Singapore has been going through major school mergers over the past few years. This has greatly been contributed due to the low demand for school places which in turn has led to significant excesses for secondary school places at a national level. Satisfactory critical numbers of students are needed for any school to offer a good range of academic programs and extra curricular activities for its students. These mergers will make the beginning of new Co-Curricular Activities (CCAs) for students to experience in school. The new CCA will be diverse and customized programs to connect the students.
Parents’ help their children choose primary schools based on the distance they have to travel from home and even a child being accepted early in school because of the older siblings attending the school. The school merger is aimed at providing top notch school management teams. Merging will also mean that there is an availability of channels to providing better infrastructure like more classrooms, investing more in technology and acquiring of teaching aids. The Education Ministry recently announced the merger of fourteen primary schools; eight junior colleges and six secondary level schools come the year 2019.
The mergers will evidently have major impacts on both the parents and children when it takes effect in 2019. Below are some of the impacts that will be felt by parents and students as well.
Additional Expenses In Purchase Of New Uniforms And Resources
An increase in expenditure will be expected as parents will be required to buy new uniforms, PE kits and shoes for the new school formed after the merger. This exercise will first start with the present primary 1 to 3 pupils in the existing schools. Schools normally give a time period of between 1 and 2 years for their students to acquire new full school uniform. Eventually, other school levels will follow suit to ensure the mergers are affected on all school levels, from primary school to secondary schools and later to post secondary levels.
Increase In Travelling Distance From Home To New School Site
The expected merger is going to affect the distance students have to travel to attend school. This will also affect the considerations parents take when choosing a school that is near to home for the primary school children. The shorter the distance there is to travel to school, the more time the child has to recover after school. This also translates to the child being better prepared for studies, once they arrive at their schools. With the new mergers, distance to school may mean some students will have to transfer to schools nearer to home. This is better for your child compared to travelling daily to the newly formed school which is further away from home. In case your child continues to attend school to the far schools, they will mostly end up being tired and their concentration in class will also be affected.
Adapt To New School Philosophy And Approach
Parents will be expected to adjust the expectations and intentions they may hold for their children’s outcome in relation to what the school offers. This is because the newly merged schools will have formed new learning, teaching philosophies and a new identity for the school. The new philosophy will include new vision and mission statements for the schools. The schools are well prepared and will have platforms to enable them to engage parents. This will help make sure the parents transition smoothly and have the understanding of the school’s intentions. This is an important step and will ensure that the parent can support their children adapt to the newly formed school’s approach to teaching and philosophies.
Adapt To New Teachers
Primary school students spend 160 hours monthly in attending school. As they move up to secondary school and later to post secondary levels, the number of hours keep increasing. Teachers have unquestionably huge impact and influence on your child and this is fundamental to your child’s life. The mergers will, however, mean that your children will have to get used to a new set of teachers, new teaching methods and even a new experience of learning. Your child’s adaptation and openness to change will determine whether this experience will be positive or negative in nature for them.
Since the teacher is the main influence on your child’s advancement and performance in schools, children will require assistance to help make the change smooth and easy for them as well.
Adapt To New Classmates & Friends
Students will also be expected to meet new classmates and adjust to making new friendships. This will be in addition to adapting to new teachers. Those students, who will be affected by the merger, will no longer be classmates to their existing friends. Although friendships are important to your child, they may affect your child’s learning and class performance level. This makes friendships have a two-sided influence on your child’s education. Friendships are good as they encourage your child’s learning experience and will make the transition to the new school, new learning and teaching methods easy to adopt.
Conclusion
Singapore has been going through major school mergers over the past few years. These mergers have greatly been contributed due to the low demand for school placements which in turn has led to significant excesses for secondary school places at a national level.
Adequate critical student numbers are needed for a school to offer a good range of academic programs and extra curricular activities for its students. These mergers will make the beginning of new Co-Curricular Activities (CCAs) for students to experience in school. The new CCA will be diverse and customized programs to encourage connecting with the students.
The intended mergers are going to have major impacts on both the parents and the students as well. The new schools formed will be operating under new philosophies and teaching approaches. This for parents may be a challenge. Since they had chosen the school with intentions that were aimed at helping their children, achieve their goals. The new schools have nonetheless, set up platforms to help the parents cultivate an understanding of the new philosophies and teaching methods.
We have more learning related articles here: How Spoon-feeding is Harmful to Learning and Practical Learning – A Learning Tool You Can’t Afford to Not Use.
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