a child:

Jakaranda:

Hi I'll be joining RGS next year!

Just one question regarding the tennis CCA of RGS.
I did not DSA into RGS and entered through PSLE. However, I am interested in joining the tennis CCA of RGS( I have been training since P3).May I know if I can join tennis CCA when school starts or only DSA-tennis players are allowed in the school team?
When is the training, usually? I heard that it might clash with 3rd language lessons.

You may try out for all sports CCA, though usually half the spots are already taken by DSAs Experience is also a bonus though it's not really taken into consideration that much, mostly just your performance during the trials (my experience)

I'm not sure exactly when the training is. However, based on my experience (again), sports usually train 3x a week before season or 4x a week during season. The training may be lowered to 2x a week after season. C Div is usually the DSAs + those with a lot of experience + Sec 2s, and B Div is Sec 3 + 4. Those not in these two school teams (i.e. non-DSA Sec 1s) may be training for 2x a week only also, until, of course, they are \"promoted\" to C Div in Sec 2. Sports usually train regularly during the holidays also, except for a 2-3 week-break and usually they'll recommend for you to do your overseas travel / etc during those few weeks without travel. Sessions do not clash with 3rd lang - Friday is reserved for 3rd lang and there is no CCA on that day. CCA days are usually Monday, Tuesday and Thursday This is my experience only, though.

However, do note that you should try not to burden yourselves too much in Sec 1. If, for example, you do 3rd lang (1 day) + Sports CCA (3 days) + another day of private lessons in piano/violin/dance etc. (1 day), you'll be home 5+ every day. That's rather draining (though in the higher levels such over-scheduling becomes commonplace and rather unavoidable, it seems). Also, there are so many other activities in RGS other than these, though they are generally only available to the higher levels, such as Special program RS (OM is a crazy on that comes to mind, CmPS, etc. and Science Mentorship Program) plus Service Learning, and also leadership boards, random interest groups, etc etc. I've many friends who ended up dropping their 2nd CCA and/or 3rd lang either 1) because they cannot cope / are failing 3rd lang / etc, and/or 2) they do not have time for other activities they would like to pursue - we all only have 7 days a week. Hence I urge you guys to consider properly because this is no longer primary school, there are many more activities, and you can never dominate all of these arenas. Choose wisely The dropout rate for 2nd CCAs + 3rd lang (especially) in my experience is very, very high.

GREAT THANKS! My schedule will be exactly like how you guessed if I join tennis CCA. I might have to reconsider my choice(or wait till 3rd Jan?) I really want to do my best in every subject!

phtthp:

Jakaranda:

My school has VERY strict marking schemes for school exams, so it is not surprising that most of us did better than in prelims. What seemed to be unreasonable is that those who did well(in prelims) did better, and that those who did all right did worse in PSLE. Apparently there are more pupils scoring 260+ and around 240.

Congratulations, Jakaranda!
you got in RGSS

curious ... may we know which school u come from -
that practise VERY strict marking scheme for school exam ?

Thanks!
I come from Nan Hua Primary. Yes, the marking scheme is really, very, absolutely strict and accurate(especially English and Chinese) and the Science paper is pretty difficult compared to the other schools. If they give us practice papers from other schools (NH exchanges CA&SA&Prelim papers with other schools) they sometimes even change the marking schemes to a higher standard.
Thank god, Maths is a breeze to most of us.

osim:

esme38:

Is it worth to get the highest end model of the Flash Drive Mac? There are 4 models ...i am referring to the highest 2 costs.


Thanks

This is also to reply to Hermione.

Seniors, please correct me if my info is wrong.

We have deliberated over this and also whether to buy from Sapura.

We concluded to get from Sapura for 1 single reason, the 4-year Apple Care.  It is important to have a longer warranty as by year 3 and 4, electronic things usually start giving problems and Apple repair is expensive.

As for other considerations,

1. Do consider the fact that the Flashdrive size is not scalable so do envisage your storage needs for the next 4 years or however long you may keep your laptop.  With 128G, you may want to backup your files in the cloud instead if space gets tight, try DropBox.  I think you cannot install
Windows OS with 128 space.  But much of the world out there is still using the Windows OS so that is a consideration.

2. for Macbook Air,  the RAM of 4G and 2.8MHz is subjectively slower then the Pro.  The newer Mac OS performs better with increased processor speed.  We asked Sapura can we soup up the RAM to 8G like the Pro but they said there is no such bundle and we have to use education plan to buy if we want that. :stupid:

3.  Weight wise, Air and Pro only 260g diff.  I use a 260g bag of rice to feel the weight, it's marginal.

4. We dislike the inclusion of those accessories in the bundle.  From our experience from buying the 15inch MacBook Pro and the accessories for DS this year,  those accessories they bundle could be gotten cheaper.  Also, we prefer to choose our own design for sleeves, mouse, etc.

5.  We feel the 13-inch screen too small for prolonged work. We thought maybe get a VGA cable to hook up to bigger monitor screen when dd does her work at home.  Do you do that , Seniors?  Although the computer at home is an iMac, it's a bit troublesome to sync the files over devices.

6.  The insurance on the whole doesn't seem like a good deal to us.  They will not cover your laptop if you were negligent but then if your are not negligent (sometime), why would you need insurance.  so I presume they pay if the thief break your locker to get your laptop but if it is because you left it unattended then no pay.

Come to think of it, it's rather crazy letting our kids carrying a machine costing a few K around.  Pray God they take care of it and carefully. :scared:

speaking of it, i've already ordered the macbook pro combination (cheapest among the four) from sapura online, hope it's worth....I didn't order that insurance anyway. Yay.
it's really diff from the other sch that RGS decided to let us carry the macbook around. Still we have to be careful... :scratchhead:

Hi I’ll be joining RGS next year!

Just one question regarding the tennis CCA of RGS.
I did not DSA into RGS and entered through PSLE. However, I am interested in joining the tennis CCA of RGS( I have been training since P3).May I know if I can join tennis CCA when school starts or only DSA-tennis players are allowed in the school team?
When is the training, usually? I heard that it might clash with 3rd language lessons.

Surprisingly the same applied for my classmates(I’m in the 2012 P6 cohort)

Most of my classmates did as they were expected, but still there are some who did not do well. In the best mainstream class, many had 260-270.
For me, I was expected to be in the 250-260+ range but my T-score is 270. But the reason is most likely that I did not estimate well.
My school has VERY strict marking schemes for school exams, so it is not surprising that most of us did better than in prelims. What seemed to be unreasonable is that those who did well(in prelims) did better, and that those who did all right did worse in PSLE. Apparently there are more pupils scoring 260+ and around 240.