre that offers daily programme during June & Dec Holidays ? think this is a better timing for him.

I 'happened' to be managing a tution centre would be glad to share my experience here, if you don't mind the long message.


Due to cultural shock from an established MNC to a locally owned company, I quit my new full time job when my boy was 5 months old.
Nothing to do at home, beside taking care of my boy, I felt bored so I took up a course in study technique programme originated from south Africa. The course came with some exclusive rights to teach the programme. With this enrichment programme, I approached tuition centres to sell my programmes and one of the education chains opened the door for me! They even offered me to franchise their centre.

I got a friend to join me and we started the tuition centre 2 weeks before SARS closure in 2003. It was real tough, but we managed to pull through.

The results – I have a manager managing the centre now with 7 fulltime teachers & 2 fulltime staff and I manage from home. I have very low turnover of teachers and hence my business is stable.

The lessons I learnt from managing my tuition centre –
•\tEducation business is good for mothers – because of our vested interest in educating our children and its flexi hours. I always believe that mother makes the best teacher, if we want to!
•\tInitial phase into the business is always tough and you need to be prepared to spend long hours. However, once you set your footing right by having good services, it is highly possible to make it your stable stream of income. Tuition business is a people business. Do it with sincerity.
•\tIt is good to have a working partner to start the business so you have someone to share the risk and most importantly, to discuss ideas when facing challenges
•\tYes – good staff and teachers are hard to come by. You need to expand your network by attending seminars/workshops.
•\tRental is the killer now with the hot property market. However, it is still manageable as compared to childcare centre with rental ranging from $6k - $20k. For tuition centre/enrichment centre, depending on location, $1k - $5k is still manageable if you have enough resources, meaning, enough programmes to offer.

To set up a tuition centre or enrichment centre, let’s say rental is $4K with 3 classrooms of 300sf, you may need to set aside start-up capital of $50K maximum and 6-month working capital of $30K, assuming no employment of staff during the first 3 months. You may need 50 to breakeven, assuming $100 per student but if you have 3 classrooms, your maximum capacity can be 600 students. It is even more viable if you can teach for a start but this is not advisable in the long term because you end up spending less time with your family.

If you do it right, it is quite a safe business to do because 90% of our primary school students are having tuition (~ 200K primary students).

Hope I didn’t bore you to death with the long message. Good Luck!

I am sure she can, with the love from you and your help when she needs along the way

To do a good comparison, I guess we also need to take into cconsideration if a child is exposed to different enrichment programmes during pre-school years.


My DS is Nov BB and my DD is 31st Dec BB. Both attended PCF kindergarten without extra enrichment programmes in pre-school years.

In terms of academic, my boy didn't do well in P1. But after P2 till P5 now, he has matured and coping well without tuition.

As for my girl, I think she sees her brother excel and hence she wanted to do well. I was worried about her not able to cope because she was much quiter and slower in the early years but she turned out to be better that the brother in terms of academic results, without extra help too.

There may be significant differences in terms development in the early years but I strongly believe that the gap will close up depending on the learning environment in the later stage, especially in Secondary School.

So no worries

Most of the time, my kids and I quarrel over the duration of the exposure each time, but not the content.


I monitor quietly the games they play and the friends they have. So far, no cause for concern yet.

This brings back to one of my experience when I was young. My father was a heavy smoker and hence it was easy for us to access to cigarette. One day, my elderest brother stole a cigarette and ask his 4 siblings to try. 5 of us were hiding under the blanket and lit up the cigarette (luckily no fire outbreak ) We took turn to take a puff. Results - all of us hated the smell and the dryness so much that we stay away from cigarette till today.

During my secondary school time, I did mix with friends that smoked and was offered to try too but the first experience just stopped me from trying 2nd time.

So exposure with close monitoring should be fine? I thought sometimes it is good to let them try different things...