- Compulsory for secondary students to take regardless of Express or NA.
- Introduction to Source-Based Questions and Essay Writing.
- Unfamiliarity of writing style and type of content dealt with.
- Everything Lower Secondary Students have learned about writing and interpretation comes from primary school English, and these skills are mostly not transferable to Secondary School History. While both are writing subjects, the writing style is drastically different and students who try to cut-and-paste their primary school writing methods and study techniques onto Secondary History usually do not score well.
- Insufficient time is allocated to history classes in schools, leaving the development of new skills crucial to success in the history exam severely lacking.
- Parents are generally unfamiliar with the way history is taught and also do not know the most efficient method to study history, often leading to well-intentioned parents forcing their child through more laborious and less effective methods of studying this subject such as heart-memorisation. This is damaging because it usually leads to rigidity in thinking based on stagnant repetition of content, whereas constructing good answers requires the student to be highly flexible in thinking, being able to reframe content according to the requirements of the question.
- One particular pain point for students of lower secondary history is the Source Based Questions or SBQ. Despite their total inexperience with this kind of question prior to secondary school, in order to do well in history exams students must attain total mastery of the SBQ part of the paper. However, most students have much difficulty comprehending the source material and deriving interpretations that appropriately answer the question in the given context. This is mostly due to unfamiliarity with the subject matter and writing style as a whole.
- Lower Secondary is a crucial period when the mindset and thought process of the student must be altered out of their primary school perspective to give them the capability to think and perceive things the way the history exam requires. We will lay the foundations of this mentality and ensure that unfamiliarity with history is no longer an obstacle. These thinking skills will be immensely helpful to them throughout Secondary School, including in SS/History or Pure History in Upper Secondary.
- We will instill our students with a fresh interest in this new subject by exploring concepts and ideas like colonialism, state-building and independence very comprehensively, ensuring they get the clearest and fullest picture of the past in all its complexity and detail. We aim to give them an experience with history that is not limited to the classroom alone, allowing them to find their own affinity with the subject and absorb it in a more natural way.
- We will teach with a focus on developing good study habits during this initial stage so that students can have a strong foundation to carry them through the rest of Secondary School.
- We will teach in accordance with the latest MOE syllabus using our acutely specialised techniques and expertise which are not available to parents at home.
Our Tuition Rates
Lower Sec History Tuition
$40 / Hour
- Each lesson typically lasts 2 hours
Breakdown of the Lower Secondary History Paper
The exam structure and syllabus can be confusing. We get it. That's why we're here to explain it to you!
Feel free to download the 2 tables below if it helps you!
Source Based Questions (SBQ)
Structured Essay Questions (SEQ)
Content of Lower Secondary History
The content of Lower Secondary History can be broken down into these compartments. When each topic is covered varies school-to-school:
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Introduction to History
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Early Modern Singapore
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Establishment of Colonial Rule in Singapore
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The Japanese Invasion of Singapore during WWII
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Life Under the Japanese Occupation
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Singapore’s Road to Independence
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Independent Singapore
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Email: herzencentre@gmail.com