I need a tutor for my son

Charles.goh04 SG

My son is going to do his 'o' levels next year and his past results makes me worry. He's been having tuition for the past 3 years and he is barely scraping through. i need a tutor who can gurantee results. If anyone has recommendations, pls reply. Thank you.

Rednano SG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_year_series

"Ten year series (TYS)" is a colloquial term used by Singaporeans, in particular students, to refer to official compilation books of examination papers in past years for the General Certificate of Education (GCE) Normal Level (N-level), Ordinary Level (O-level) and Advanced Level (A-level), approved by the Ministry of Education and University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES).

In Singapore schools, these books are known to be used extensively by teachers and students both inside and outside the classrooms, in preparation for similar questions that may be asked in future examinations.^[1] Most students review these past examination papers in order to seek to reveal applications of concepts as well as encounter the forms of various new concepts which would be covered in examinations but not explicitly in the syllabus.^[2]

Critics of the education system claim this phenomenon to be signs of rote learning, that goes against the emphasis for creative thinking by the government in recent^[when?] years.^[3]^[4]^[5]

Until 2007 the term is not always truly literal since some of these books have compilations containing papers from more than two decades worth of examinations, which means that students will thus often be doing practice papers that are set even before they were born.^[2] The Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board (SEAB) has since implemented a new rule limited the publication of papers to the past ten years, which resulting in a spike of demand for older ten-year series.^[2] Ten-year series should not be confused with assessment books (books containing questions on specific subjects for students to practise), which serve as an additional practice, or as a form of enrichment. The latter are privately authored and sold in bookstores.^[6]

fudgester SG

First of all, you should be questioning your son's attitude toward his work.

If he is lazy and cannot be bothered to learn, even Stephen Hawking cannot do anything to help him.

TehJarVu SG

it's ok if you ask that they have track record

but

guarantee results?!?!

hello?!

a lot depends on your son u noe?

guarantee ki lan

FireIce SG

lemon law applies to tuition?

Chocochex SG

I'm not going to even try to accept any more attacks, thanks

fudgester SG

I'm a recent graduate from one of the Top IP schools in Singapore.

I do not have experience with O level students but I am confident that I can teach biology and math at O level standard.

If you are willing, I do not mind working with your son short-term on subjects he needs to improve on and let you see the results in the coming school year for you to decide whether you want to continue.

If you are interested, please PM me and I will tell you more about my school and give you an introduction about myself.

I'm a private tutor. I have six years' experience teaching O Level students.

And you know what? I will never take on this assignment. You can work your butt off, but if the threadstarter's son doesn't put in the effort, you will still find yourself out of a job.

I am sick and tired of parents who think the world of their little angels without trying to accept even an atom of responsibility.

Good luck taking this assignment. You're going to need it.

Ripoffyou SG

For an individual to improve his academics dramatically, one must question him that whether he is motivated or interested to study. If he is not, you might want to consider to bring him to workshops that provides motivational talks first before sending him to tuition centres.

Misosoup365 SG

I'm a private tutor. I have six years' experience teaching O Level students.

And you know what? I will never take on this assignment. You can work your butt off, but if the threadstarter's son doesn't put in the effort, you will still find yourself out of a job.

I am sick and tired of parents who think the world of their little angels without trying to accept even an atom of responsibility.

Good luck taking this assignment. You're going to need it.

Yes, totally. At the start of my assignments, I tend to give pep talks that can easily last the whole session and sometimes even once every few lessons to get the student reflecting and motivated.

I will never ever give gurantees under any situtation even if the tutee is currently a Straight-As student. It is heavily dependent on their attitude, their willingness.

Any experienced tutor will not gives gurantee as it is really not within our means. We are here to guide, not to change.

Suggesting short-term tuition to me personally is also a bound-to-fail method (usually) . Such method does not allow the tutee to fully understand and learn, you can't possibly guide halfway and just expect him/her to know how to go on till the end.

Just my 2 cents from my experiences.

SBS2601D SG

Short term tuition will never work for tutors like me.

That's because I refuse to teach the subject (JC EC) per se, but rather drawing on a much broader analytical framework that draws on stylised day-to-day things.

Students who stuck with me benefited, as I developed their critical analytical processes.

Those who were impatient simply left, because it takes very long to actually develop such broad-based skills, that are in fact applicable to ALL subjects.

FireIce SG

which IP sch is not top huh

Chocochex SG

SBS2601D SG

Seems like you guys don't understand what I mean by "short-term."

I meant that if the parent is willing, I will try my best for them to observe the results, NOT that I will stop halfway. Also, I did not guarantee results in my post, as you simply can't, considering the varying students' abilities.

I was not asking for opinions on what method is great for you personally.

To me, a tutor should have the same sense of responsibility as a proper school teacher and encourage those who aren't interested in studying to be motivated.

I'm not Singaporean and I think this elitist mindset that ostrasizes those with a lower aptitude in academics is what differentiates you guys from me. I have seen friends who had absolutely NO motivations in studying transform after meeting patient, positive teachers.

I think it's funny because in Singapore, tuiton teachers seem to think that they are at a higher postition than the parents, when they are the ones being employed. It makes them so picky and proud.

It tells me what kind of person you are when I read your posts. You don't want the job for yourself but you don't want others getting it either. Please, if you don't want to take on an assignment, just ignore the post. I don't think you have to rid others of the opportunity.

I know this might be very frank, no ill will intended.

No ill intended on our part, but perhaps it will be better to look for long-term from the get-go, rather than pander to the parent.

I speak from experience having been asked to stop all of a sudden by a parent. It was a huge dismay to me though on hindsight it probably saved me a lot of trouble since the student was constantly telling me "girls cant do physics".

I also had another case of parent asking me if paying me 100 bucks a month was enough.

After which, I completed one batch of students on private basis and then got myself a job instead with a tuition centre so that I wont have to worry so much about such things anymore. And also for new challenges. Its a whole new experience at that point.

Chocochex SG

which IP sch is not top huh

To clarify, there are always best of the best and I meant that.

You don't need to tackle all the trivial matters.

Chocochex SG

No ill intended on our part, but perhaps it will be better to look for long-term from the get-go, rather than pander to the parent.

I also had another case of parent asking me if paying me 100 bucks a month was enough.

I was a little upset about how my comment was treated at the point in time I wrote my second comment, which I gave much thought before posting because it was rather frank.

Thank you so much for giving me your advice and sharing your experiences, as well as a rational receipt of my second comment above.

I think I'm probably a bright-eyed, bushy tailed undergrad who's ambitiously full of ideals and bound to be dissapointed soon at at the hard reality, so thanks for the heads up :)

SBS2601D SG

And yes.

Its a free world out there.

If you take it up and succeed, good for you.

fudgester SG

Seems like you guys don't understand what I mean by "short-term."

I was not asking for opinions on what method is great for you personally.

To me, a tutor should have the same sense of responsibility as a proper school teacher and encourage those who aren't interested in studying to be motivated.

I think it's funny because in Singapore, tuiton teachers seem to think that they are at a higher postition than the parents, when they are the ones being employed. It makes them so picky and proud.

I know this might be very frank, no ill will intended.

I'm not trying to be picky or proud. If anything, I happily consider all tuition assignments that are offered to me, considering that most parents only want female tutors.

If you read the posts carefully, no one is attacking you. The attacks are against the threadstarter in particular and unreasonable parents in general. Some of these parents demand guaranteed results come hell or high water, and as everyone here has pointed out, no tutor worth his salt can do that.

Regardless of what you might think, we tutors do not think of ourselves as being in a higher position than parents. However, I have been fired unceremoniously by parents who think that I'm not doing my job. Never mind that their precious children simply couldn't care less about their studies. True, a good tutor motivates his students, but from experience some students will never get motivated no matter how hard you try to motivate them.

Heck, my own cousin fired me from teaching his son by ignoring all my messages and calls. Never mind that my nephew couldn't be bothered to attempt his (simple even for his level) assignments or would daydream during lessons no matter how much effort I put in. And the level of effort I put in was immense: it went all the way to spending hours sourcing for worksheets and school past year exams, all out of my own pocket.

I will never accept the assignment offered by the threadstarter, because I know that I would almost certainly get fired by him no matter how hard I try. I take it that you have never experienced getting fired before for something that is not your fault.

Believe me, you are far better off without this assignment.

M the name SG

Just ask TS's son to join work force like become an Macdonald boy or Sakae Sushi dishwasher and once he learn enough lesson from the "society university", he will have the motivation to study. Just hope that TS son is not like that boy in channel 8 drama 's "It Takes Two" where he asked his grandpa for his retirement money.

^Acid^ aka s|aO^eH~ SG

I think most ppl missed the point...

i need a tutor who can gurantee results.

the point is that the TS is asking for tutors who can "gurantee" results, not asking for tutors who can "try their best and see how".

We need a miracle worker here