In a blink of an eye, another year has passed and another batch of students had left. I used to be quite sad by this, because some of my students had been with me for a very long time. I was wondered if I could find another batch of students who are as nice. Well, I always do, because most students I met are uniquely nice. They have their own particular temperament and character, so after so many years of tutoring, I still find it challenging and engaging :)

The year 2016 is the year where I started to take in some cases of students who have financial problems. I took in 4 such students. Some are very hardworking and thrive under the tutoring environment but generally most gave me some sort of trouble, either disciplinary or particularly picky over calculation of fees. I am wondering why I should even embark on such things in the future, but we shall see. I do know that there is a substantial cost to me for such cases, because I had to work a lot of extra hours at below market rates, yet suffer some sort of trouble. It makes me not want to take up such cases in 2017.

Anyway, here's the results for year 2016:

There are 19 'students' in 2016. I put in the quotation marks because if a student took 2 lessons with me, I will treat it as 2 students. I have 6 N level students (1 to 6), while the rest are O level students (7 to 19).

Here's some comments on their performance:
1. For the N lvl students, I have a mixed class. Out of 3, only one made it to Olvls, so the other will have to go to ITE. They are very very weak in both math and science (failing pretty badly) and they came in pretty late. I think I started with them around April. With the N'lvl in Sept, I don't really have a lot of time to do what I need to do. But that's life - we don't always get to do what we want to.  R always gets into trouble with authorities, and has huge disciplinary issues to the extent that he has to downgrade from express to N lvl because he had to be retained. He did better that I expect, scoring B4. I think I managed to make him care in bit about his results. M's results is quite disappointing, both to him and to me. I think he screwed up in the actual exams itself. It's a lesson he will have to learn. But I think I managed to give him hope and made him not give up on himself. S always did good, and I've no worries for him. I'm still coaching him for the harder O'lvl in 2017 this year.

2. T did badly for his overall, scoring 25 in L1R4, easily the worst of my batch of students. I think he didn't really try hard enough. He got B3 for the combined science that I taught him, but he said that's his best subjects already. Not sure if he can have much choice other than RP engineering, considered the main dumping ground for student in Singapore (my opinions).

3. D is a repeat student, and he managed to get much much better results this time round. He's a little stubborn and prefers to do things his own way. We used to have much more conflicts since I don't understand why he would want to do things his way especially when he don't have much results to show for. After compromising, we worked out our differences and things are better. He is very hardworking but does his work too slowly. Tends to panic in exams also. The usual remedy is to do time trials in front of me and let him get used to the stress of sitting in a timed practice, which is essentially what exams is all about. He managed an A2 for amath and B3 for combined science, good enough to qualify for JC.


Of all the 19 subjects, 52.6% is distinction (A1/A), 21.1% is B3 and 26.3% is B4. Nobody scored worse than B4 for the subjects I taught. Frankly, I have no wish for all students to get A1. They should get the results they deserve, based on the consistency of the effort. As a tutor, there's a limit to what I can do. Ultimately, I'm not the one sitting the exams for them. As in all the previous years of results release, some will be in tears of joy, some will be in tears of disappointment, but all of them will learn and take away something.

​In the end, life is a lot more than just a letter grade for a 2 hr exam they took.

The results for the year 2015 O and N lvl are out already. Just like last year, I decided to keep a proper account of my student's results. This is not meant for marketing purpose (even though it can be), but honestly, it's more for my sake. There are good times and bad times in this work that I do, and hopefully when I'm feeling down, I can look back and look at the good I've done.

I had a total of 11 graduating students with me tutoring 15 subjects with them. Out of the 11 students, 10 are express O lvl and 1 is from the Normal (acad) stream.  The students are with me for various duration; some stayed with me for 2 years while the shortest duration is only 1.5 months. 

Here's the breakdown of the results:

A1 - 6.7%
A2 - 80.0%
B3 - 13.3%
B4 and below - 0.0%

86.7% of the students I taught managed a A2 or better. Again, we see this weird trend where a lot of students are getting a bulk of A2 to B3 and not many getting A1. Because this is the 2nd year where it happened since I started tracking, I think it's a great cause for concern. Perhaps it's no longer sufficient to get 75% to get A1 these days with the current grade inflation situation. To get A1 for emath, we already need perhaps 95%, so what's next? 99%?


I'm actually very happy for my students this year. Here's the more memorable cases:

1. G had a fantastic showing for his N lvls. He's one of the rare ones that managed to skip the dreaded O'lvl and go straight to N lvls. I've always said that it's an uphill battle for N lvl students to get a better score for O lvl simply because it's not a fair fight. You have only 1 year to adjust to the more demanding and qualitatively different syllabus while the rest of the express stream had a full 2 years to do so. It's like a newbie fighting in the land reserved for the pro. Glad that he did so well that he can skip the Olvls. Will miss our weekly talk about anything under the sun and his crazy curiosity about the world about us.


2. I met S only 1.5 months before his Olvls. Since it's only like 6 to 7 weeks before his exams, we had to rush through the entire syllabus to prepare him well. His foundation is very very weak, almost non-existent. It doesn't help that he is usually so worn out by his crazy revision schedule organised by his school for the weaker students. As a result, he is always dozing off during lessons while I'm always rushing to meet the timeline in order to cover as much as possible! It's impossible!

I fully expected him to get at best B3 for his combined science, but he outdo my expectations and got an A2. Very happy for him. Unfortunately, it's only those subjects that he sought help that managed to get As and Bs. The rest didn't do as well. Not sure if he can get into poly.


​3. D is a under confident girl when I met her. She always thought she couldn't make it. Perhaps years of constant bad results make you reluctant to even attempt. After letting her experience several small success, she gets better and better, to a point where I thought she don't need any more help from me. But after talking to her, I realised that she needed help in another subject (which I can teach as well), so I offered to change our lessons to that. I told her it's pointless getting just one A; you need everything to be fairly good. In the end, she got two A2 for the subjects I taught her and overall score of 12. That's super super decent to me. 

I hope she goes forward with better confidence in her own abilities to overcome life's problems.


IB results came out earlier, but I only have one student taking SL maths. She is really really struggling with math but I think she did put in the effort during the last few months and managed to score a 5 out of 7. That is with a combined score of 32 out of 45. Not the crazy full score you see from the ACS side, but hey, she's happy with her results and can get to where she wants to. And to me, that's good enough.

So that's it. Now we wait for Mar period of the release of the Alvl results.

This year will mark the first in my 10 years as a full time tutor where I actually recorded the results of my graduating students into an excel spreadsheet for future tracking. Actually I don’t know why I do it, maybe it’s more for accountability. Perhaps it’s also for memory’s sake. After tutoring a student for 2 weeks to 5 years (that’s the various duration of tuition that I gave to my graduating students 2014), it’s kind of hard to let them go. I’ll miss them for sure. Before memory eventually erases them to an unfamiliar name, I’ll jot them down in my spreadsheet as a little memento of sorts.

From experience and my (faulty) memory, most students will get A2 and above for the subjects I teach them in O’lvls. Now, I can tell you exactly how many percentage do get A2 and above.

I tutored 14 subjects to 12 sec4/sec5 students. Here’s the breakdown:

A1 – 21%
A2 – 43%
B3 – 29%
C5 – 1%

So 64% do get A2 and above. This year is a weird year…the exams difficulty is too easy, hence you see a lot of people getting Bs and A2. The bell curve god smiles only at the hardworking and perhaps the blessed lucky few. 

The IB results are also out way before the O’lvls. I’ve got 2 students. Teaching SL chem and HL maths to 2 different students. One did very well, getting a 6 out of a possible 7 and a overall score of 41 out of a possible 45. Very happy for him. For the other, it’s a big unknown. Maybe I’ll ask when it’s not so traumatic anymore.

Exams results day is always a mix of emotions for me. You see the happy ones, you see the can’t-be-bothered ones, and you see the sad ones. My emotions used to go roller coaster with every bit of good news and bad news, but these days, it’s quite stable. Perhaps I got used to the inevitable bad results and the unexpectedly good results. It’s been afterall, a good 10 yrs of experiencing such joys and cries.


A few cases stand out in 2014:

1. Someone came to find me a like 1 month before the exams. I don’t reject people, especially when I know I can help. She did very well, getting an A2 eventually from just passing in her prelims. I wish I can say she did well overall, but she didn’t. It’s the overall results that matters, not just one single subject. 

2. I taught this boy since Sec 1! And his brother before that! It’s been a good 6-7 yrs with this family. I’ll miss teaching them. Really.

3. I thought coming to find me 1 month before is late, but I had another student who engaged me 1-2 weeks before the exams. General revision, I’m supposed to do. He scored A1/A2 in the end, and got a very good score overall. Very happy for him.


Waiting for the A’lvl students to report back their results next...