Parents: are international schools deteriorating?

[Insurance]

just as an update, I've also read that Singapore are bringing in some kind of insurance for students that we are going to have to pay - I assume (but I don't know for sure) that this is because of those schools/colleges which closed down suddenly last year leaving students without an education facility and owing them thousands of dollars that they'd paid for their courses. 

You can find details on the CPE website - which is the council for private education, although I couldn't find any info about how much the insurance is going to cost.  Some schools may incorporate it into their fees but I believe that ours are going to charge it separately, so although we'll be getting our deposits returned, we'll have to pay extra for this.  I only hope it isn't too costly.

My child is at Chatsworth so I emailed them about the insurance cost - the response was that they were still negotiating but would be around $45. Didn't say whether that was annual or per semester though.

[penniless schools]

just as an update, I've also read that Singapore are bringing in some kind of insurance for students that we are going to have to pay - I assume (but I don't know for sure) that this is because of those schools/colleges which closed down suddenly last year leaving students without an education facility and owing them thousands of dollars that they'd paid for their courses. 

You can find details on the CPE website - which is the council for private education, although I couldn't find any info about how much the insurance is going to cost.  Some schools may incorporate it into their fees but I believe that ours are going to charge it separately, so although we'll be getting our deposits returned, we'll have to pay extra for this.  I only hope it isn't too costly.

My child is at Chatsworth so I emailed them about the insurance cost - the response was that they were still negotiating but would be around $45. Didn't say whether that was annual or per semester though.

thanks - it'd be great if it does turn out to be so low.

[Posterity]

That is in fact the question: would adding number of students in class (all classes across a grade) bring the quality of education lower? How does teacher/student ratio affect the quality?

It depends on the subject.  For intellectually challenging subjects (such as classical languages and Further Maths), size matters: even the smartest kids will have frequent questions when parsing the dithyrambs of Bacchylides or mastering product-moment correlation coefficients, and these questions are easier to discuss in small groups. For softer subjects - where it is largely a matter of listen, note, revise - class size matters less.

You're back!

[hahahaha]

That is in fact the question: would adding number of students in class (all classes across a grade) bring the quality of education lower? How does teacher/student ratio affect the quality?

It depends on the subject.  For intellectually challenging subjects (such as classical languages and Further Maths), size matters: even the smartest kids will have frequent questions when parsing the dithyrambs of Bacchylides or mastering product-moment correlation coefficients, and these questions are easier to discuss in small groups. For softer subjects - where it is largely a matter of listen, note, revise - class size matters less.

You're back!

[ishq]

Were can one find school results/scores? What are ways to compare international schools in Singapore?

Talk about being competitive. While you're at it, let's just rank them as well.
I would have thought that the reason why parents sent their kids to international schools was to escape the ranking games of the local schools.

[size of classes]

From year one I believe there is no full time teaching assistant in the classes in UWC.

Small class sizes are important to our family and I'd liked the fact UWC had 22 maximum in the classes.

Thing is Tanglin has a better pupil to teacher ratio and there are full time teaching assistants in the early years. So you have 24 in a class with effectively two teachers full time.

In UWC there will only be a TA after reception if you are doing some special craft project or similar.