Everything About the Change in School Holiday Dates So HBL Won’t Be Extended

2020-04-22 , 10:41 am

While bubble tea addicts are busy crying over the lack of bubble tea for the next few weeks (or more), students have one more thing to cry about.

The early arrival of the June one-month holiday.

Reader Ben: Wait, isn’t early holidays a good thing? Why would they be crying…unless it’s tears of joy?

What do you usually do during your school holidays?

Reader Ben: Stay home, sleep in, play games.

That’s because you have no friends. How about going out with friends, trying to get your girl crush to come out or have a week holiday in Nepal?

Reader Ben: … they could do that in June after CB is lifted.

They’ll be back in school.

Ministry Of Education (MOE) Mandates School Holidays To Be One Month Earlier

In 2020, Singapore will not have the June holidays. Instead, we’ll have the May holidays.

The one-month break for students will start on 5 May 2020 and end on 1 June 2020, after the circuit breaker measures are (hopefully) lifted.

By June 1, hopefully, the situation will be much better, and we can look forward to a safe and orderly opening of schools.”

And the reason for this? Home-Based Learning (HBL).

Taking A Break From HBL

While schools were closed and parents are now taking care of their kids at home, it doesn’t mean that teachers are having an extended holiday.

They still have to prepare offline and online materials and hold their classes online.

And while it’s been working quite well, MOE says that it’s been a tough time for parents, teachers and students alike.

Which is why they feel that an early holiday will give all of them a break from the daily grind.

Students will disagree but, hey, since when were students listened to, right?

September One-Week Holidays To Be Shifted Forward

When MOE decide on the dates of school holidays, they didn’t do it because it’s good fengshui.

They look at the number of weeks in a term and determine where’s the best place to put the holidays at so students and teachers will not suffer burnout.

With the early one-month holiday, it means that Term 3 (typically between end-June and mid-Sep) will be longer.

So they’ve also shifted the one-week holiday forward to the week of July 20.

Here’s The Revised Academic Calendar:

May 5 to June 1: School holidays
June 2: Start of Term 3
July 20 to 26: Mid-term break
Sept 6: End of Term 3

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Curriculum And Exams Will Be Revised Too

Good news for teachers, students and parents.

National examinations will be adjusted due to the disruption caused by Covid-19.

“Common last topics”, topics that are usually taught towards the end of the year will be removed from the national exams this year.

Some of these topics include:

Interactions within the environment (Primary School Science)
Vectors (O-Level Mathematics)
Introduction to the chemistry of transition elements (A-Level H2 Chemistry)

But this doesn’t mean that students are losing out. They will still be taught the topics, they simply won’t be tested on it.

For “skill-based subjects” like language, there are no common last topics, MOE added.

For O-Level and A-Level mother tongue language examinations (including listening comprehension) are postponed as well.

All Help Will Be Rendered To Students

MOE assures that it is working closely with schools to render help to students and help them cope with anxiety.

Graduating students might get more consultations and face-to-face sessions when the situation improves.

For non-graduating students, schools will help them cope with the reduced curriculum time and deal with year-end exam stresses.

MOE, they say, will guide the schools on how to do so.

As For The Rest

Polytechnic students will continue with their home-based lessons until from 5 May to 1 June 2020

ITE students will continue HBL until 8 May and have their holidays from 9 May to 1 June 2020.

Support Services Still Available

If you’re worried that tighter restrictions mean lesser support, don’t worry.

MOE assures that even during the school holidays, support services, which has remained open during the circuit breaker period thus far, will still be available.

Parents can approach their child’s primary school or special education school for help and students who’ve been supported by a “small group” of teachers in school can continue to be supported.

“These support services have been ongoing throughout the home-based learning period and will continue to be offered. Private education institutions should either continue with their home-based learning arrangements or suspend classes otherwise.”

Private education institutions, however, must remain closed.