School of Science and Technology

[limsatine]

If your younger son DS2 choose to accept CO ( SST ) over other Mainstream Secondary schools (eg. Gan Eng Seng),
then

your DS2 Sec 3 subject combination cannot follow that of his older brother (DS1) current Sec 3 or 4 subject combination, at Gan Eng Seng anymore,

Because

1) your younger DS2 cannot do Triple Pure Science (TPS) in SST,
because
SST forbid,
don't allow Sec 3 TPS subject combination.


2) your younger DS2 has to do a compulsory "Applied" Science subject. In SST, "Applied" Science is mandatory, starting from Sec 3.


3) SST Is pushing hard,
or at least
her school Principal is pitching hard at her sales and marketing strategy, trying to promote end of Sec 2 students, to enter the through-train Polytechnic programme, by-passing O level programme, especially since this new path had been launched.

If you or your husband
do not like the very strong & powerful influence coming from this school (SST), trying to "encourage" students to take up the through train Polytechnic route, then u should not send your younger DS2 into SST, to be tempted or face strong temptation here, to take up this newly launched through-train programme,

because

the peer pressure from the school management plus from his fellow (classmates + school mates) here, will be very strong.

Of course,
there will be some SST students here, end up still persists to go JCs. But your child must in the first place, be very strong firmly himself, not to be easily swayed nor be influenced himself,
in order to withstand the external influence coming from his peers and Teachers alike, in this school.


4) if your son DS2 still want to pursue Polyechnic path,
by all means, he can still do it, right after his O level exam is over, even by attending any other O level Mainstream Secondary school outside.

eg.
Attend Gan Eng Seng Secondary.
There is no need to purposely come into SST, to do this.

Anyone whose L1R5 O level results released can qualify for whichever Polytechnic unique Diploma admission entry, the student can certainly still pursue Polytechnic course, right AFTER his O level exam.

By that time,
at aged 16 years old, 4 years later, your son in his teenager years, he will be more mature, can think for himself, clearer, better:-
does he
still prefer Polytechnic
or prefer JC
or prefer IB route, instead ?
Then, let him make that decision for himself by then, 4 years later.

Thank you for your reply. You got me at the peer pressure part. As teenagers understand that peer pressure will definitely be more powerful and convincing than parents. As a parent, I am not keen for my child to make a decision at 14 yrs old.

I am ok with him taking an applied subject, as long as his 2 sciences are Chem and Physics because these are the 2 sciences which will gain entry to the most poly and uni courses.

[tiberiansu]

While I find your enthusiasm in sharing your thoughts with other parents here positive, I am a bit disturbed by your conjectures about what SST is.

First, SST has a new male principal.

Second, It is Applied Subjects, not Applied Science. They offer Design Studies too.

On the point that there is strong sale pitch or peer pressure from school and peers to take up the IDP, is that from your first hand knowledge? Or is it your conjecture?

SST is offering only about 50 students for its new IDP out of its 200+ student per cohort. The majority of the students are stilling going to complete their 4-year O Level programme.

If your younger son DS2 choose to accept CO ( SST ) over other Mainstream Secondary schools (eg. Gan Eng Seng),
then

your DS2 Sec 3 subject combination cannot follow that of his older brother (DS1) current Sec 3 or 4 subject combination, at Gan Eng Seng anymore,

Because

1) your younger DS2 cannot do Triple Pure Science (TPS) in SST,
because
SST forbid,
don't allow Sec 3 TPS subject combination.


2) your younger DS2 has to do a compulsory "Applied" Science subject. In SST, "Applied" Science is mandatory, starting from Sec 3.


3) SST Is pushing hard,
or at least
her school Principal is pitching hard at her sales and marketing strategy, trying to promote end of Sec 2 students, to enter the through-train Polytechnic programme, by-passing O level programme, especially since this new path had been launched.

If you or your husband
do not like the very strong & powerful influence coming from this school (SST), trying to "encourage" students to take up the through train Polytechnic route, then u should not send your younger DS2 into SST, to be tempted or face strong temptation here, to take up this newly launched through-train programme,

because

the peer pressure from the school management plus from his fellow (classmates + school mates) here, will be very strong.

Of course,
there will be some SST students here, end up still persists to go JCs. But your child must in the first place, be very strong firmly himself, not to be easily swayed nor be influenced himself,
in order to withstand the external influence coming from his peers and Teachers alike, in this school.


4) if your son DS2 still want to pursue Polyechnic path,
by all means, he can still do it, right after his O level exam is over, even by attending any other O level Mainstream Secondary school outside.

eg.
Attend Gan Eng Seng Secondary.
There is no need to purposely come into SST, to do this.

Anyone whose L1R5 O level results released can qualify for whichever Polytechnic unique Diploma admission entry, the student can certainly still pursue Polytechnic course, right AFTER his O level exam.

By that time,
at aged 16 years old, 4 years later, your son in his teenager years, he will be more mature, can think for himself, clearer, better:-
does he
still prefer Polytechnic
or prefer JC
or prefer IB route, instead ?
Then, let him make that decision for himself by then, 4 years later.

[ZuEn]

Hi mummies & daddies,

My son has a CO from SST. Reading through the previous pages, I am concerned about the % of students who went to JC. Of course, it could be an issue of students who qualify and choose not to go JC.

My older boy is in Gan Eng Seng School where AL varies from 10 - 15. The % who qualified for JC at GESS was 97.5%. I am certain of the % as it was shared to parents during the talk. So far, I am happy with the holistic development at GESS, though the school is very academically driven. (e.g students are taught upper sec concepts in lower sec). Currently, older son is taking triple Science there. Being teenagers, he play games with his classmates, studies at the last min but results are still ok. Science papers are difficult but with the way the teachers are teaching, I am sure he will stand a good chance to go to JC.

My hubby is not keen to accept the offer and wishes for my younger one to go to a school with a higher % of students going to JC. While I know that it depends on my son's preference, I am also concerned if SST would prep my son for the national exams. Nonetheless, my boy is very excited to be there.

Would love to hear from fellow parents.

This is my concern too when we were considering if we should apply to SST.

I think the word here is "qualifying".
During the open house, it was shared that 55% of the SST graduating students "go to" JC. The qualifying cohort (to go to JC) would likely be much bigger but not shared during the open house.
I supposed the school's encouragement to poly admission, SST curriculum and peer pressure played a part in influencing the high % to poly.
In addition, there will probably be many who meet the JC entry cut-off points but their O level results may not be that great (enough) to go to good JCs and opted for Poly instead.

Do you know how many % of the 97.5% in GESS eventually end up in JC?

[limsatine]

This is my concern too when we were considering if we should apply to SST.

I think the word here is "qualifying".
During the open house, it was shared that 55% of the SST graduating students "go to" JC. The qualifying cohort (to go to JC) would likely be much bigger but not shared during the open house.
I supposed the school's encouragement to poly admission, SST curriculum and peer pressure played a part in influencing the high % to poly.
In addition, there will probably be many who meet the JC entry cut-off points but their O level results may not be that great (enough) to go to good JCs and opted for Poly instead.

Do you know how many % of the 97.5% in GESS eventually end up in JC?

Hi, I am not sure. 97.5% is the % of students who qualify, so not all will go to JC. Nonetheless, I am impressed with the %. In a cohort of 100, close to 98 of them qualify. Not forgetting the % should include the Sec 5 students taking O levels and they came from N(A) stream.

I am open to my children opting for poly if it is their interest. However, I would want my child to be prepared for JC if he wants to go there.

[hdbmummy]

Hi mummies & daddies,

My son has a CO from SST. Reading through the previous pages, I am concerned about the % of students who went to JC. Of course, it could be an issue of students who qualify and choose not to go JC.

My older boy is in Gan Eng Seng School where AL varies from 10 - 15. The % who qualified for JC at GESS was 97.5%. I am certain of the % as it was shared to parents during the talk. So far, I am happy with the holistic development at GESS, though the school is very academically driven. (e.g students are taught upper sec concepts in lower sec). Currently, older son is taking triple Science there. Being teenagers, he play games with his classmates, studies at the last min but results are still ok. Science papers are difficult but with the way the teachers are teaching, I am sure he will stand a good chance to go to JC.

My hubby is not keen to accept the offer and wishes for my younger one to go to a school with a higher % of students going to JC. While I know that it depends on my son's preference, I am also concerned if SST would prep my son for the national exams. Nonetheless, my boy is very excited to be there.

Would love to hear from fellow parents.

Hi,

Just sharing my 2 cents worth... Based on the videos shared for the eOpen House (try youtube search if you haven't watched them), it is mentioned that 55% go to JC but that does not mean only 55% was eligible to attend JC. Hence the percentage of eligible students would definitely be higher. I suggest you post this question to the school either by email or during the talk on 29 Oct if you want a clearer picture on the percentage. Please keep us posted if you do get that info.

In one of the eOpen House videos, I remember hearing that SST has students scoring a range of AL4-18. Given that SST is a pure DSA school, there might be a handful of students who totally relax after knowing they've gotten a DSA and hence scoring less optimally. On the other end of the spectrum, they also have students with top scores. Hence if your son chooses SST, he will also be learning among some of the best, as compared to a group of students whose results are comparable.

The science syllabus they teach in SST is also different from normal secondary schools. If your son is very keen in the applied subjects offered, he might enjoy his education in SST more than in normal secondary schools. This can spur his continued interest in learning, which eventually would impact his o-level results.

Something to consider is that the mindset has shifted since my secondary days. More local uni seats are now allocated to poly students compared to before hence JC is not the only route to university. Nowadays, you often find students with very good results opting to go to poly instead. My nephew is an exam. He scored 8 points for O-level and can enter National or Nanyang JC with 6 points (-2) but he chose to go to SP to doing a computing diploma course on AI and Analytics. Many of these kids might opt out of JC just to avoid doing Chinese as well so this could be a point of consideration if your kid is not fond of Chinese.

One more point that might make a difference is that SST is a pure express-stream school while GESS (and many other secondary schools) are under Subject Based Banding (SBB), where the class is mixed with students from Express, NA and NT. Some parents I've spoken with suggested me not to go to schools with SBB based on their children's experience in those pilot schools. On the flip side, I have a friend who is very grateful that I suggested her son to go to one of those pilot SBB schools 2 years back because her son didn't do so well and was posted to NT stream. She was devastated at first but happy in the end because the school called her and informed her that because of SBB in their school, her son can take Eng, Chi and Sci at NA level but only Math at NT level. Shortly after starting in Sec 1, her son went home and told her he wanted to go for Math tuition as he hopes to be able to move up to NA for Math. Being in an environment when the classmates are mostly Express and NA has spurred the desire in her son to want to do better. The views on full SBB are mixed so you should do a bit more research and decide which you all prefer. GESS has moved full SBB since 2020 hence your elder son's experience might differ from the younger one should he enter GESS next year.

Other points that might be worth considering are:
- the fees (SST @ $300/mth vs ~$25/mth for normal sec sch)
- if your child needs tuition for science, it would be harder to find tuition centres as the syllabus is different from mainstream schools
- option to opt for 6-year diploma path which means the time spent before reaching Uni is the same as JC
- more exposure in the sci and tech field vs mainstream schools
- no triple science options so far
- unique CCAs like Fencing and Astronomy

Hope you and your son can weigh the pros and cons to choose something that really suits him and that he will enjoy studying in.

[cmeilim]

Statistically, on a national level, the majority of O' level cohort each year go to poly than JC. What's more, ST reported last year that nearly half of those who went to poly actually qualified for JC but still picked poly.
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/ ... ly-route-0

In short, poly is no longer some poor cousin of the JC. That era of our time is long passe.

Why? Because the world today is very different from the one we grew up and studied in. Today, a poly diploma has far greater value than a JC certificate. In the poly, they pick up the latest industry-relevant, employment-ready skills, as well as lots of soft skills, problem-solving and 21st century competencies because of the applied learning pedagogy (similar to SST). A poly grad is readily employable. An A-level cert holder on its own, has no employment value in the market, unless he goes onto the uni and earns his uni degree.

Do also note that after poly, if the kids wanna go to a related course in the uni, they get a year off and enter uni at Yr 2 directly. So there is no trade-off in time taken to get to uni. In fact, I'd say the poly grad going to uni in courses with credit exemption probably has a headstart than the JC grad in many ways.

As SST's applied learning approach is similar to polys', it is small wonder that a significant proportion of their grads picked poly as a natural choice. It's a natural extension of SST compared to JC, isn't it? I don't really think it is so much due to peer pressure. It's also a good opportunity for our kids to learn to make informed, well-judged decisions themselves (with some guidance from wise, neutral adults), regardless of peer pressure, isn't it?

Our kids' lives are very long ahead of them. University (or otherwise) is not their final destination, and we shouldn't give them the wrong impression that it is. Besides, it's all about lifelong learning these days. Continual reskilling and upskilling even after you have gotten your first uni degree.

Finally, I'll leave some food for thought here. In the rapidly changing world we are living in now, where the jobs today did not even exist 5 years ago, do we really think that a uni degree that takes 3-4 years to earn will still remain that valuable and relevant by the time it's our kids to head into the workforce? Can google around a bit regarding the existential crisis that many universities worldwide are facing.

I went to one of the top unis in the world, have worked in tertiary education for a decade before venturing into tech industry and the world of startups. I am VERY impressed by SST's applied curriculum - it's very updated, relevant, plugged into the contemporary world. Specifically, the kind of skills my S1 kid has learnt and been applying in all his school projects and performance tasks the past months were what I picked up much much later at work in my adult life. I am really glad that my kid can relate to me on those skills (collaboration, design thinking, user experience, product design, etc) over dinner when we discuss his projects and my work. Yesterday, he sent out his first 'application' for internship for this coming Nov hols. He already made up his mind he wants to go to poly, and I cannot be happier with his choice.

I often tell my son, I wish there were SST around when I was schooling. I would have picked to go there in a heartbeat. I also wish there were more SSTs around in Singapore, really. Singapore needs to have more schools like SST.

[tambourina lee]

Hi mummies & daddies,

My son has a CO from SST. Reading through the previous pages, I am concerned about the % of students who went to JC. Of course, it could be an issue of students who qualify and choose not to go JC.

My older boy is in Gan Eng Seng School where AL varies from 10 - 15. The % who qualified for JC at GESS was 97.5%. I am certain of the % as it was shared to parents during the talk. So far, I am happy with the holistic development at GESS, though the school is very academically driven. (e.g students are taught upper sec concepts in lower sec). Currently, older son is taking triple Science there. Being teenagers, he play games with his classmates, studies at the last min but results are still ok. Science papers are difficult but with the way the teachers are teaching, I am sure he will stand a good chance to go to JC.

My hubby is not keen to accept the offer and wishes for my younger one to go to a school with a higher % of students going to JC. While I know that it depends on my son's preference, I am also concerned if SST would prep my son for the national exams. Nonetheless, my boy is very excited to be there.

Would love to hear from fellow parents.

Hi limsatine,

Just wanted to share some of my own experiences with SST students (as I taught English at one of Enrichment centres down the road from SST). Based on my interactions with SST students, I have found them to be strong metacognitive thinkers and learners. In a classroom with both mainstream students and SST students, my SST stu would usually be the one who can make connections from what was discussed in class, to some other topic from another subject, and draw parallels/make inferences based on the connections he makes. Additionally, the SST students I have encountered (I don’t want to generalise), are unafraid to ask questions in class. The few SST students ive had are a joy to teach, because they enjoy learning and they enjoy asking questions because (I assume) they are naturally curious and want to learn more. In contrast, many of my mainstream students require a lot more prodding to get them to participate in class/attempt challenging questions. From these observations, I infer that the applied learning approach adopted in SST helps their students develop other important skills (beyond the academic subjects), such as communicative competency, being good problem solvers, being intellectually curious, being good collaborators..

My personal opinion, based on my observations of SST vs mainstream students in my classroom, is that SST does a far better job than most mainstream schools at developing intelligent problem solvers who are curious about the world. (A caveat, my IP students are also just as curious, eloquent and engaged in class).

My suggestion would be for you and your husband to think about whether it is important to you that your son develops the above mention skills well. And to ask yourself if your son is a problem solver by nature, and someone who is already naturally curious about how the world works, and if he is passionate about science. If he is, then i think he would certainly thrive in SST, and enjoy his 4 years while he is at it. I echo another commenter’s thoughts about JC no longer holding the same status as before.

As a small aside, my husband is Vice-dean at one of the local universities here. And after numerous admissions exercises, his personal opinion is that poly grads are just as competent and intelligent as students from JC. These days, JC or Poly can be a matter of choice, so I think the thing to really focus on is whether you think your son will enjoy the type of applied learning, because that is not for everyone. (Just as how the mainstream schools approach to classroom teaching is not for everyone..). For me, I’m not much of a science person, but my husband is a full blown geek ( as a boy he would make his parents really mad because he used to take apart computers and gadgets to see how things work inside). He WISHES that there was a school like SST around when he was young. Instead of being lectured by his mom, his insatiable curiosity might hv been encouraged instead.

Frankly, i think your son is extremely lucky to have both you and your husband concerned about his future. And just because of that, I think your son will do well no matter which path he ends up taking. (Exercise CO for SST or go to mainstream school). More importantly though, I think your son should have just as much say (or perhaps more say) in his choice of secondary school than you and your husband. Let him attend the SST session at the end of October and ask him what he thinks about the school. Perhaps you may get a chance to address your concerns about how SST will prepare the students for O levels (actually, im not sure if there are sessions running in parallel for parents and if we are allowed to go on that day, perhaps you could ask your son to ask on your behalf).

Perhaps our sons might end up as schoolmates or classmates in 2023

All the best to your son for his remaining 2 exams!

Take care.

P.S. Regarding triple science, I also shared a similar concern and asked the school about it. And from what I understand, triple science is no longer a requirement for medicine. I’m not sure if that is your concern, or if it is some other reason. Just FYI, that not taking triple science will not close doors for him at undergrad level.

[limsatine]

Hi cmeilim & tambourine lee,

Thanks much for your replies. My younger old, though 12 years old, wants to be a vet. My hubby and I are prepared to send him overseas if this is what he wants when he is much older. (Hub and I wont be able to retire early if we send him overseas but if he wants and if he has the means, we will support him all the way.)

I was hoping that the curriculum would prepare him for his ambitions. Looks like SST would be a right fit for him. Thanks for the rich sharing.

[cmeilim]

Hi cmeilim & tambourine lee,

Thanks much for your replies. My younger old, though 12 years old, wants to be a vet. My hubby and I are prepared to send him overseas if this is what he wants when he is much older. (Hub and I wont be able to retire early if we send him overseas but if he wants and if he has the means, we will support him all the way.)

I was hoping that the curriculum would prepare him for his ambitions. Looks like SST would be a right fit for him. Thanks for the rich sharing.

Your child is blessed to have you and your hubby's support in his aspiration!

[WhiteFox]

Just sharing on the recent launched Integrated Diploma Programme (IDP)

Strong sale pitch? Strong influence by school or friends? Not at all.
My child scored well for her PSLE and qualified for IP route. But at just 12years old at that point of time, she was unsure if she wants to take A level or go to Poly.
Accepted SST CO and never regretted it. As mentioned before, it sure is an unique school, always been impressed with the school’s applied curriculum.
My child nominated herself for the IDP recently because of its enhanced learning experience - specialised programme and partnership etc. Her interest has always been in Biomedical Science. So imagine her happiness (and surprise) that the IDP pathway include this course. Note that among her closest friends, she is the only one that applied for it. So no one is pressuring these students to take up IDP.