Singapore Expats

"after school activities" or "special needs" help?
Filling in the school forms and not sure what it means.

thanks

Courses designed to satisfy the kiasuism of the parents. The poor kids end up in school 5 days a week, 2 days a week minimum for ECA (extra curricular activities - they get credits for these) and 7 nights a week in enrichment courses that the parents feel are a must have because they didn't have them as a child. Things like violin, piano lessons, ballet, cooking, singing and any other damned things to keep the kids from being kids and vacuuming money out of the parents pockets. And they wonder why young adults are so dysfunctional today.

Has absolutely nothing to do with "special needs" children, sadly.

Come on SMS, don't be so coy. Tell us what you really think - no need to hold back .

BTW, I do agree with you 100%.

I've been through it all already. Both of my kids were born in the old KK hospital and today they are 22 & 28. Wife is local so she wanted all those things she couldn't have. Me, I would only allow that which the kids kept pestering me for over a period of time (to show me that the interest was really there and not just peer envy).

Ha! Ha!

Kind of like me and my hubby (he's local). Whenever we compare childhoods, I'm always astonished at the number of things he had to do as a kid (e.g. Mandarin / Maths / Physics / Chemistry tuition, piano lessons, violin lessons, tennis lessons, swimming lessons, and more!) and he's always astonished at how little I did ("Gee honey, no tuition classes, no ballet classes, and no piano lessons! Really!").

As SMS says, after school and weekend courses to keep kids busy (and IMHO presumably to hope to discover a hidden talent that will make the parents rich in their old age ).

I can't really blame the parents for hoping to discover the next Tiger Woods or Vanessa Mae - I'm sure that it'd be nice (financially!) to have a child prodigy in the family but it does make these parents come across as pushy and a bit desperate.

We could never afford music, art, ballet or golf lessons when I was a child and I don't feel that I missed out.

And they're not cheap either these lessons - and they sting you with 'enrollment fees' and 'admin fees' and all that kind of hidden extra and some of them also have 12 month contracts so you're stuck with it for a year even if your kid hates it.


When children are not doing 'enrichment courses' they're often doing extra tuition in something. Parents go on about how great the school is that their kids go to and then stick them in extra tuition and I think to myself that the school can't be that fantastic if they have to take extra tuition for most of their subjects.


However, if I haven't put you off and you are ever interested in putting your children into an enrichment course - always check out the Community Centres first as they have the cheapest courses.

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That's also one of the reasons (higher sanity of the parental environment) why I would prefer to see my kid in the International School.

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[taking_bait_mode]

Yeah, instead they just hit you for insane school fees upfront with no way around them!

[/taking_bait_mode]

... what could be a pretty good argument if the enrichment courses were for free

Problem is, I doubt if any of the International Schools provide any extras free of charge.

sundaymorningstaple wrote:Problem is, I doubt if any of the International Schools provide any extras free of charge.

Yep, mine does, my kids have CCAs (Co Curricular Activities) where they get them for free or cost of materials (for something like cookery) but minimal cost.

They have ECAs too, they cost plenty.

Lots of extras are free at SAS ~ clubs, service outings, field trips, intramurals, etc. I was part of an organization that started after school programs in dance, drama, art, puppetry, double dutch, dozens of classes, all at cost, cheaper than any community service. Teachers are also not allowed to charge for tutoring, so that is gratis as well.

jbsing wrote:"after school activities" or "special needs" help?
Filling in the school forms and not sure what it means.

thanks

after school activities, I think.