At the core of our secondary programme is our desire to develop resilient students who strive towards breaking through their limits. The jump from primary to secondary is a large one; the jump from lower secondary to upper secondary is arguably bigger. We aim to help students adjust to the new academic expectations required in an efficient manner. From years of experience and feedback, we realised that our job as educators goes beyond the classroom as well. At this critical juncture, students need be motivated and inspired to have a mindset of excellence.
Going beyond the classroom
Given that the academic workload has essentially doubled from primary to secondary, many of our lower secondary students complain they are unable to cope. We address this by working with them on how to schedule their time. Although this goes beyond the usual scope of tuition teachers, we believe it is essential for us as educators to set our students on the right path towards success.
mentoring success
At the upper secondary level, students are exposed to depth instead of breadth of a subject. The inclusion of Additional mathematics and the splitting of General Science to three distinct Science subjects are common issues for many students. To overcome this, our tutors foster a desire for independence and personal ownership amongst our upper secondary students. We sit down with them to do goal-setting and work with them to overcome their individual weaknesses. By taking ownership over their future, students push harder and faster. Read on to find out how we teach each individual subject.
Programme Highlights
Science
Pure Chemistry | Pure Physics | Combined Sciences (Chemistry, Physics)
Reverse Engineering: Learning through Application
By reverse engineering the past 10 years’ worth of Physics questions from the relevant examination and school prelim papers, we identify the crucial content that is frequently tested and essential for the students to understand. This allow us to scope down the syllabus to more bite size information that is easy for the students to pick up and apply for each chapter. Further practice of the basic question types during class will strengthen the student’s fundamentals to allow them to perform and excel in school exams and the final O levels.
Our science lessons are structured around the key concepts to be taught. Each lesson is designed to cover a few key concepts. After which, our questions are segmented into difficulty level and question types. By immediately letting students try out relevant questions after the key concept is taught, students are able to better identify the type of question in the exam. As students begin to realise how to identify the key question types, we proceed to go through harder questions and application questions. This allows our students to gain a mastery of the key concept and to approach examination questions with a clear framework.
An emphasis on First Principles
As the examination questions have increasingly become more application based, we now focus a lot on application questions. By designing our syllabus to be based on key, fundamental concepts, our students will be able to learn on first principles and be prepared for any curveball that is thrown at them during their examinations.
An orientation towards Results
Key to scoring is knowing the the mark scheme. We have studied years of mark schemes to understand what examiners require. Our notes and teachers emphasise suggested templated answering schemes to ensure our students are able to score every mark. With our carefully curated worksheets and revision packaged, our students are given the opportunity to refine their technique and accurately identify question types in their major examinations. This allows them to accelerate their progress and score well. From previous experience, students who previously were failing see rapid improvement after attending a few months of classes while students who already have a key foundational understanding quickly jump up to be top students.
English language / Language arts
Language Arts Programme for select IP schools, including MGS, NYGH, HCI, RGS and RI.
Personalised for Efficiency and Maximum Results
Our English classes are highly result-oriented. Our students are diagnosed into three competency levels to ensure the class they attend is the most suitable for them. After which, our team works with them to push them towards their next grade. For many students, they lack the structure in their answering technique. Most students would have the basic grammatical skills at this level to score a decent grade. By teaching them how to better structure their answers, students can expect to see themselves quickly score better results. In particular, weak students can quickly see themselves getting a B3-B4 range while students who are on the brink of A1 will start to see themselves cement their A1s.
Ultimately, English is a subject that cannot be mastered overnight. We are realistic in our approach and are focused on helping every student achieve their maximum potential in an efficient manner.
Additional Mathematics
Mastering fundamental Principles
In every topic tested, the key to achieving A1 is to master the fundamental principles of each topic. You will notice that simply memorizing the formula is inadequate to attain the ideal grade. Understanding these fundamentals is the first step to success. Additionally, the concepts for Additional Mathematics and Elementary Mathematics are radically different. Our team has isolated the core concepts of each syllabus and have distilled it into digestible principles for students to understand.
We regret that we cannot offer combined math classes due to vastly differing nature of both Mathematic subjects.
Identifying Question Types
Increasing the efficiency during revision is vital to every student. At Crucible, we have prepared a list of solutions to essential question types tied to each motherhood principle. Students can refer to this question bank to familiarise themselves with the thought process behind the solution. Carefully curated, students who accomplish their assigned work will definitely see a huge jump in grades. Our strategy of organising questions based on types and difficulty level trains our students to quickly identify and apply the relevant principles in their examinations in a timely manner.
Apply and Adapt
This is the most critical step. Memorising the formulas and remembering the motherhood principles is not enough. We expect uncertainty and we embrace it. With plenty of curated application questions, we teach students the key skill to link the application questions back to the motherhood principles. Our experience shows that the key to solving these challenging application questions is exposure. As students are exposed to more challenging questions, they begin to see through the question and are able to tackle the core mathematical principle in question.