No, we do not offer one-to-one tuition. We specialise in teaching primary school students composition and creative writing. Our classes and workshops are conducted with a minimum of 3 students and a maximum of 7 students.

All our teachers (known as Writing Coaches) are either NIE-trained ex-MOE teachers with at least a few years of experience teaching in primary schools or experienced English tutors with relevant qualifications and proven track record of teaching primary school English composition writing.

We have 2 online composition writing courses for primary school student:

1) Writing Academy

This is a monthly subscription-based course for P4 to P6 students. Students learn to write compositions based on the PSLE format.

2) Junior Writing Academy

This is a monthly subscription-based course for P1 to P3 students. Students learn to write compositions based on 4 sequential pictures.

The course content in each course are the same irrespective of your child’s school level.  For example, if a P4 and a P6 student were to sign up for the Writing Academy, they get to view the same video lessons and assignments.  The only difference would be the standard of marking by our writing coaches.  A P6’s work will be marked with an expectation of a higher standard compared to a P4’s work.

Do note that these are self-paced online courses and not ‘live’ online classes.  The students do not get to meet or interact with the writing coaches. The students watch the video lessons and complete their written assignments on their own and at their own pace. 

If you are looking for ‘live’ online classes, refer to FAQs 22 to 41 for more.

For the Writing Academy and Junior Writing Academy courses, students are expected to view video lessons, ranging from about 5 to 10 minutes. After each video lesson, students have to print out the assignment for that lesson and attempt it. Once completed, the assignments must be scanned (using a scanner or phone camera) and uploaded via the student’s dedicated login page. Assignments will then be marked and returned via email within 5 working days.

The topics in the online courses include composition writing framework, using a variety of sentence structure and writing techniques. For a breakdown of the topics for each online course, please visit the course page.

Each self-paced online course lasts about 11-12 months. That means the monthly release of 2 or 4 video lessons/assignments would all be made available by then.

As this is a self-paced course, not all students may be able to complete all the assignments by the 12th month. As long as the student stays subscribed, access to the course and materials will remain.

To get the most benefit from the online courses, we strongly encourage every student to attempt and submit the assignments regularly so that they can complete the course within a year.

It is the parent’s responsibility to cancel the subscription (done on your own via your login panel) once the child completes the course or when the course is no longer needed. There is no auto-cancellation of the course even after all the course contents are fully released.

We understand during some busy months, your child may be preparing for examinations and will not have the time to work on the online course.  All the videos lessons together with assignments once released, are available to your child for as long as you stay subscribed.  So that means if your child intends to do catch up work during the school holidays, he/she can access the past month(s) of video lessons and submit any overdue assignments.  We accept any reasonable amount of completed assignments, like 4-5 assignments per week, from your child.

Do take note that assignments can only be submitted once.  However, video lessons will still be made available anytime for your child’s revision.

Students are expected to write 11 full compositions for the Junior Writing Academy and 14 full compositions for the Writing Academy.  The first and last composition of each course will be graded by our writing coaches.  In between these, another 2-3 full compositions will be graded too. The intention is to allow you to track your child’s writing progress by providing you with milestone checks throughout the course period.

You may refer to our website for current fees as well as any free trial that may be offered from time to time.

We will be honest to state that self-paced online courses are NOT for every child, as different students have different learning styles.

However, it is suitable for:

* students who work well at home

* students who do not like or do not have time to travel to attend additional classes

* students who learn independently from videos and presentations

* students who need a structured programme to get them to write weekly at home

* parents who wish to learn more about lower primary and PSLE format composition and various writing techniques

Our Junior Writing Academy and Writing Academy courses are structured in a way that covers the basic topics first before moving on to the more advanced topics over the months.  If your child is good at writing and scores consistently above 80% in composition marks, you might find the pace of the course too slow.

We recommend that you try the Write Now! programme instead, which is a composition marking service.  Your child probably just needs to write more and receive constructive feedback to hone his/her already good writing skills. You may refer to more on this below in FAQ no. 23 to 42.

All compositions are marked by former MOE qualified teachers or teachers with experience in teaching creative writing. Students get to submit 2 drafts of each piece of a composition topic. Both drafts will be reviewed and marked by teachers. The second draft is a revised draft done by students based on teacher’s comments on their first drafts. Not all centres do that as it is time consuming for teachers to mark compositions. However, we believe that students are able to learn from their mistakes and improve their writing when they get to write a second draft. Drafting is a common practice among authors.

In addition, our Writing Academy students get to attend a FREE ‘live’ composition writing lesson a month to reinforce their online learning. These complimentary sessions are on a first-come-first-served basis, with a maximum of 6 students per session. The session is held online via zoom.

You should let your child write on his/her own with all the mistakes in it as our writing coaches will comment and guide your child from there. There is no need to sanitise their work although you should encourage them to write legibly! In the second draft of the same assignment, your child will be required to do corrections on any spelling or grammar mistakes or wrong sentence structures etc. based on comments given. That’s how students get to learn and improve.

However, as this is a self-paced online course, parent’s involvement is definitely required in terms of facilitating your child and guiding them if they are not able to understand assignment questions etc.

Not a big problem.  Your child can write on a piece of foolscap paper and include basic information like the lesson number, assignment topic and question number etc. so that our writing coaches have some reference. For scanning of their completed assignments, you may download a free mobile app Adobe Scan or any equivalent app that can automatically convert pictures of your child’s assignment into one combined PDF file with just your phone camera.

You may refer to this blog post Composition Marking Scheme for Primary School to know more – go to the second half of the post on what our writing coaches look for when marking students’ compositions.

Yes, you may submit one assignment for marking. Please submit the assignment early after the enrolment so that our writing coaches have enough time to mark it and return to you within the trial period. The free trial is meant for parents/students to try out the course and to see if the comments given by our writing coaches are helpful.

During the free-trial period, the first month of 2 video lessons/assignments (Junior Writing Academy) or 4 video lessons/assignments (Writing Academy) will be made available for your child to access.

You can enrol your child for the self-paced online courses any day in the month. A new set of videos/assignments will be released to your child every 30 days based on your first payment date, after any free trial.

For example, if you enrol your child on the 10th of the month, after any free trial promotion (e.g. 7 days), your first deduction to your credit card will be made on the 17th of the same month. Thereafter, the monthly subscription fee will be made on the same date (17th) every month. A new set of videos/assignments would then be released to your child in conjunction with monthly payment.

Absolutely. You can cancel the monthly subscription any time, on your own via your student dashboard and your credit card will not be charged thereafter.  If it is canceled within the free trial period, you will not be charged at all.

All credit card payments are handled by a third-party payment provider, Stripe on our secured website. Stripe is an established payment provider that provides software to accept payments. Stripe provides the technical, fraud prevention, and banking infrastructure required to operate on-line payment systems. Companies like Facebook and Grab use Stripe. Big Ideaz Education does not hold any sensitive payment information.

We don’t offer any other modes of payment.  However, payment via ATM transfer or internet banking transfer may be accepted for a three-monthly payment (instead of the usual monthly payment).  Do contact us if you feel more at ease with non-credit card transactions.

Yes, we do offer the entire Writing Academy course for a lump-sum price package. With this, all lessons will be released at once when full payment is made.

If you wish to try out the Writing Academy course on monthly subscription fee for a few months first (that is highly recommended) before deciding to take on the entire package, that is possible too. This also applies to the Junior Writing Academy.  Just write to us and we will provide more details on the pricing.

If you do not wish to enrol your child in any of our self-paced online courses but just want your child’s composition to be reviewed and marked by a qualified teacher, we offer a composition marking service called ‘Write Now!‘.

This is not an online course. There are no course materials or lessons provided. It is a composition marking and review service, where a one-time payment is made to have our experienced and qualified English writing coaches mark and review your child’s compositions (PSLE composition format – suitable for P3 to P6 students). FOUR (4) pieces of composition topics will be marked and reviewed with this one-time payment.

If you wish to have compositions marked based on the composition topics of your choice, that is acceptable too.  You just need to make sure the composition topics and pictures are scanned together with your child’s work.

We accept situational writing topics too.

Yes, we do. We conduct weekly composition writing classes onsite only at Marine Parade. Please refer to our website for class schedules.

We also conduct various short-term creative writing workshops during the school holidays and on ad hoc basis.  Please refer to our website for an updated list of creative writing workshops.

Yes, we do. We conduct weekly ‘live’ online lessons via Zoom. In these ‘live’ online classes, the students and writing coach get to interact as they would in a physical, onsite class. 

Kindly note that this ‘live’ online zoom class is different from the self-paced online courses (Writing Academy and Junior Writing Academy).

Please refer to our website for ‘live’ online class schedules.

Students in the physical, onsite writing classes are grouped based on their skills level whereas students attending the ‘live’ online classes via zoom are grouped based on their school level.

The ‘live’ online class via zoom might not be suitable for every student. To be able to learn effectively online, students should be in a room away from distractions. They have to ensure that they do not attempt to do something else during the lesson. Our writing coaches will check to ensure students are doing their work.  However, there is a limit to what our writing coaches can do if the child refuses to cooperate or switches off his/her video camera during the lesson.  If your child is easily distracted and cannot concentrate during the ‘live’ online lesson, the physical class might be more suitable for him/her.

During enrolment, parents can choose if they want their child to attend lessons fully on-site or fully online. There is no option for students to choose which lesson he/she wants to go on-site one week and then go online the following week. 

All our classes and workshops are focused on developing English writing skills.

In our weekly composition writing classes, students learn writing a composition writing framework. They also learn vocabulary and writing techniques that they can apply in their school compositions.

School holiday (ad hoc) workshops are either conducted within a day or over a few days. Themes of the school holiday and ad hoc workshops are usually announced a few weeks before the workshop commencement. Please refer to our website for an updated list of creative writing workshops.

Physical classes and workshops are held at Marine Parade.

Our weekly classes (both physical and ‘live’ online via Zoom) run for 11 weeks per term, 1.5 to 2 hrs per session each week.

Parents can register their children for our classes anytime during the term, subject to availability. The maximum number of students per class is 7.

If a class is full, interested students will be placed on a waitlist. We will contact you when there is a vacancy.

There is a 1-week break between each term in March and September and between 1 to 3 weeks of break each in June and December. We try to coincide our term breaks with MOE gazetted school holidays. Fees are not charged during the term break.

For weekly classes (physical or ‘live’ online via zoom), please register via BIG IDEAZ Composition Writing Classes.

For school holiday and other ad hoc workshops, please register via BIG IDEAZ Creative Writing Workshops.

It depends on the child’s school level and duration. Fees are priced reasonably and competitively.

For the ‘live’ online classes via Zoom, please refer to the fees here.

For the onsite, physical classes at Marine Parade, please contact us for details on schedule and fees.

For the weekly classes (physical and ‘live’ online), fees are collected termly. Payment of fees for the 11 lessons is to be made usually 3 weeks before the start of each term.

For the weekly classes (physical and ‘live’ online), we collect a nominal deposit if we are opening a new class. This is to ensure that parents are committed to sending their children to the new class once we have gathered a minimum number of 3 students. The deposit will be offset from the full payment of the term eventually. The deposit will be fully refunded if there are less than 3 students and the class has to be cancelled.

If the weekly classes are existing, we collect a $100 refundable deposit upon registration.

For withdrawal, parents must inform Big Ideaz Education administration or the teacher in charge of the child’s class at least 21 days before the term ends. This is a fair practice so that we can plan and release the slot to other students in the new term.

There shall be no refund of fees paid once students are enrolled for the term.

We do have other writing classes throughout the week. If your child is not able to make it, just let us know as quickly as possible so that we can arrange a make-up lesson. Sometimes, the make-up lesson may not be in the same week (due to Public Holidays) for the other classes, so do let us know early for us to make arrangements. The last alternative will be to watch the recording session (for online classes). Worksheets still have to be submitted for marking though.

Make-up lessons are only for valid reasons such as medical leave, school events or overseas vacation.

There are no lessons on all Public Holidays. Fees will not be collected if your child’s regular class falls on a Public Holiday.

Yes, you may register via the same link. There is an option to choose classes with a waitlist.

For the onsite classes, we do not offer a free trial but we may offer a paid trial. This is only provided for existing classes with vacancies. The slot is not secured after the trial and will be released on priority to parents who make full term payment.

For the online classes which are conducted via Zoom, we do offer trial for a lesson. Fees will be collected for that trial lesson and the rest of the lessons for the term only if your child wishes to join the class. If not, the trial lesson will be free.

Yes! We do have students from Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, China and India who either subscribed to our self-paced online courses or attend the weekly ‘live’ online classes.

For students who are based locally in Singapore, worksheets will be printed and mailed to your residential address.

Students are to complete the worksheets during the lesson, scan and submit the worksheets by uploading them to a shared Microsoft OneDrive folder. This has to be done at the latest a day after the lesson. Our teacher will mark the worksheets and upload them to the same folder a day before the next lesson. It is important that your child is granted access to the OneDrive folder so that he/she can submit worksheets on his/her own and also review the marked worksheets by the teacher. We don’t email marked worksheets.

Scanning of worksheets is possible with the OneDrive app installed on a smartphone with a camera. The app will collate the pictures of the worksheets taken, convert and combine them into a file (PDF) for your uploading to the OneDrive folder.

No, there’s no need to give us a call just to find out about the vacancies.

Our website will state that the class is full if there is no more availability. As long as you are able to register and make payment on our website, your child’s slot is confirmed. Do keep a lookout for our email closer to the date of the workshop as we will provide you with more details.

Please refer to our website for an updated list of creative writing workshops from time to time.

Our self-paced online courses (Junior Writing Academy and Writing Academy) are taught via pre-recorded video presentations. They are good for students who prefer to work from home and have the flexibility of time and venue to complete their lessons at their own pace. It is also great for parents who prefer a more hands-on approach in guiding their own children at home.

The self-paced online courses have worked well to help our students develop the discipline of writing regularly at home. Do note that there is no ‘live’ interaction with the writing coach.

For our weekly classes (physical and ‘live’ online via Zoom), students get to plan and write a full composition every 3 weeks. They are taught vocabulary and writing techniques that they can apply in their school compositions with the guidance of our writing coaches.

Students in our P5 and P6 classes are also taught Situational Writing (PSLE Format) once a month.

Topics for our weekly classes (physical and ‘live’ online) are similar to those in the self-paced online courses. However, the pace will be much slower as we have to consider the needs of everyone in the class and lessons are limited to 1.5 to 2 hours per week.

You can take advantage of the free/paid trial offered before you decide.

If you want to find out how our writing coaches review and mark students’ compositions, you might want to sign up for Write Now! which is a one-time payment for the marking of 4 composition topics.

If you find the review and feedback helpful, you can then enrol your child in the self-paced online courses (Junior Writing Academy and Writing Academy), which are based on a monthly subscription basis.

If you face some technical issues on our website, you may check our Troubleshooting page on some of the common issues faced by users.

For any other queries, you can contact us via email at admin@bigideaz.sg or send a WhatsApp message to 8663-6937 (click on the WhatsApp icon at the bottom of the screen). We’d be glad to address any questions you might have.