Hello, I'm a student. ^^


Order to me ( excluding the distance factor ) :

1) Nan Hua
2) CHIJ Toa Payoh
3) St. Margaret

I feel all 3 are quite good schools, but they each offer different CCAs and programmes, hence it still depends on the child's preference like - Mixed school / girls school. Also, note that Nan Hua is more ' chinese ' and will probably emphasize more on Chinese than the other 2 schools? o-o

I think the distance factor is quite important, especially if you plan to use public transportation. Anything less than 1 hour to get to the school is still okay to me, but it can get rather tiring if you need to transfer between buses / MRT lines and still have to walk a distance to reach the school. I took 1 and a half hour to get to a school and the ride felt so tiring ( & boring ) that I couldn't keep my eyes open.

Hope this helps.
Thank you.

fat mum123:

Need to wear carnisole under uniform?

It's not required by school rules but I wear it sometimes under my blouse and never under my PE shirt (an extra camisole underneath makes it uncomfortable while doing physical activities).

Do take note not to wear too many layers however on normal days as we tend to perspire a lot which could lead to the development of some bumps containing green liquid (bad experiences I had in Sec 1).

If anyone wants to read more about my experiences with the bumps, kindly refer to my post back then on page 38 of this thread.

ValSun:

What type of school shoe does CGS wears?

For school shoes, the base must be white or grey (at most 70% of black, black shoes are not allowed). The trimmings and shoelaces can be blue/green/yellow (basically the school colours, but they must not be neon). For those Converse looking shoes, they allow the black or red line at the bottom.

Hello,


I’ll be a Sec 3 student next year and I hope that I can help by sharing my experiences so far or answering some questions regarding Crescent. Feel free to PM me for anything.

bb_ mom:

Is there a big jump from sec 1 to sec 2, in terms of math and science? I'm getting DD mentally ready for sec 2 next year.

Hello, I am a Secondary 2 student this year from Crescent Girls', taking a short few minutes break from studying and saw your question so hope I can help by answering it.

Personally, I think the jump in math and science is not that big, and can be overcome easily with the just a little more effort put in. In Secondary 2, more complex Math topics will be introduced and some of them may be harder to understand at first. Though with practice, you will find that the topics are actually not hard. For Science, I felt that the standard was more or less the same, and one could score the same as Sec 1 with the same amount of effort put in.

This also means if that if one was struggling with Math/Science in Sec 1, they are likely to continue struggling in Sec 2 as well, which is the case for some of my classmates.

However, I understand that different schools may have different ways of teaching the subject and topics, so this may not be true for everyone.

CHC123:

Does the school has Chinese Orchestra CCA and any open house in May? Thanks.

Unfortunately, Crescent does not offer Chinese Orchestra as a CCA. Crescent's open house was in late October for 2012 and 2013 (I'm not sure about the previous years), so most likely it'll be in late October this year as well. However, I don't know the confirmed dates.

Hope this helps.

DadOfGirl:

Nope.. Not in MEP. There is system of awarding demerit points... Nail polish is not allowed.. Mobile phone cannot use during school hrs.. cannot be late beyond 7.20... & ofcourse related to home work submission. Every quarter , it should not exceed beyond specified limit & if it does, parents would be notified.
Also, they would tell student at the end of Sec3 whether you will survive upper secondary , but such cases are for only those entered thro' DSA & not academically inclined. I dun think they chase out any students, but school work is demanding & you have to keep up to it. Sec 2 streaming will have three types of classes.
2 -class with triple science-some of them with 9 subjects
1- class with Physics & chem- 8 subjects
3 -Class with Bio Chem- 8 Subjects

Hope it helps,

Hello,

I am a student studying in CGS and just to clarify, the use of mobile phones is allowed during school hours due to the recent change of school rules this year. Now, you can also use your phones anywhere, instead of just the foyer and canteen in the past. However, mobile phones are not to be used inappropriately, eg. during lessons, assemblies etc.

Thank you.

twinklestars12:

Hi

What Cca should I join next year in sec 1?
I'm looking towards performing arts cca, I'm fine with sports and uniform group but I don't like too strenuous ones.
Anyone can give some advice?

There will be a CCA open house sometime in January, that should help you in deciding which CCA to join.

MMM:

Unsure what are the options at this stage. From earlier thread, appear to be 2? What is recommended by current girls based on their experience?

Earlier in the year for the 2013 Sec 1s, there were 2 models in consideration and we were asked to vote for one of the 2 and the whole level would then be using the one with majority of the votes. The 2 models were: Acer Iconia W700 and Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T, in the end there were more votes for the Samsung model.

My seniors that joined in 2012 use the Samsung Series 7 Slate and those that joined in 2011 and earlier use Fujitsu Tablet PCs. I think the device that each new batch will be using changes as newer ( and better ) models come out, so the device next year may not be the same as this year.

Actually, the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T used this year costed less than $2000 itself ( very close though ), it is only with the purchase of other things like Adobe Design and Web Premium that the amount goes above two thousand.

Hope this helps.

Chip n Dale:

Crescent Girls is ok school.

I read with interest the Forum dated recently about this school.
It seems the contributors ( mainly its students as they claim ) are deliberatly promoting very hard this school to the public.
Gives us a 'fake feeling'.
My daughter said her classmates will bad mouth others from another class.
During recess, the students will be quite rowdy and cut queue. But I guess these situations occur in most schools.
Someone mentioned about seeking teachers for help after school in
studies issue.
Yes, it's true the students can do that. However, most of the time, teachers are busy with their CCAs commitment that one cannot meet up with teachers after school and in the end, resort to asking home tutors.
It's not teachers' fault, just the school system.
The school O level results have dipped slightly.
Based on 2012 O Level results, Crescent Girls' did not clinch the Sustained Achievement Award for Value-Addedness (SAA) this year.
It has been getting the award for past years.
Daughter feels the school does not really focus on academics as it used to be last time- study pace is quite relaxing now. It used to be more competitive under previous Principal. Suitable for those who do not want to be in a competitive environment now.
The teachers are very nice and caring but too nice that some students take them for granted.
The Principal is approachable and always smiling.
Overall, it's a school suitable for one who wants a normal pace of learning.
The higher achiever students can look for other schools.

Hello,

I'm sorry that your daughter encountered these situations. I just joined the school this year and in my opinion, people are generally very nice. I did not have experiences of my classmates talking bad about others from other classes nor have I heard from anyone that this happens so I cannot comment much on that. There will be people who can be a bit mean at times but actually you see these people everywhere, so we just have to ignore them.

I have not been posting on this thread lately but I do not feel that it is right to say that the students / ex-students were deliberately promoting the school as I think that they were just trying to help and share with us.

During my recess, I do not really see much of people cutting queues. However, from my experience, a lot of people do request their friend to help them buy food and that lengthens the waiting time of the people behind. When my classmates asked me help them buy food earlier in the year, I refused as I felt that makes it unfair for the rest. I think it is normal for some of the students to appear to be quite rowdy, perhaps they are just trying to take a break and enjoy themselves for 30 minutes ( usually less than that ) after lessons.

Sometimes the teachers can get quite busy, but if they are really busy to a point where they have to say no to a student's request for help, it is usually because there are a lot of students asking them for their help and they are hence unable to attend to so many. However, my teachers do try their best to make time out for us if we really need it. Nearing EOYs, my Physics teacher actually had other things to do but still managed to take a few hours after school to briefly go through the previous chapters with us again ( just to refresh our memory ) and let us clarify any doubts that we have. My Math teacher also often conduct short sessions where we can go and ask him questions about things in Math that we may be unsure about.

We can also drop our teacher(s) an e-mail and they will try to help us from there. Therefore, there isn't really a need for home tutors and I'm actually doing well relatively so far without tuition. I do not think that the study pace is relaxing and it is still quite competitive to me. I'm in HMT ( a very hard subject for me :sad: ) by the way, so I do not know how it is like for normal Mother Tongue students but I feel that the competitiveness is there nonetheless.

Thank you.

motherofdorehmi:

Thank you! But is there any other good sch that my child should opt for that is near bukit merah area?

Sadly, there isn't a lot of good schools in this South area compared to the other areas ( had a pretty hard choosing my Secondary School last year because of this ) If your daughter can travel a bit more, you can consider these schools as well:

1) Fairfield Methodist School ( COP 239, previous year COP was 235 )
2) Queensway Secondary School ( COP 214 )
3) Queenstown Secondary School ( COP 200 )

Thank you!