It took me 5 years, hundreds of testimonials and many mistakes made along the way to figure out what we actually do. This is an essay about what I got wrong, and what I wish I’d been able to tell parents and students from day one.

The lie I started telling after we got comfortable.

When I first started Helix, there was no method or process to helping students. I just took whatever I did in school and explained it to students. Students would come to me with a variety of problems, and my goal was to solve them with whatever experience I had.

Over time, I started to recognise the patterns in what we did (as all humans do), and slowly systemised our process into what it is today — the Scholar Structures method.

Results were great, parents were happy and business was growing.

And that’s when I started getting a little arrogant and started saying yes to all students.

Even students who were failing or had a weak language foundation.

That’s also when results got worse.

For a long time, I thought it was a skill issue on my end — that every problem had to be fixed for a student to achieve the grades they wanted.

For context, our method focuses on writing heavily because that’s the component that can increase the most predictably and by the highest percentage.

I told myself, “I just need to solve every problem to create the perfect product or service. Every minor detail, every possible question that could appear.”

I was pissed at myself that we couldn’t solve the grades issue for ALL students. 

Then I figured out what was actually going on.

It’s not unethical to say ‘no’ to certain students — in fact it is unethical to accept all kinds of students. 

We had many parents throw nasty comments at us. “So you only take good students ah” / “Oh so you select students is it”. I didn’t want to be THAT service provider — the kind that turned away students.

But I finally realised that by saying yes to everyone, I was doing a disservice to parents and students.

The truth is, what works for a B or A student will not work for a failing or borderline passing student. If I accepted everybody, I would not be able to deliver results equally.

Why we won’t prioritise all components of the English exam equally.

Many parents and students look at English through a simplistic lens. On paper, reading comprehension carries equal weightage to the essay component and therefore most approach English with an equal emphasis on reading comprehension and writing. 

I see this as severely flawed. Instead, we focus heavily on writing to bring up your total marks.

Reason 1: There is a natural limit to improving reading comprehension.

After seeing over hundreds of students struggle with English, I’ve come to realise that even strong students will perform subpar in reading comprehension.

Even in traditionally competitive schools like your MGS / SJI etc, most students who have a strong flair for the language will max out at around 13 or 14 out of 20 for reading comprehension.

This is because the answers for reading comprehension are open-ended.

No matter how often people tell you they have decoded the answers or that there are holy grail techniques, I cannot in good conscience support those claims.

Yes, there are methods to answering certain questions. But when most students get a question wrong, we can only explain why their answers are wrong in hindsight, based on contextual clues from the passage.

Such explanations have little predictive value for their future performance. So to me, this is more of a feel-good process, rather than one that actually delivers future improvement — solving for the past with no impact on the future.

Reason 2: There is a higher chance that your essay can improve, by a wider margin.

For B/A students, it is simply more likely that with intense practice, your essays have a HIGH chance of improving by MULTIPLE bands. If you do 10 practice papers for comprehension, you might squeeze out 2 to 3 more marks, if any.

But with writing, you can go from 19/30 to 24/30 or even 25/30 not just for 1 essay, but for 2 (situational and continuous). That is what moves the needle. 

Play small games and get small prizes. 

Many students split their time equally between comprehension and writing. The result is either no visible improvement or a MINIMAL one (a few marks in comprehension).

So you might feel like you are improving one day, but worsening the next when a tough paper arrives.

This is because the margin you improve by is so small that a tough paper can wipe it out.

We have so many students scoring A1s and A2s for their prelims (whole paper exam), with excellent writing scores and very average comprehension scores.

These students might sometimes worry about their reading comprehension. But take a step back, and you’ll realise — THAT IS THE POINT. The goal is to be so good at your writing that even on a bad day, your writing scores are strong enough to pull up your overall grade. 

Many parents are uncomfortable with this. Because on the surface it seems like we are doubling down on our strengths and ignoring our weaknesses. And you know what? I guess there is some truth to that.

To anyone we worked with who didn’t get there

I wish I had the words on day 1 to explain our process, and that the feeling of ‘my essay is much better than my comprehension’ is part of the process working, not failing.

That spending time intentionally on writing which matters the most is the point, not the problem.

I didn’t have these words then, but I have them now. That’s what this essay is.

If you’re considering partnering with us or any other service provider, the question to ask isn’t “How do I save 1 mark here and 1 mark there”. 

The question is “What do I have to focus on so that I can see significant improvement, even on a bad day?”

Don’t optimise for the highest high — optimise for the highest low.

And even with that, I can’t promise you that there won’t be problems along the way.

Real improvement is a cycle of ups and downs. That’s what I wish I could have told everyone from the beginning.