Primary kids get help for Sec 1

SINGAPORE - Fresh from receiving their Primary School Leaving Examination results, young Courtney Su and nine other Primary 6 peers are holed up in a classroom learning highest common factors and lowest common multiples.

They collected their results on Nov 22. But, instead of fully enjoying their holidays, they are chugging away twice a week, in two-hourly enrichment classes to bone up on Secondary 1 mathematics.

Pre-schoolers are not the only ones getting booster lessons for the next phase of the education system (in their case, Primary 1). Private tuition centres have also been offering Primary 6 pupils jumpstart classes to prepare them for Secondary 1.

Courtney, who is taking these classes at Cleverland Tutorial Centre in Tampines Street 23, admits: "If it were up to me, I'd be at home playing card games with my 10-year-old brother."

However, the St Anthony's Canossian Primary School pupil says: "I'm a slow learner, so this is will help me not feel so lost in class next year." Thursday's class, observed by SundayLife!, was the second of six sessions.

Her father, Mr David Su, 49, explains why he signed her up for the course: "Her former tuition teacher says it's very good and highly encouraged her to go for it."

Besides, the head of customer service in an aviation firm says, it is a way to ensure that his daughter "does not disassociate herself from school work" during the six-week break.

SundayLife! found eight tuition centres, including Cleverland, conducting such bridging courses for Primary 6 pupils. They range from six to 12 sessions, held once or twice a week over last month and this month.

Class sizes range from two to 15. Costs range from $20 an hour at Cleverland to $60 an hour for a group of three at NickleBee Tutors in Bishan. In total, parents may fork out between $200 and $800 per bridging course.

Are they necessary? Cynics will say parents are being kiasu, or that education centres are packaging holiday programmes just to ensure cash flow.

Mr S. Zhou, 29, who runs a boutique tuition centre, says "all the kids disappear" in the last two months of the year as families holiday abroad or let their children take things easy.

But rents and salaries still need to be paid. "So the centres convince parents of the need for a bridging programme, and parents buy the line that the kids need it," he says.

"The kids don't really need it, they need a break."

Centres which conduct such courses disagree.

Says Beautyful Minds Education's director, Mr Neo Zhizhong, 29: "The $12,000 we earn from bridging programmes make up about 1 per cent of the total yearly revenue of about $1 million."

What is fuelling the rise of such classes, he says, is growing demand.

Five Primary 6 pupils enrolled in his first jumpstart class at the Parkway Parade branch three years ago. This year, 60 out of 80 Primary 6 pupils enrolled in such classes at his four centres. The other centres are in Ang Mo Kio, Newton and Tampines.

Some parents put their Primary 6 offspring through these courses because of the perception that there is a big jump in the range and number of subjects in secondary school, especially if a child signs up for a six-year Integrated Programme.

A Primary 6 pupil tackles just English, Chinese, mathematics and science. In secondary school, new subjects include history, geography, physics and chemistry.

Standards and teaching modes also differ. For instance, problem sums give way to more abstract algebra.

For English, the standard of vocabulary increases. Students must compare and contrast ideas and concepts in comprehension passages and draw inferences from them.

Mathematics bridging classes are the most popular, with five of the agencies interviewed offering them.

Mr Alvin Kuek, 41, chief education officer and co-founder of Mind Stretcher Learning Centre, says the 11-year-old enrichment centre had initially declined to start such bridging classes despite demand for them.

"We believe that kids should have a break after PSLE," he explains.

He says that former Primary 6 pupils who returned to see him, however, say they felt "lost" in the first part of the year. So, the centre, which has 20 branches from Bishan to Bedok, started its first English language jumpstart course last year.

On the issue of Secondary 1 bridging classes, the Ministry of Education says: "At every level in our schooling system, the transition is gradual."

For instance, concepts and skills introduced at the secondary level "builds on what is learnt at the primary level". Secondary schools also conduct orientation programmes to ease students into secondary school life.

The ministry adds: "Beyond supporting students' learning in a way that promotes understanding and appreciation of the subjects, teachers also help to develop the students' moral and social emotional competencies by providing a nurturing environment."

Some parents are keen on such bridging classes for their younger children, after seeing their older kid struggle with the jump in workload from primary to secondary school.

Financial services manager Danny Sheum, 48, feels that his elder child, Braxton, now 16, might have fared better in Secondary 1 had he attended a bridging programme.

He says he did not think of signing his son up for such a course four years ago.

He recalls: "His grades in Sec 1 looked like the stock market graph. Imagine that: He had A* for PSLE mathematics but he found it challenging in the first half of the year in Sec 1."

So when younger child Celine alerted him about mathematics and science bridging courses at Beautyful Minds, he signed her up.

He and his wife Ginny Chua, 46, a life insurance agent, live with their children in a private apartment in Telok Kurau. Celine, 12, a Ngee Ann Primary pupil who will be studying at the School of the Arts next year, spent three Saturdays at Beautyful Mind's Parkway Parade branch last month and has four more sessions this month.

She says she does not mind spending part of her weekend studying.

"I know what a periodic table of elements is, for example. So when teachers teach that subject, I'll take it as revision and it won't be so hard," she says.

eveyap@sph.com.sg

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