The only reason to go to cram school while in elementary school is to get into Namiki or Meikei. Those are integrated junior-senior high schools, both tier 1. (Namiki is public; Meikei is private.) Their students do not have to worry about cramming for senior high school entrance exams. Other than Namiki and Meikei, there are only two tier 1 public high schools in the area, Takezono and Tsuchiura 1. Cram schools are almost essential in getting into one of them. Unfortunately, in this area there is a big gap between tier 1 and tier 2 public high schools. (Ushiku Eishin and Tsuchura 2 are the two tier 2 schools in the area.)
[Added note: In American terminology, Takezono, Tsuchiura 1, Namiki and Meikei can be called exam schools (http://educationnext.org/exam-schools-from-the-inside). Meikei is private and makes its own entrance exams. The other three are run by Ibaraki Prefecture, which develops one exam each year for all prefectural high schools. These four high schools operate on the assumption that all students will go on to universities.]
The tier 1 high schools themselves are effectively cram schools. Like the jr high cram schools, they pack 3 years of materials into the first 2 years and spend the 3rd year on review and practice exams. (Takezono 3rd year students only have one new textbook.) Several of the practice exams are run by cram school chains, Kawai and Benesse. Results come back with ratings versus their selected target universities, plus quite detailed diagnostics. Other "short" tests are 10-min, 4-subject quizes with more than any student can handle - simply to get them accustomed to hitting the ground running.
We send our son, now a 3rd yr HS student at Takezono, to cram school for math starting late in his 2nd year Yatabe JHS. We've continued with cram school math in high school because there is an excellent instructor who specializes in Takezono HS math.
We are very pleased with the results. Our son went from hating math to loving it. A key seemed to be have friends-cum-rivals to team up with and compete with.
I have come to appreciate the system here, even though it is completely alien from my rural public schools in MN of 45 years ago.
We sent our son to Meiko, but I do not recommend it. He only needed math, but most cram schools divide their curricula into math-English, Japanese-science, and both combined. Eugene was already going to Helena for English and Meiko was the only school that provided individual instruction in math. However, their approach is to simply through a _lot_ of homework problems at the kids with variable instruction.
We switched to Waseda Academy, which offers a last minute push, at the end of December in 9th grade. This worked well after an initial stumble. The stumble was over a practice exam from Hibiya HS, which is thee toughest HS. Eugene, who had been doing quite well until that point, got zip. This shattered his confidence only days before the private school exams - nail biter to the very end.
As you know, in Ibaraki kids can choose only one public high school to try for. If they fail to get in, they are stuck with either private school or with dropping down to an undersubscribed public school, which is a very poor choice. So parents aim for the best public school which their kid is likely to pass. This is where the cram schools' practice exams are valuable. They enable accurate targeting of that one high school. Also, private schools' exams are more than a month before the public school exam. This means you can have the backstop in place. We let our son go for Takezono provided he passed at least one of Joso, Meikei and Tsunichi. Otherwise, he would have gone for Ushiku Eishin.
--------------------
A few practical questions to keep in mind: 1) Is your child's relationship to peers who want to go to cram school constructive and friendly? If so, you may want to send her to the same cram school. our son's friendships with kids who are just _ahead_ of him in class have been very valuable.
2) Does your daughter have a reasonable shot at Namiki? Namiki is quite tough but is a way to avoid cramming for senior high school entrance exams. Meikei is similar, but private - and rugby is mandatory.
3) Are there half-curricula options?
---------------------------
University-affiliated private schools provide routes free of cram schools, once the kid gets into them. This is one of their selling points. For example, Nichidai's JR-SR high schools in Tsuchiura provide a direct route to Nippon University. Private schools slice and dice the market finely to provide options for most students. A good example is Joso Gakuin, which provides pre-Todai, pre-med baseball, and music curricula.
The public school options are quite narrow. If your daughter is artistic, be sure to look at Toride Shoyo. It's Ibaraki's arts high school and very near Tokyo University of the Arts, Toride Campus.
If you really want to think outside the box, there is the Christian Independent High School in Yamagata (https://goo.gl/maps/v5EpRYwgdRP2). 80 students in 3 grades do all of their own chores including making their own bread. It's a 30 min walk to the nearest convenience store, which has the nearest pay telephone. Eugene's best friend from Nishinomiya/Yatabe/Helena is going there.
-----------------------------
How to keep your sanity when guiding your kid through Japanese schools: Japanese education and American education are not on the same page, not in the same book, and just barely on the same planet. Expect no sympathy, no support and no constructive feedback from anyone looking in an American educational mirror. The best you can do is choose an overriding goal for your child's education and support, support, support.
The overriding objective I chose is to maximize the breadth of choice my son will encounter upon finishing college, ranging from employment in a local city hall to work on an international level.
-------------------------------
Talked to my wife about sending an elementary school student to cram school. Her first reaction was, "So early?" But Namiki is a big, juicy carrot. Starting this early and liking studying would likely make her successful at getting into Namiki, a tier 1 school with no exam cramming until 10th-11th grade. Plus cram school for elementary students is less expensive than for middle school students. Which school? With her friends seems a good choice.
Ibaraki HS entrance rankings :http://xn--swqwd788bm2jy17d.net/ibaraki.php
Mito 1 and Tsuchiura 1 are top at Std Dev 71.
Tokyo public HS entrance rankings: http://www.geocities.jp/toritsukoukou2/
Hibiya is tops at Std Dev 75.
Namiki isn't ranked because it doesn't have a HS entrance exam but it should be about the same as Takezono (SD 68).
-----------------------------------
BTW, the Tokyo Shinbun maintains a website (http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/k-shiken/) that contains 16 years of high school entrance exams, questions and answers, from Tokyo and 6 Kanto prefectures. Cram schools analyze these to death. For example, the math questions are given in a set type sequence. One year, Ibaraki swtiched the sequence of two types. The prefecture average math score dropped 10 points out of 100. It bounced back the following year.
No comments:
Post a Comment