David stays in a rental flat at Beo Crescent estate with his parents and younger brother. When he was in Primary 6 in 2018, David had scored a grade “D” for English in the previous year, despite having been enrolled in a tuition class. David and his mother felt that the tuition class was unsuitable in providing him with the necessary support and attention in view of its large class size. When David and his mother heard about the Pass-In-Primary-Six (“PIPS) programme by SCC - smaller student-teacher ratio and the presence of tutors from an established tuition centre, David decided to sign up.
Within the first half of the year, David’s English improved from a grade “D” to “C”, which he maintained all the way to his PSLE. As David was also struggling with his Maths subject (he had dropped from Standard to Foundation Mathematics from Primary 5 to 6), he had asked SCC for support which we then connected him with a volunteer from our Learning Kampung programme. In addition, David also signed up for Project Lend-A-Hand (PLAH!), an intensive 3-month preparation programme that coaches students in English, Maths and Science for PSLE. With these support, David scored above 50% for Maths in his PSLE, which helped him qualify for the Normal (Academic) stream instead of the Normal (Technical) stream.
Currently in Secondary 1, David continues to do well, and was top of his class for History, a subject only offered to students in the Normal (Academic) or Express streams. He had expressed interest in history even when he was in primary school, and has ambitions to be an Arabic calligrapher in the future.
“I’m grateful to my PIPS tutor because she knew how to make me pass”. - David
*names changed to protect the identity of persons mentioned.
