MindChamps Feature: Should Parents Still Focus on Their Child’s Academic Results?

By 2018, children with specific talents in sports, the arts or languages may have a higher chance of securing a place in the secondary schools of their choice through the Direct School Admission (DSA) scheme. General academic ability tests will also be removed as a criterion under that scheme.

These were the recent moves by the Ministry of Education (MOE) to steer away from academics to discover the child’s interests and talents. Just last year, directives were given to do away with the PSLE aggregate score, leaving only wider scoring bands like A, B, C and D.

The efforts of the Government are rather obvious. So as parents, should we still emphasise on our child’s academic results? After all, this has already been a culture in Singapore, passing down from generation to generation. “Bad” habits die hard, right?

Typical kiasu parents will try to nurture their child’s interest and ability in learning at ages as young as their pre-school days. They believe that they can get a good head start and excel even before they actually step into the gates of their primary schools.

So, is the pre-school curriculum focusing too much on academic excellence?

On the contrary, most pre-schools in Singapore adopt a holistic approach to help our kids achieve beyond academic excellence. A great example can be seen through MindChamps PreSchool, as they strongly encourage pre-schoolers to learn through play and this is achieved through their core units and enrichment programmes offered such as:

Inquiry Moments™

Encourages active learning and thinking in children as they construct meaning from their experience about the world around them.

Gourmet Moments™

Children will prepare a variety of simple, healthy dishes such as fruit salad and sushi, while sharing and raising questions about their culinary experience.

NeuroMooves™

Setting the basis for mental and emotional progress, this equips our children with core skills for sports and games, which will also benefit their academic progress.

Music for the Mind™

By combining rhythmic movement with speech and song, children can further develop their minds, especially in areas such as inner speech and impulse control. This in turn leads them to explore, enjoy and solve problems to enhance their creative skills.

Creativity & Theatrical Strategies™

Children will read a story and are tasked to re-write the ending. This new ending will be scripted into a final scene for the story in which they will act out. Through these creative and role-playing tasks, they will develop written and oral skills with confidence.

Brian Caswell, Dean of Research and Programme Development at MindChamps, said during an exclusive interview with Skoolopedia, “When it comes to designing education programmes, it is not enough to prepare children for exams, simply because exams are important here and now.”

“If our children are truly prepared for whatever our changing environment will throw at them in the future, they will still be able to do well in today’s exams, but they will be prepared for so much more.”

To find out more about MindChamps Preschool, book a visit.

Other Questions about MindChamps PreSchool You May Be Interested to Know

Q: For a hefty investment every month on school fees, what does it include?

MindChamps PreSchool delivers a cutting-edge curriculum that is backed by a decade of research and development, and a list of core units and enrichment programmes that are incorporated at no additional cost. Here, positive values such as confidence, gratefulness, compassion and more are instilled in your child. Your child’s overall development will also be well taken care of, as  healthy and nutritious meals will be served to them throughout the day.

Q: By adopting a franchise model, how do you ensure that standards are the same in all your centres?

Not only does a franchise business model creates the opportunity for MindChamps PreSchool to thrive, it also paves way for the school to expand their reach within Singapore to allow more families to give their children the best in early childhood education.

You can rest assured that all efforts have been made to ensure that the service quality is at the most optimum level at all centres through a series of standard operating procedures and stringent checks. Some initiatives implemented include centralised curriculum and lesson plans that are disseminated by the headquarters (HQ). In addition, all pre-school teachers would need to be accredited by the HQ staff and undergo a minimum of 200 hours of training in order to deliver the lessons at the pre-school centres.

Keen to know more about MindChamps PreSchool? Book a visit.