Dear Parents,

This page is specially created to address the concerns you might have on our online and hybrid classes.

Read on to find out more!

Germinate FUlly-online vs Hybrid REGULAR classes: what are the differences and SIMILARITIES?

1. Students in both delivery modes will use the same material and curriculum.

2. Students in Fully-Online class will only attend online lessons whereas students in a Hybrid class will alternate between online and onsite lessons till strict social distancing measures are lifted. Students can opt to stay online only in a Hybrid class during this period.

3. Lessons will be adapted accordingly to cater to both sets of students in a Hybrid class.

4. For enrollment confirmed by 13 Dec 2020, Term 1’s hardcopy worksheets will be sent to your address. Kindly update us promptly if there is a change in address as materials will be sent to you from 13 Dec 2020 onwards. Do inform us if you have not received the materials by 27 Dec 2020.

For enrollment after 13 Dec 2020, softcopy worksheets will be provided for your child’s use for the 1st lesson. Materials for the subsequent lessons of the term will be sent out to you. Please note that such arrangement may change depending on the feasibility of providing this service beyond Term 1.

5. Loss/ Replacement of Materials:

We seek parent’s understanding to partner us to ensure students adopt the good practice of taking responsibility for their worksheets, filing them, and ensuring the correct worksheets are brought to class.

We regret to inform that no additional worksheets will be provided in class if your child forgets to bring his/her copy.

As we do not charge a separate material fee on top of our regular fees, do note that any additional request to resend materials due to wrong address provided or loss of material will incur an additional administrative fee of $25.

Please be reminded that students and parents are not allowed to share or disseminate any material by Germinate to anyone who is not a student from Germinate. 
All the content and images are the property of Germinate and they are protected by copyright. 
We appreciate your respect for our materials. Please refer to our T&C for details.
What to expect if I am attending onsite lessons?
[Important] Covid-19 Measures:

1. Students attending onsite lessons must submit a compulsory online health declaration form prior to commencing the class. We will administer these health declarations routinely where necessary.

2. Check in via SafeEntry ONLY if the following conditions are met:

  • You/your child have not had close contact with a confirmed COVID-19 case in the past 14 days
  • You/your child are not currently under a Quarantine Order or Stay-Home Notice
  • You/your child do not have fever or flu-like symptoms
  • You/your child agree to the terms and consent to the collection and use of your information for the purpose of COVID-19 contact tracing

Please ensure your child brings a mobile device or student ID to facilitate the check in and out process.

3. Temperature taking will be conducted for all classes.

4. Students who are unwell, have fever, respiratory, sore throat or flu-like symptoms, should NOT come to class. They may join in our hybrid class via online mode. Students who appear in the centre with symptoms or who are unwell will be asked to go home and will not be allowed to enter the premise.

5. If your child is living in the same household as a family member who is unwell, he/she should not be attending his/her onsite lessons for that particular week.

6. Only students are allowed into the centre. Parents are not allowed to enter the center’s premises and are advised to wait for your children outside the centre and observe social distancing guidelines while waiting.

7. Students and Teacher should always keep their masks on at all times and adhere to the minimum social distancing measures.

8. All students must be responsible to sanitize their hands upon entry to the classroom and wipe down their own desk after their lesson. Classes will be staggered to minimise student movement and intermingling and to allow for disinfection. 

 

What to expect if I am attending online lessons?

1. Prior to the first online session, you may choose to:

2. On the day of the session, we encourage students to log in 5-10mins before the scheduled time as the lesson will commence according to the schedule given. 
  • For a better viewing experience, we strongly encourage you to use a desktop/ laptop/ tablet.
  • Should you encounter any issue, please restart your computer and relaunch the zoom session. You may want to switch to another device and try again. 
  • If the internet connection appears to be slow, there are many reasons behind it. It could be a problem with your modem or router, Wi-Fi signal, signal strength on your cable line, devices on your network saturating your bandwidth and etc. You may want to switch to another device and try again. 

???? When signing in, remember to put down your child’s name for us to take attendance and admit your child promptly.

???? When you join the meeting, you may be placed in a “waiting room” first. You should see the below screen.

???? We will take attendance and admit your child to the classroom.

????Note to parents: All students are required to join in with their video so that our Teacher can see them, similar to a class setting. This is to ensure that students remain on task during the lesson.

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⚡FAQs⚡

???? Will other students see or hear each other?

Students are required to keep their video on so our Teacher can see them, similar to a class setting. This is to ensure that students remain on task.
During the lesson, our Teacher will mute the students’ audio and will unmute the students’ audio during class discussion.
For some form of privacy, do note that there is an option to put up a virtual background in Zoom.

 

???? Can students ask questions during the session?

Yes, please go ahead and type your questions in the chatbox function.
The teacher will choose a convenient time to answer your questions. 
Alternatively, students can ask question using the audio function during class discussion time. Just remember to unmute!
Students can also choose to “raise hand” to get our Teacher’s attention.

 

???? What good practices can I share with my child to ensure he learns effectively each session?
During the lesson, our teacher will be going through some questions and students can try to answer in real time. Your child may be called upon to type his or her answer into the chat box function as he would typically be called to give an answer in a physical classroom. 
You can either have a physical copy of the worksheet or a soft copy of the worksheet opened using Xodo – a PDF annotating tool for your child to write in his answers while they are being explained. 
If there are additional queries, your child can also send it via email to Teacher Jayce at sciencedad.sg@gmail.com, and he will look at it over the course of the week.
For regular class, homework may be assigned after each class. Your child should continue to get his homework done BEFORE the lesson so feedback on his or her answers can be done promptly during the lesson. This will be similar to how lessons are conducted in physical classroom. It would be best to have a physical copy of the worksheet for your child to correct his answers while they are being explained. 

 

????I am concerned that my child cannot concentrate during an online session?
We fully understand your concern. 
Lessons will function “live” and teaching will be modified to suit an online class delivery mode with on-spot teaching instruction and feedback given.
Please encourage your child to embrace learning online and be participative in each session! 
We have also introduced interactive online quizzes for our students to “spice up” their learning experience. We want to assure you that the feedback from online lessons conducted so far has been very positive. Our children are very adaptive and tech savvy so let’s give them all the support we can ????????

 

???? I just read recent news report about video conferencing tool security issues. I am concerned about zoom security.

Please be assured that there are safe ways to use Zoom and we have taken the relevant steps outlined below to minimize abuses that might compromise the safety of our students: 

1. All Germinate classes have a meeting room password.

2. We also have a waiting room in place for added security. This means that the teacher will allow students into the Zoom meeting at any point of time. Anyone who is not a student, and tries to enter the room will not be able to do so.

3. The teacher is the only one who can share screen in all classes.

4. We have also disabled the ability to share files and images from participants other than the teacher.

5. Students are also not able to share messages privately in their own chats except to the teacher.

We thank you for entrusting your child into our care. We do not take this responsibility lightly, and we are on the lookout for alternative video conferencing tool to assess if they can be a good fit for our classroom needs.

In the meantime, we will continue to take the necessary measures to ensure that your child is able to continue learning in a safe online environment.

???? Please feel free to contact us if you have further concerns or questions.