Frequently asked questions
academics
WHAT IS YOUR PHILOSOPHY?
WHAT IS YOUR PHILOSOPHY?
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If there are things that both our founders are strong at, those are pattern & behavior identification. Throughout the 10 years of live and on the field observations of thousands of students, we arrive at a conclusion that all students are actually similar and different at the same time.
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All students have the same level of intelligence, no matter their academic performance and grades are (A or U). What makes them different is their perspective, which might be due to their family culture, hobby, interest, etc. Such that a one size fits all method (classroom style) may only works to a certain extent (ex: a very strong tutor which may be of limited amount)
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Therefore through constant thinking and re-iteration, we arrive at a MICRO class size concept
WHAT IS YOUR TEACHING METHOD?
WHAT IS YOUR TEACHING METHOD?
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While we can’t share all of our methods here, we can provide a big picture of how we arrive to our current methods.
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We build our delivery system based on: concept understanding & engagement and we think it can only be applied on a SMALL class size level
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In terms of concept understanding, there are few problems that current students face:
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The notes given by the school is too details and comprehensive and its hard to figure out which part is important, such that with a limited time given in a term, its quite hard to cover all the notes. This leads to arrive to the 2ndproblem.
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Students spend too much time in reading the school notes in a whole, worrying that they miss out the important part, such that by the time they are finished with the notes, they realize that time is limited to start practicing questions, hence minimal application of concept to the questions.
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In terms of engagement:
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Some students did understand on the explanation of the teachers/ tutors while they are explaining on various practice questions. Some feel that the topics and questions are easy after listening to the explanation
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HOWEVER, when asked to start doing the questions, students get blank and don’t even know how to start.
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This is why you will be very surprised that the level of engagements actually plays a very important part in improving academic performance.
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Listening through explanation alone is not going to be sufficient
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HENCE, from these observations, we design our delivery system:
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In order to balance both the concept understanding and engagement, we build our sessions into 4 types, depending on the period of the academic years (early, mid, end of year)
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There will be interactive 2 ways Q&A, student can ask what they want, and also tutor will pop some questions on certain important part to check if the students have understood.
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WHO ARE THE TUTORS?
WHO ARE THE TUTORS?
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We take the quality of the tutors very seriously.
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All the tutors will go through a thorough recruitment process (with a minimum of Bachelor degree OR top schools graduate scoring A/B in the respective subjects) and technical test to ensure they have the necessary knowledge as well as good character
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All the selected tutors will then align on our philosophy and perform based on SOP of delivery system
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Our current tutors' profile looks like this:
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1st Class Honors (Scholarships) or
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11 years of tutoring experience or
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PhD Level (Scholarships) or
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RI Graduates (Straight As)
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ANY STUDY TIPS?
ANY STUDY TIPS?
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One of the most often study tips given to students by us is: when it is near exam (1-2 days before the particular subject), try not to do practice questions anymore (this should have been done long before).
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“So what should we do?” Try and read as many questions as possible, while reading, strategize in your head or scribble on paper what is your strategy to solving it. After that, turn to the solutions provided, check if your strategy works and then read through the solution thoroughly (DO NOT STOP on the first few line) as there may be some algebra operations that you might have underestimated and missed out, causing you unable to get a perfect answer
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Why this strategy? When near exam, time management is critical, doing practice questions may emphasize your understanding however you can only do limited amount of questions paper as it is quite time consuming. While reading through questions and solutions, will enable you to absorb as many possible variations of questions as possible, such that it reduces the anxiety during exam.
Schedule
WHAT IS YOUR AVAILABLE TIMING?
WHAT IS YOUR AVAILABLE TIMING?
HOW DO I REGISTER?
HOW DO I REGISTER?
HOW DO I KNOW IF THERE IS ANY AVAILABLE SLOT?
HOW DO I KNOW IF THERE IS ANY AVAILABLE SLOT?
1. Click "Book Now" button below
2. Fill in the Reservation Form based on your preferred schedule
3. Our Customer Service will then call you back shortly to inform the availability of the schedule
We do not post our available slots online due to the following reasons:
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Since we are doing a SMALL class size of max 2 students/session, therefore the availability of vacancy is limited
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Once all vacancies are filled, we will not be accepting any new student until either new tutors have completed our training program or there is a withdrawal of student.
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Nevertheless, in order not to disappoint prospective students, we will open up our waiting list (based on the first-come-first-serve system), and we will call you back in approximately 1 month time
IS THERE ANY TUITION DURING SCHOOL HOLIDAY?
IS THERE ANY TUITION DURING SCHOOL HOLIDAY?
Yes, there is tuition during school holiday.
There are few period of school holidays:
1. Term break
Session will focus on catching up and doing more engagement on difficult topics
2. June holiday
Some schools will have the Mid Year Exam sets after June holiday, so session will focus more on the exam preparation.
Otherwise, session will do head start on the new topics
3. December holiday
Session will focus on doing head start program on new topics so that students will feel more confident when school reopens
Occasionally for JC1 students, End of Year exam is set after December holiday.
For students who will be traveling and cannot attend on the usual schedule, they are advised to plan the make-up sessions in advance to have more flexibility in choosing the available make-up schedule
ARE THERE ANY MAKE-UP SESSIONS?
ARE THERE ANY MAKE-UP SESSIONS?
1. We do understand that our students have to prioritize school activities, hence we provide the flexibility of doing make-up sessions.
2 While we would like to give our best to our students, however, due to the limited timing of the tutors and to avoid the confusion in scheduling, we limit the request for make-up session up to maximum of 3 sessions/term.
3. Students are to inform the tutor or customer service 24 hour in advance should there be any rescheduling needed.
4. Apart from that, make-up session could be in class of 3 students/session.
We really appreciate and thank you for your understanding on this.
payment
WHAT ARE THE FEES?
WHAT ARE THE FEES?
Our fee is in the reasonable and affordable range of a private tuition, given our SMALL class size, delicate system, and facilities provided.
Kindly click here to check for the pricing and packages available
Our term ends on the last day of March, June, September, and December
Sometimes, fees can be different from the one stated as we constantly give discounts and packages that could benefit our students
For further discount/promotions update, please follow our instagram @tutor.next.door
PAYMENT IS BASED ON MONTHLY / TERMLY?
PAYMENT IS BASED ON MONTHLY / TERMLY?
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For new students who have never studied with us prior, we understand if you are still uncertain about us, therefore first payment will be monthly based. After the first month, if you think our system suit you, and you wish to continue with us, then payment will be based on the remaining sessions in the term.
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For students who are continuing from previous term, or students who have been with us prior, payment will be based on the remaining sessions in the existing term.
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Our term ends on the last day of March, June, September, and December
HOW ABOUT DEPOSITS & REGISTRATION FEES?
HOW ABOUT DEPOSITS & REGISTRATION FEES?
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We do not charge any registration fee, except for a one-time materials fee of $30, which will be given out on the registration. The cost of the materials is actually higher/equal to the fee, thus we do not profit from it.
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We do not collect any deposit for the following reason: as you have trust us with your improvement (or your children education), why can we not trust you for this simple matter.