Hey Parents!

Congrats to your child for progressing to the next stage of their education journey!

It’s been a tough year for you and your child, especially with all the stress from preparing for the PSLE national exams.

With Primary 6 finally over, some parents and students might feel they deserve a break from learning after working so hard.  

While a break is indeed needed, it will also be wise that it shouldn’t go beyond the start of Secondary 1. 

When your child embarks on their Secondary 1 journey, the right learning support will give them a strong head start. 

What you may not know is that most students suffer a sudden and drastic drop in their grades when they enter Secondary 1.

This is due to a number of reasons, such as:

1) Coping with more subjects (Now: 7 or 8 v.s. Previous: 4)

2) Different exam formats with more demanding marking requirements

3) New school environment

It just takes one or a combination of the above factors for students to witness a drastic drop in their grades from A to B or even C.

A relevant case study is that of student Chloe who scored an A* in her PSLE English but barely passed with a C6 when she was in Secondary 4!

While it’s very important to stem (stop) the free-fall of grades for all Secondary subjects, it’s doubly critical for English! 

Secondary English is an L1 compulsory subject – whatever English grade your child achieves for their GCEs, is computed in their overall L1R5 / L1B1 for eligibility into JC / Poly courses. 

A good (As / Bs) GCE English grade will equate to your child securing their desired JC / Poly choice so that they can then seamlessly progress and continue on the next phase of their education journey.    

Which is why we want to share 3 top tips to help your child seamlessly transition from Primary to Secondary.

1) Developing Independent Learning Skills

As your primary child progresses to Secondary School (and teenagehood), they’d need to take on greater responsibility for their own learning! 

With much longer hours spent in Secondary school, as well as a heavier workload, your child must come up with a game plan to effectively manage their own learning and efficiently handle the increased workload.  

Such skills are essential for all students – they help with developing your child’s independent learning competencies, so as to monitor, evaluate and reflect on their learning progress in school!

But we must be mindful that encouraging independent learning is not all about making your child do everything by themselves.

It’s instead about having your child understand and see where they are falling short or behind, what they need to start improving and reach out to available support structures, without delay. 

By doing so, it’ll help them speedily and successfully transition into Secondary school life.

2) Imparting time management strategies

Transitioning from Primary to Secondary school equates to an increased workload – be it from the added number of subjects (from 4 in Primary to almost double the number in Secondary) or the increased demands or unfamiliarity of the subject disciplines.

As time is limited to just 24 hours a day, your now Secondary school-going child needs to know how to effectively allocate their study, rest and play time. 

Your child will very soon realise that time management is a must if they don’t want to be lagging behind in their subjects. 

And that there’ll be negative consequences, if their homework is not submitted on time or if they fail to revise…  

Do start helping your child better manage their workload, rest and play time by encouraging them to start planning their own timetable and once it’s done, to stick to it.   

Time management skills are not just in helping your child better manage their school workload; such life skills are a must, to successfully self-manage all areas of their life, throughout their life.

3) Improving English Language competencies 

When your child starts Secondary school, the requirements and expectations for English change drastically! 

For one, Comprehension questions become much harder as they are less straightforward as compared to the Primary levels. All of a sudden, your child has to tackle many more Higher Order Thinking (HOT) Questions where meaning is indirect or hidden! 

Composition also requires your child to be much more exacting in their use of grammar, punctuation and language. 

And with the introduction of new formats and different essay types (Situational and Continuous Writing), it can prove to be really intimidating for most students.

To add on, the marking requirements have also changed.

This is why it is crucial for your child to keep up and not fall behind in English, as the gap may widen more and more, when your child moves from Lower to Upper Secondary.

Not to mention, there’s the inclusion of other new essay-based subjects, such as History, Geography, Social Studies and Literature – all of which will require your child to write long essay-type answers.

Without question, your child must be able to clearly express (grammar, punctuation and language) themselves in writing, in order to achieve high marks, not only in English essays.

Therefore, your Secondary-going child’s English competency will directly affect their understanding of other subjects, especially the language-based subjects, and how well they perform in these subjects.

You’ve come full circle in realising and acknowledging why Secondary English is ever so important and thus, given the recognition as an L1 subject. 

Your child has to build a super solid foundation and achieve language competency in order to do really well in English and their other language-based subjects. 

Parents, now that you’ve a heads-up on how English is a game changer and enabler, you’ll fully agree that it’s so important your child needs to get the right English support.

As English is a skills-based subject, the earlier your child starts English learning support, the quicker they can acquire and develop their core language skills!  

Because of this, we’d like to invite you and your child to our complimentary 60-minute Diagnostic Consult & Assessment (DCA) (worth $158.00) with our Language Specialist.

That is the first crucial step because our Teachers will need to know your child’s strengths and weaknesses before they can formulate a game plan for your child to improve in English.

From this session, you will also learn more about how we help students improve with our unique method of studying English using Formulas and how we are different from the other English tuition centres / English tutors out there.

At the end of the day, whether you choose to engage our professional services or not, it is entirely up to you. 

Sounds fair?

Click on the button below to schedule the DCA session for you and your child right now:

As the stakes are very high, you’d want to take immediate action and give your child a head start in English (and their language-based subjects) to avoid a huge drop in grades!