Moving back to Singapore - Local or International School

[malcontent]

If command of the English as a native language is a priority, then the Singapore system is definitely not up to scratch. I had to watch my daughter’s English deteriorate significantly as a result of being in the local education system over the years. Today her grandparents in the US can’t understand half of what she says, which frustrates her to no end and makes her want to shut down. This is yet another reason I am insisting that she move to the US for university even though she can easily get in directly to NUS. It will be tough for her, but it is overdue and necessary.

The other thing I’ll say is the local system is not great for opportunities for special positions or extra curricular activities. I can’t tell you how many times my daughter was disappointed because she couldn’t gain access to her areas of interest because the opportunities are so limited and reserved for the absolute best of the best.

This is why I mentioned, you really need to totally dedicated to this — it will not be without some real compromises. Academics here are strong, but the workload is intense and often requires expensive tutors on top of the higher PR tuition fees. I honestly have to hesitate to say whether I’d put my daughter through the local system if I had to do it over again, despite how well she has done.

[NYY1]

I was going to say some things along the lines of what malcontent wrote, although not to that degree. Still, I won't argue or quibble over his kid's experience. There are definitely kids that maintain and further develop very strong English skills, but the system in general is not tilted this way.

Some parents I know that have had kids in both IP A Level and IP IB tracks here believe the IB track has done a better job at cultivating various writing and speaking skills (talking on average, not saying it is always superior). Whether true or not, or whether it was due to individual student differences are up for debate.

How different the systems are and whether one can adapt easily is hard to say without knowing the kid. There have been changes to the system and I think it is far from the stereotypical Asian schooling image, but it is still a system that generally rewards academic performance and one that has differences from systems elsewhere. If not handled properly, the issues you mention can pop up. Not all parents push the kids excessively and some take proactive measures to counter-act certain things. Not an endorsement or knock on either system, people expect different things from education.

[malcontent]

When it comes to my daughter we never push — she is totally self motivated to the point that we have to try and get her to not study so much or worry about her grades. I admit that some of it is her personality, but she was also influenced by her surroundings at school, which is good in a way, but lacks an appropriate balance.

Her discipline and self-motivation are the biggest positives from it all. As far as negatives, putting English aside, the biggest negative is that she has completely lost the lust for learning only strives for the grade. She gravitates toward taking her strongest subjects, because although she doesn’t like STEM, she feels there is no choice. She looks for the quickest path to get results and could honestly care less about what she is learning. As long as she can regurgitate it for the test and make the grade, she is happy to forget everything she just spent so much time learning. Her results are spectacular, but when I ask her if she wants to try and get into Stanford for example, she says no — she doesn’t want the pressure…. and I fully support her on this. She deserves a break, even if it means not getting into the best college.

I know every student is different, and I can’t blame the system entirely, but I have known other high achievers from local schools with this same burn out syndrome.

My daughter has a cousin in ACS(I) in the IB program who is the same age as her and has generally gotten similar if not better marks than her. He has more lust for learning but also suffered similarly from the negative points I mentioned.

They both recently started SAT prep and their diagnostic scores were almost identical. It seems to be almost universal here for top performing local students… near perfect marks for math, but not so good on reading/writing.

[NYY1]

Yes, while we cannot blame the system entirely, the system is also (unfortunately) likely to produce some of the things mentioned by various others above.

I will say, from my observation, there are also many things parents (collectively, not any one individual parent) do that are well intentioned but implicitly add fuel to the fire even if at their core the parents are not overly focused on academics (or they care about academics but it is not the only thing). Some examples:

#1. Tuition. This is one is a bit tricky because it is good if a student wants to work hard and improve. At the same time, resorting to tuition is indirectly conditioning the child to believe better results are necessary (what you are capable of on your own is not good enough). One can try to have them figure out how to learn/improve on their own. One, it will save a lot of money, and two the kid will probably be more independent/better problem solver ("I can do it" vs. call for help). The other option is just to teach them to accept that their best efforts are enough. I'm not saying tuition itself is all bad; a good tutor can help in a subject a student struggles in, and enrichment to further develop one area of interest can be worthwhile. But there are some negatives to it and at some point it can become too much.

#2. "Just be average." Again, sounds good but indirectly it says don't be below average (i.e. still pressure to hit certain levels). Some of these IP schools are probably made up of kids mostly in the Top 3%-5%; OK to be below average there (last place is still very high ranking)? Other IP schools will have kids that are generally in the Top 10%, which itself is very good but then once they are there just being in the Top 10% isn't sufficient any longer. Or OK to be below average in an entirely average cohort? The issue applies no matter where the child is in the distribution. Obviously, people generally like to do well, and don't want to be below average, but sometimes it is what it is. It is also why some kids don't select the most competitive school that they can get into with their results.

#3. Describing schools with either never ending praise or derogatory terms. Yes, we'd all like to give our kids the best but when parents keep pumping up the value of something, kids will believe it's important and keep striving for more. Or definitely want to avoid something that is spoken of in lesser terms.

The best recommendation I have is to try and make sure the kid develops non-academic interests. This can be music, art, sports, community groups, etc. If he/she cannot find them in school (the opportunity allocation issue mentioned above can be an issue), try to find them outside of school (individual classes, church group, etc). There's only so much time in the day and it can cut into time for academics. But it teaches them to see there are other things to excel and be happy in. Also, in some cases more studying isn't really going to change things much; eventually everyone hits some type of sensible limit (diminishing marginal returns after that).

[NYY1]

@olivepicklejuice

In the end, just go with what you are most comfortable with. There are pros and cons to everything, and different people will go in different directions for whatever reasons. None of these routes guarantee success, nor do any of them prohibit it.

Good luck.