A weekday afternoon, from the school gate onwards
Homework done before you get home. And they did it themselves.
It is seven o'clock. Dinner is nearly over, the bag has not been opened, and the spelling list is still inside it. You already know how the next hour goes.
Student Care at Agora is built so that hour has already happened. Not because an adult sat beside your child and pushed, but because your child worked out the order of the afternoon and got on with it.
Fees published in full on this page. 4.9★ from 139 Google reviews
A discovery visit, at no cost and no obligation.
Primary 1 to Primary 6. Open until 8pm.
What actually happens
The order of an afternoon. Not a timetable.
Watch a piece of it, and then four moments from the middle of an ordinary week.
The whole sequence, in order
- They arrive from school. Freshen up, then lunch, eaten together.
- Homework and academic support. The long block, and the reason most families come.
- Tuition or enrichment, if you have booked it. Run on our floor by partner providers, so nobody drives anywhere.
- Snack.
- Research, creativity and reading. A weekly theme they work into on their own.
- Physical activities and life skills.
- Indoor games. Until you get here.
Why there is no clock on this page
Our own chart of the afternoon has blocks that overlap and stagger, because a real afternoon does. Publishing a minute-by-minute timetable would mean publishing something we would then have to defend on a Tuesday when a child needs longer.
So we publish the order and the two ends of it. The first bus reaches us at 2pm, minutes after the bell. We are open until 8pm.
What the adults are actually doing
Our teachers hold the shape of the afternoon and then stay out of the work itself. Every child knows the order: what starts, what follows, and what has to be finished before the door opens. That is why the book comes home done, and why finishing it belonged to them.
That is the promise. The method underneath it is quieter. Children learn here by watching each other, by repeating what works, and by making their own meaning out of it, which is why mixed ages sit together for most of the afternoon.
Qualified teachers also practise tīngxiě, Chinese spelling dictation, with each child twice a week. Every day, children research a weekly theme, then read, discuss, synthesise it and present it to their teachers and friends.
The part most centres do not explain
We do not correct the homework.
MOE directs student care centres to avoid correcting homework, because a corrected page hides how a child is actually doing from the person who needs to know.
So when a child gets stuck, she circles the question. It travels to school circled, and her teacher sees exactly where the wall is.
A centre that fills the answer in gets you a tidy book and a teacher who cannot see the problem. We would rather hand back an honest one.
Student Care fees, in full
What the fee covers, and what's chared separately.
Both columns, on the same page, at the same size. You should not have to ask.
In the monthly fee
- Homework support, every school day. They do the work; we hold the shape of the afternoon.
- A hot meal
- Daily outdoor play
- Project-based learning and Future Skills
- Holiday programmes during standard hours
- We stay open until 8pm
Charged separately
- Transport. We run it from schools nearby, with vetted and experienced drivers. It is a real service with a real cost, so it is priced on its own, and we will tell you plainly if we do not cover your school.
- Enrichment and tuition classes run on our floor by partner providers. Booked by the term, and only if you want them.
- Dinner, if your child stays into the evening.
- Holiday full days. They start earlier than a school day, so they carry a daily top-up. We give you the figure in writing before the holiday starts.
S$789 a month for the first fifty families to join, for their first year. From year two it is S$839 a month. That is a saving of six hundred dollars, once, in year one. We will put it in writing before you commit.
We will not tell you this is the only thing you will pay. Transport sits outside the fee, so that would not be true.
Every centre in Singapore can quote you a monthly figure. Almost none of them will tell you, before you sign, what sits outside it.
What Student Care families say
Four families, on what changed at home.
My son comes home with all his homework completed, allowing us to enjoy quality family time before he heads to bed.
My daughter has been here for a year. One day she suddenly wrote me a card: ‘Thank you mummy for sending me to Agora. I really like it!’ … It’s a huge relief to know she is in a place with caring teachers after school.
There were times when my boy wasn’t on his best behavior, teachers … took time and effort to speak with him, coach him and feedback to me at their soonest availability and this is what I appreciated so much.
I also feel very relieved to have them help my child in his spelling and tingxie every week so that I can spend more fun time with him as a full time working mum.
4.9★ from 139 Google reviews. Nothing here has been rewritten. Where a review ran long we cut it, and that is all.
Before you ask us
Questions Student Care parents ask.
Will a teacher check the homework and fix the mistakes?
No, and it is deliberate. MOE directs student care centres to avoid correcting homework, because it interferes with the school's understanding of where a child actually is. When your child is stuck on a question, we have her circle it. Her school teacher sees the circle and deals with it the next morning.
What happens with Chinese?
Chinese runs twice a week as tīngxiě dictation. Alongside it, children work through technology-enabled self-correcting worksheets in Chinese, Maths, English or Science, aligned to the MOE curriculum.
Are all the ages mixed together?
For most of the afternoon, yes, and on purpose. Mixed ages are how children here learn responsibility, empathy and what a longer attention span looks like from someone two years older.
Homework and academic practice are the exception. For those they split by age, so a Primary 2 child is never working from a Primary 5 child's sheet.
How late can I be?
We are open until 8pm. If you are running behind that, please call us, and please be mindful of staff who must return to their families at the end of a long day.
What about the school holidays?
We stay open through them, and we run holiday programmes. A full holiday day starts earlier than a school day and carries a separate daily top-up, which we will give you in writing before the holiday starts.
Is transport included?
No. We run transport from your child's school to Agora with vetted and experienced drivers, and it is priced on its own, separately from the monthly fee. The driver marks each child onto the bus by name and photographs them, then does it again when they reach us. We will tell you honestly whether we cover your school before you commit to anything.
Is there a registration fee?
Ask us about a registration fee waiver when you visit. We would rather answer that question out loud than have you find it on an invoice.
My child has a food intolerance.
Tell us in the health questionnaire. Meals are crafted by central kitchen partners and are halal-certified, and they are eaten communally, which is half the point of them. We are not allergen-free, so please report any food intolerances and mild allergies rather than assume.
Who are the teachers?
Student care teachers, trained for student care. Their job is to hold the shape of an afternoon so that the children run their own work, and they keep training in it here. Ask on your visit who is on the floor at four o'clock, and watch what they do when a child gets stuck.