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Help with full time tutor for year 8 student

Discuss the various enrichment courses that interests your child. It can be tuition classes to robotics courses.
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alihau
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Help with full time tutor for year 8 student

Post by alihau » Thu, 11 Jun 2009 3:54 am

Hi, we are moving to Singpore in August but our daughter will not start at Tanglin until January 09. She is due to start year 8 (UK system) in September. We feel it would not be worth her going to a different school financially, just for three months. Not only with the registration fee but also all the uniform etc. We were thinking that she could be home schooled by a tutor, but are they readily available in Singapore. We would need a tutor to cover all the main subjects i.e English, Math, History, Geography and Science.
Does anybody have any advice on this subject or anyone who has had a similar problem.

Thaiclan
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Post by Thaiclan » Thu, 11 Jun 2009 5:10 am

Hi there. If you are going to homescool for 3 months then you don't really need a full time tutor. 2 hours max of "sit-down-and-study" time per day is more than enough to create a learning environment that is equivalent (imo superior to) to the sit down time at any International School.
I find my daughter (age 7) works best with a variety of tutors (Mandarin, French, art, science). I work with her on reading and writing and the rest of the time we fill up with enrichment classes such as iceskating, fencing, violin, piano, gymnastics etc.
Home schooling is great in Singapore (Asia in general) as usually people have a helper to take care of all the home chores so that leaves a lot of time and energy to put into organising play dates and outings.
We have met many home school kids since we started (both Singaporean and International) and we all meet up a lot so the kids socialise and have many friends.
Feel free to PM me if your daughter would like to join us for the 3 months she is here :-)

alihau
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Post by alihau » Thu, 11 Jun 2009 4:11 pm

Hi Thaiclan,
sorry it wont let me pm you as I havent listed enought posts, so it says. Anyway thank you for your advice, however my daughter is 12 so would your comments still apply for this year group. Would 2 hours really be enough. Also are there any girls her age in your group that meets up. I have emailed the same question to Tanglin and they advice they think home tutoring would be harder for her as she would not be mixing with her own age group. Im in a really quandry as to what to do for the best. Are we better off staying in the UK until January and letting my husband go alone for the first 6 months ? I really don't want to do that but we don't really have the money to pay another set of registration fees for another school for just three months.
If any other parents have any advice on this matter I would love to hear your comments.
Many thanks

Thaiclan
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Post by Thaiclan » Mon, 15 Jun 2009 8:15 am

Hi there. Yes there are plenty of children age 12 and around that age who are home schooled. Of course Tanglin (or any school) would be expected to say that homescooling is not the route to take, after all they have to justify their fees!
Here is my advice if you care to take some of i,t all of it, or none of it :-)
Come to Singapore in August. Having the family so disjointed for 6 months will be more detrimental than if she did no schooling at all.
Go to the school she is at now and see if you can get a copy of the syllabus for term 1 Year 8 (the term that takes her from Sept-09- Jan10). They should be able to provide you with the whole of the year which will be even better. If for whatever reason they won't then you can purchase it off of the net. It will include learning outcomes, topics covered, and a book/textbook list.
As for "are 2 hours per day enough", then yes full concentrated study broken into 3x40mins sessions will in fact be more study than is done in most classrooms in an International School. Many homeschoolers find that 1 year takes infact 1 term when home studied.
As for socialisation, its a misnomer to believe that this only happens in school. Infact the odds are more against you in school as you only have a set number of children to mix with. From our experience my daughter makes friends firstly with the Singaporean kids at our condo who take the morning shift at school so are home by 1pm (local schools here either have morning or afternoon sittings). Secondly she has all the friends at various enrichment classes she does - fencing, iceskating, gymnastics, softball,art etc. Thirdly she has friends with other homeschoolers (and there are SO many!). They meetup regularly for study sessions but also trips to the museum, zoo, botanical gardens, Sentosa. Then there are the friends she mixes with at our condo after they have finished their international school day. Finally just sometimes she likes to spend time with her Mum Dad and baby sister :-)

I first started home schooling because like you I was on a waiting list. Once I looked further into it and also tried a couple of schools inbetween there was just no going back and now home schooling is definitely the way forward for our family as we like to travel a lot.
From an academic basis kids in the UK and the USA do much better on average when home schooled. My daughter is able to be on Grade 2 reading and writing but Grade 4 in Math, she can add Spanish "just because I'm interested to try it".
Anyway, as you are looking for just a 6 month space, homeschooling will also enable you and her to spend more time together whilst you find your feet in Singapore - you can do it together :-)

alihau
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Post by alihau » Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:58 pm

Thank you so much for your advice and I will definately take it. We have decided to come to Singapore around end of August and home school from there until January.
Many thanks again

limetime
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Re: Help with full time tutor for year 8 student

Post by limetime » Sun, 16 Aug 2009 4:47 pm

Sorry, I have only just seen your post. We were in a similar situation with our child, but were probably only going to have to home school for 1 term. In the end, we were offered a place at the school at the very last minute, so didn't have to go that route. Speak to the school and ask for tutors who do tuition for the high school. We did get someone very good, who helped my kids catch up as we moved from a different system. If you don't have success with the school the first time, persevere - you may get a different person the next time you phone, which was the case with us. By the way, my daughter is going into Yr 8 this year (she is also 12), so if you want to pm me, I'm happy to help. I haven't posted enough to be able to pm you.

deb4220
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Post by deb4220 » Mon, 24 Aug 2009 6:36 am

I just got our 13yr boy into Overseas Family School for 1 term We r only there from Sept to End Dec. Otherwise what about the K12 international academy that advertises on this site it looks good

chippie
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Post by chippie » Mon, 31 Aug 2009 9:26 am

We have a tutor for our 13&15 we are home schooling are kids.$25 p/h she is very good. June 81009233

krysta
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Post by krysta » Thu, 17 Sep 2009 9:00 am

Hi Thaiclan,
I am planning something similar as you mentioned, homeschooling my 6 years old daughter with extra classes (gym, art, music, dance).
I can't send you pm (not enough post) but have some questions and also it would be great to meet people before we get there. Would you please contact me on batka11 at yahoo dot com?
Thanks,
Krysta

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