Level Up to PSLE with our Mock Exams

After more than ten years of refinement, our Critical Reading & Writing (CRW) Strategy and DEPTH Framework has helped hundreds of students improve their results by at least one grade, with several achieving Distinction (AL1) for PSLE, O Levels and A Levels.

We have infused the essence of the Critical Thinking approach and created the CRW Strategy that has an impact on students’ Comprehension Open-ended, Comprehension Cloze Passage, Comprehension Short Answer Questions (SAQ) and Summary. Our CRW Strategy develops students’ writing ability, helping them in their Continuous Writing. We are proud to share our students’ essays with you in our Blog.

Our DEPTH Framework condenses Mathematical techniques into 5 key elements that students should put more emphasis on. Students will have to not only be quick with their understanding and calculations of Math questions, but also to be right in their answers while not making any careless mistakes.

We share the same concern with the parents of all our students. We want the teachers teaching your child to be the best at what they do and demonstrate the professionalism befitting an educator. All Cognitus Academy teachers undergo a stringent interview process, rigorous training programme and aptitude tests before they are allowed to teach our students. All our teachers have completed university education with high achievements and have wealth of experience teaching English, including writing. Guided by Dr Daniel Chua, an NIE-trained ex-teacher and a former NIE lecturer himself, our teachers meet weekly for professional development and mentoring. 

Not all our teachers are former MOE teachers. While we believe that the training and experience of a former school teacher can be invaluable, our observation has been that students taught by former school teachers may not always do well when it matters. Otherwise, parents would have sought their children’s school teachers for guidance. Armed with our strategy and teacher development programme, we believe that our team of teachers will help your child improve and excel.

Yes, we offer a trial lesson for students who are new to Cognitus Academy. We understand that parents need to know that our programmes can meet the needs of their children before they commit their time and resources at our centre. Therefore, we will arrange for a trial lesson in one of our available class slots for new students to try out the teaching approach, lesson material and classroom environment before joining us. The teacher will conduct a brief diagnostic session with the student 15 minutes before the lesson. After the lesson, the teacher will conduct a 15-minute feedback session with the parent. Please note that the teacher may conduct these sessions over a phone call due to the teacher’s lesson schedule.

To fully benefit from the programme, students are strongly encouraged to attend lessons consistently. In the event that students are unable to attend a class due to school events or medical leave, we offer replacement lessons to be scheduled within the same lesson week. Students are allowed to join an existing class of the same level if there are available seats. Should your child be unable to attend a replacement lesson during the week, lesson materials will be passed to him/her in his/her next lesson. While we will try our best to schedule a replacement lesson for our students, we regret that replacements classes are not guaranteed. We also seek your understanding that fees collected are not refundable because resources have been committed to provide the lesson for your child on the scheduled time. 

We keep our class sizes small for conducive learning, around 10 for English and up to 20 for some Maths classes. The aim is to provide the best individualised support for students within a group. Our consistently good results are a testament to the effectiveness of our class sizes.

For Primary English lessons, we conduct 90-minute lessons that are engaging, energetic and paced appropriately to maximise our students’ learning. After experimenting with different lesson durations, we conclude that a 90-minute session is optimal for primary school students because it gives them optimal concentration, helps them absorb the strategies and lessons taught and leaves them wanting for more at the end of every lesson. Students are expected to reinforce the lessons taught through homework assigned by teachers every week. A small class size also allows our teachers to fully focus on each student’s areas of weakness and give targeted support.

In addition to weekly lessons with our teachers, Cognitus Academy offers the following channels to help our students improve their English results.

– Our Blog pages feature study tips, exam techniques and model compositions to support our students and parents
– Our student online portal, Cognitus Online, provides supplementary materials, such as past exam papers, for students to practise before their exams.
– Our teachers hand-pick more than 200 titles for our Centre library, which exposes students to a range of genres and literature.