More writing practice and proper feedback, every week.
Why most students stay at a ‘B’
Most students write one or two essays a term, whether in school or at tuition. Each one comes back with a grade and a few comments, and then the class moves on. It's hard to get better at something you only practise twice a term.
In Maths, a student can do five questions on a weak topic in one sitting and close the gap. English doesn't work like that. Each essay takes an hour to write and a long time to mark properly, so most students simply don't get enough practice.
How practice works at Helix
Your child attends two sessions a week on Zoom. One is the main lesson. The other is a homework session on Wednesdays from 8.30 to 10pm. There's no teaching in the homework session; it's a set time to sit down and write. Since there's no travel, the time saved goes into writing. If your child can't make it, they can do the work on their own.
Because of our additional homework sessions, our students complete one extra assignment every week, each undergoing 2–3 rounds of rigorous feedback and rewriting.
While other centres complete 1–2 essays a term, our students complete 10–12, each with multiple rounds of feedback.
The writing frameworks — Scholar Structures
Most students already know 5W1H and mind maps. They help with brainstorming, but they don't show a student how to build an argument that scores in the top band.
We asked scholars from Oxford, Cambridge and NUS Law to write model essays, and ex-MOE teachers marked every one at 25/30 or higher. We then studied what these writers did consistently and turned it into step-by-step structures students can follow in an exam.
Your child learns structures for:
argumentative and discursive essays
counter-arguments that add depth
situational writing
planning an essay quickly under time pressure
We've refined these over hundreds of student scripts, keeping what works and dropping what doesn't.
*Classes cover reading comprehension as well