Huang Chao

    Instead of showing off my shallow understanding of Singapore's education system, I prefer to share some interesting findings in the past few days.
    One of the most important findings is that some SM1 students in my buddy's class have almost behaved like a Singaporean totally including the accent and appearance. I hardly believe that 3 years can even shape a guy into another kind. Maybe many changes have taken place in my minds, behavior and beliefs as well, as I can feel now. But all in all, I hope every change in my body and mind can help me proceed in the right direction.
    Also, I feel very comfortable staying with my juniors. Year 5 is Senior Middle 2 so that it is the first time most of my classmates are younger than me. My buddy is a good and handsome boy who speaks Chinese very frequently with me. I also know about some of his classmates like the class monitors. The following photo of me and my buddy was taken when we were conducting an experiment. And some other photos were his classmates.

   I am looking forward to the coming 2 last days of my valuable JC immersion. I hope to build up tighter and more harmonious friendship with them, my dear juniors.

Expecting JC immersion (Zhi Yiwei)

Tomorrow I would start my one-week JC immersion in River Valley High School, and frankly speaking, I am very exited about this coming experience. Back in 2008, I have stayed in a secondary school as an exchange student for also one week. That one week was an interesting and impressive one which I could still recall even now. I have seen various kinds of active classes, club activities, and the unity of the whole school. So for this one-week JC immersion yet to come, I am expecting not only those I have learned about 5 years ago, but I am also hoping to see all-rounded education and the thoughtful students that it brings.

I had my Singapore secondary school exchange when I was junior one, which was organized by my junior school. The secondary school I went to was Northbrooks Secondary School, located in Yishun. During that period, I was assigned to a buddy who was also secondary one, and that I was required to attend all the lessons he was to attend in that one-week's time. During the daily lessons, I have participated in both science and arts subjects. The most important feature I remember about the lessons is how the teachers lead students to become an independent learner. For instance, students were assigned in groups to research and design posters about Asean countries' culture in English classes, and I joined one group to help present the their findings. Even as an outsider who haven't seen the whole process of their research, I could feel how their individual thinking ability and communication skills were benefited. Besides, I have joined some after-school activities. One interesting but practical one among them was an out-door surviving lesson, in which we were taught how to set fire and cook food for ourselves. I have also learned about making plane models and cooking Malay food. By learning all these various lessons, I have found out the secondary school education in Singapore could truly promote almost every aspect of a student.

Having the delightful exchange 5 years ago in a secondary school, I am now even more exited about this Junior college exchange. The one I am going to is River Valley High school, an IP school with excellent performance in both academic and activities. It was set up in 1956, aiming to uphold virtues and contribute to society, guiding others in the quest for knowledge and wisdom through personal growth. The school has outstanding academic achievements: it produces may outstanding graduates with high A level scores and wins plenty of nation prizes in each subjects. Its CCA performance is also great, sports like badminton and Wushu are its strengths. Therefore, I would like to go inside the real school life and discover why it could produce all these graduates with full package. I am also very curious about how RVHS students could successfully manage their time and do great jobs in school work and CCA. This experience would very possibly answer most of my doubts about Singapore education, enrich my language and technical skills, and inspires me about arranging time to balance study and CCA.

I am now ending my excitement with one sentence that I keep telling my self: Just enjoy.

Kangwei's first day of JC immersion

Getting up early, wandering in the bright moonlight, that is the beginning of my JXP.
Before coming to RVHS, I worried quite a lot about how to communicate with local students and whether they will have bias on us.
So I got very cautious initially, avoiding any troubles. However, after meeting my buddies, Yun Da, I felt great relief. Although he may not be so focused when studying, he is a very warm-hearted person. He showed me buildings in RVHS and introduced his friends to me as well. In the afternoon, we attended the experiment lesson together. Both of us were not careful enough and we made quite a large amount of solutions splashed out, but I really enjoyed the process of working with him and doing things with my own hands.
The PE lesson is not as horrible as what I anticipated maybe because the teacher today was very merciful to us. I found my buddy is really good at sports. After running 2.4 kilometres, he was also able to perform energeticly on the basketball court.
Anyhow, that was my first day in RVHS, there was still a lot of things deserving observing and a lot of people to interact with.

My first day in RVHS (QinKun)

Today is the first day that I start to study in River Valley High School (RVHS). Mrs Lim who takes care of us is very kind and friendly. She leads us to playground for flag-raising ceremony. Around 2500 students and 200 teachers stand together. Some students stand in front of us and take charge of raising flag and sing school anthem, which remind me of ceremony in China. Moreover, there are thirteen new teachers joining in RVHS. After that, we are leaded to meet our buddy.

My buddy's name is Chin Wen Xuan who is a very helpful and tall boy. He studies maths, physics  chemistry and economy. Our first lesson is chemistry lecture about chemical bonding which we have learned in both China and NUS. Students are very interested about who we are. Wen xuan introduces some friends to me . They are all friendly. The chemistry teacher also asks a few questions on our program. The second lesson is PE. Unfortunately, I hurt my ankle when I played basketball on Friday night. So I can only wait on side. To my surprise, Teacher asks students to run 2400 meters in ELEVEN mins which sounds very terrible. However, Wen xuan tells me that they do this for National Service which is compulsory for Singaporean.
   
Then we have a recess to eat or drink something. Following is a picture of canteen:

Students eat together and talk to each other. Wen xuan tells me that friends are always talking about their tutorial here. Then we got to physics lecture. Another funny thing is that students should change their clothes when they have PE class and  change to original uniform to go for other classes. Following is a picture of physics lecture:

The amount of students really shocks me.
Next, we have chemistry tutorial and general paper class. Following is a picture of classroom:

Finally, we close all classes at 3:20 pm. And my buddy need to go for training. On Wednesday, Wen xuan has his CCAS. I feel that time flies quickly. Wen xuan told me classes on Monday and Tuesday are a little boring. But I feel okay, the style is different from China. I enjoy the first day and expect the the rest of days.