@BiggerDaddy Hi! My son was from SJIJ; he’s now 14. From my personal experience, the culture is caring, and introverted students (like my son) were also given opportunities to be student leaders. There’s a very strong badminton team culture. On the whole, I’m glad we sent my son there — you can PM me if you have other questions, perhaps?

Hi all, this is from the KiasuParents Team: we’re not banning or deleting advertiser posts, unless it’s really obvious that someone is posing as a parent but spinning a story to drop a link to their business.

In fact, as parents, we would rather have business owners chat with us authentically, letting us know what the value proposition is, and answering our questions.

Hi everyone!

Wanted to let you know about our FREE KiasuParents Huddle webinar in May 2025:

Register here: https://mautic.kiasuparents.com/webinar-may-2025-registration-form

Sharing a new article up on our site —> not so much of study resources, but useful for noting exam dates and planning an effective study schedule:

https://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/article/o-level-dates-2026-and-how-to-make-a-study-timetable

@slmkhoo Thanks for letting us know!

Edited to Add: Yes, indeed the current setting for non-admin users is 5 seconds.

Please give us some time to improve this

Hi P6 parents!

KiasuParents is holding its monthly KiasuParents Huddle webinar on July 30 Wed. The topic:

Thriving Through the Last Lap of the PSLE

Entry is FREE!

I’ve been through the PSLE (as a parent) twice. The last stretch can honestly feel quite painful, even if you consider yourself a chill parent

Do join us for this session — we’ve got a great moderator and educator panellists, all parents themselves.

Details here: https://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/activities/kiasu-parents-huddle-thriving-through-the-last-lap-of-the-psle

@HNS2015 Hi! Do schools make students buy the Conquer Science MCQs series?

We bought that ourselves, a few years back. (My son’s now in Sec 2.)

https://sapgrp.com/product/conquer-science-mcqs-primary-level-lower-block-3-4/

I’ll go first. I’ve recently volunteered as a youth mentor and learning coach for Beyond Social Services.

For learning coaches, it’s very similar to tutoring, but you’ll also have to contend with factors such as your student’s family situation and learning setup. For me, I tutored in the void deck, and no-shows were very common. Even if you do link up with the parent, and they are communicative, there may be factors that make it difficult for them to support this learning effort. Sometimes they choose to pull out as well, because they don’t wish to waste anyone’s time.

So it’s a lot about empathy and non-judgement, and also learning to deal with families that have very different situations from your own. Eg your own kids might be absent solely due to illness, but you may find that the kids you’re helping have school refusal issues etc. So a statement such as, “Oh my child also missed school, lots of kids having the flu” doesn’t build connection.

For my learning coach stint, I worked with teens to support them in setting up projects to benefit the community. They too had volunteered, so there was a lot of good energy going in the same direction for that effort. I’ll be returning to that project soon

@sharonkhoo Thank you

Btw I came across a video about a sewing studio (in an HDB flat), where they hold classes!

https://www.tiktok.com/@togather_sg/video/7678659884090543367?_r=1&_t=ZS-99KrW6Ljtpq

LinkedIn quite often gives a month-long trial for their premium membership, where I think you will also be able to access their learning courses!

For the next month or two, I’m going to focus on trying out pickleball and dance, for starters!

It’s quite surprising to me that people have really taken to pickleball!

I used to think of it as a senior sport, but I see millennials and 20-somethings also getting into it.

I tried it recently and it was quite fun! It looks easy to an observer but I was missing a lot of so-called easy shots

To prep, I bought paddles, balls (even silent balls for home practice). I didn’t even have proper workout clothes or court shoes, so I got those too.

We do plan to play regularly, perhaps monthly! We figured it was better than just meeting to eat!

https://thesmartlocal.com/read/pickleball-courts-singapore/

I have finally completed my course!

Happy to share regarding these programmes and the actual employment leads that came about from them, if anyone is keen:

• Specialist Diploma in Career Counselling (RP) https://www.rp.edu.sg/lifelong-learning/courses/specialist-diploma-in-career-counselling/

• Specialist Diploma in Business Analytics (RP) https://www.rp.edu.sg/lifelong-learning/courses/specialist-diploma-in-business-analytics/

• Generation Singapore Bootcamp: Junior Data Engineer https://singapore.generation.org/sctp-jrdataengineer/

I’ve taken them all; maxed out my SkillsFuture like a good citizen

I saw some parents sharing this

https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/forum/forum-students-need-to-show-they-understand-topic-and-answer-accurately

In my daughter’s P6 year, I was slightly taken aback when her teacher told me not to use websites like National Geographic and the Smithsonian as materials to explain scientific concepts. (At the time we didn’t worry about AI-generated responses!)

I did accept the need to be accurate and precise, but again, these are 12yos trying to figure things out.

Let’s talk about this?

@KelvinLoh Thanks for posting here! I can check with my networks regarding this school.

In terms of general prep concerns, what would you like to know? I have two kids, but they went to MGS and SJIJ.

@sharonkhoo From a quick read, it seems the younger guy bought the elderly man a drink to apologise (and may have thought the matter was “resolved”).

Not sure about the actual timeline, but if other family members were aware or present during that time of “reconciliation,” I wonder why they didn’t bring up having the older man checked out for possible injuries following the shoving.

Maybe everything happened too fast, and by the time they realised he required medical attention, they also didn’t have contact details + were forced to go to social media, which proved to be very effective!

Thinking about this more, I suppose one takeaway (even for women) is about balancing between guarding our own boundaries/safety and causing hurt to someone who never meant to do anything more than be warm/friendly. It’s frankly hard to tell sometimes, and it does feel like it’s easier to be on edge these days!

Just to update here that I plan to complete Teo You Yenn’s Unease soon! I read two chapters, and then got busy.

This is news from 2 weeks ago, but I’ve heard that some O-Level parents (and teens) in our circles are still quite upset about this.

My daughter did remark that for her school, they were prepped to treat the prompt as a guide, but also to anticipate that during the actual exam, the question might be worded slightly differently. She took her O-Levels some years ago, so things might have changed. My son takes it next year:

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/o-level-english-oral-question-moe-6299666

It also makes me think about what the oral exam is actually testing, if there needs to be 10mins of advance prep.

I’m a bit surprised the conversation around the “patting head” saga is still going strong!

I guess it provided a spark to bring up many issues that people think about, such as boundaries, consent, how we view strangers, and changing attitudes.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/roxy-square-shoving-incident-pat-childs-head-6333196