GATE Curriculum Overview

The standard H2 subject combinations for offered to GATE students are :

Biology - Chemistry - Mathematics and Knowledge Inquiry* / Economics (BCME or BCMKI)
Physics - Chemistry - Mathematics and Knowledge Inquiry* / Economics (PCME or PCMKI)

Core Curriculum at a Glance

GATE Curriculum

The GATE programme is offered to top 20 percentile of students in the Science stream who wish to extend and deepen their learning beyond the A-level syllabus.

There are therefore two parts to the GATE curriculum:

An Extended Core A-level Curriculum
Enrichment and Electives

Beyond the extended core curriculum lesson, students of GATE have to partake in at least 30 hours of electives, enrichment and workshops over the course of two years at the college section.

To facilitate their participation, there will be 3 hours of extended curriculum that will be time-tabled into their weekly time table.

The electives, enrichment and workshops can be subject based or non-subject based. The subject-based electives will allow students to deepen their passions in their subject area of choice, whilst those non-subject based electives and enrichment allow them to expand their horizons and cultivate their character.

Beyond these, students are also encouraged to actively participate in various co-curricular activities, research projects, community and service learning projects as well as faculty activities. This will allow them to have an enriching and fulfilling college life, as well as learn to manage and plan their time between their various committments.

Enrichment and Electives

For the Admission Year of 2016, students may also offer:

Biology - Chemistry - Mathematics and Geography (BCMG),
Biology - Chemistry - Mathematics and H2 3rd Language^(BCM 3rd Lang),
Physics - Chemistry - Mathematics and Geography (PCMG), OR
Physics - Chemistry - Mathematics and H2 3rd Language^ (PCM 3rd Lang)

Beyond the H2 subjects, students are expected to also offer H1 General Paper (if they are not offering KI) and H1 Project work as stipulated by the standard A-level requirements.

You may find out more about the JC1 subject combinations offered here.

*Note that if you wish to offer KI, you must also clear the selection test for KI.

^3rd Language is only plausible if your 3rd Language lessons does not clash with the school timetable.

GATE students will also choose from either Chemistry, Biology or Physics to do a subject specialisation.

For this subject specialisation lessons , they will predominantly have classroom and lab-based lessons.
Seminar-style lessons will be employed to encourage closed interactions and discussions between students for them to hone their skills in critical reading, thinking and communication.
The small-group learning will also allow students to spar and debate ideas between each other and their tutors. This will help challenge their logical thinking and bring their learning to greater heights.
Independent learning lessons guided by teachers will also be introduced for some topics allow students to develop the habits and the necessary discipline of mind for them to become life-long learners.
In terms of content, students will be further enriched and extensions beyond the A-level syllabus to undergraduate work will be integrated into the lessons.

For their non-specialisation subjects, GATE students will have their lessons similar to the core students offering the subject.

However, as students of the GATE programme generally belong to the top 20 percent of their cohort they will still be able to experience enriched lessons in their tutorials. If they further demonstrate capability in their non-specialisation subjects, they will also have opportunities for extension and acceleration and can opt to be placed in an accelerated pull-out lectures for their non-specialisation subject. This will allow them to have opportunities to be stretched in other subjects if they want to.

Extension of Core Curriculum - Subject Specialization

E-Portfolio

All students in GATE will document their learning journey in the GATE programme throughout the two years in an eportfolio which they can take away with them and continually refine and build upon.

The purpose of the eportfolio is not only to give student a headstart in their further education and career, but through the documentation and reflection of their learning experiences, we hope that the eportfolio will give meaning to the pursuits of the students in the HCI GATE programme and their life as a HCI student.

The academic core programme in the GATE Core Curriculum is designed to

ENRICH by broadening the learning experience
ACCELERATE by providing the right pace for high ability students and,
EXTEND by deepening the learning through higher order thinking processes