If you want to choose a study abroad country for your young children, I believe that many parents’ first choice is Singapore. Why? Because Singapore is the only country in the world that can accept children to study abroad. Moreover, over the years, Singapore has been running schools seriously, with excellent academic performance and huge investment in education. So, what are the advantages of studying in primary schools in Singapore? That is, Singapore will educate students according to the different abilities of each student.
The Singapore Education Law stipulates, “The purpose of primary education is to enable students to master a certain level of English, mathematics and mother tongue, and to educate according to the different abilities of each student.” Therefore, primary education in Singapore can be divided into the following three stages:
1. Pre-school preparation stage
In Singapore, due to the current situation of multi-ethnicity, while making English a foreign language as a working language, Singapore also sees the necessity of bilingual education. Therefore, Singapore requires all students to study two languages – English as a working language and a mother tongue for the exchange of culture and values. In schools, mathematics, science and most other subjects are taught in English, and the mother tongue is mainly used for the cultivation, transformation and development of basic values.
2. Basic education stage
The basic stage includes the first grade to the fourth grade of primary school in Singapore, and the entry age is 6 years old. The basic stage focuses on basic literacy and computer skills, with core subjects in English, Mother Tongue and Mathematics. Nearly 80% of teaching time is devoted to core courses to help students develop a solid foundation in both language proficiency and mathematics. In addition, students study music, arts and crafts, health education, physical education and participate in extracurricular activities. Moral education is also implemented at this stage, the purpose of which is to ensure that students can clearly understand the core of Asian values and national identity.
With the continuous development of children’s intelligence and the gradual increase of grades, at the end of the third grade of primary school, Singapore schools will also conduct a preliminary evaluation of students, and make suggestions to parents about possible educational paths for their children.
3. Orientation stage
The fifth and sixth grades of primary school are the directional stages of primary education. Students enter three language streams according to their abilities.
First language flow: English as the first language, mother tongue (such as Chinese, Malay and Tamil) also as the first language.
Second language flow: English as the first language and mother tongue as the second language.
Third language flow: English as the first language and the native language as a proficient spoken language.
The Orientation stage also continues to emphasize basic language and math skills and will provide all students with the same English and math courses. In addition, a number of different courses will be provided as well, with core and extended topics covered. Generally speaking, all students are expected to master core topics, and at the same time, the school will change and expand related topics according to students’ abilities. In the orientation stage, further examination of students’ abilities, interests and intelligence is carried out in order to facilitate the final change in language grouping.
