PSA: My experience at my tuition centre that changed my life around

Hello everyone, I am writing this post to bring your attention to express some concerns between my former tuition centre and just basically ranting about things that should be sounded out to.

I was once a student from Apex Education (Bedok Branch). I was enrolled into Apex Education back when I was in Secondary 2, late 2023. I was struggling in Maths, Science & English and I needed tuition, so I had free trials with some tuition centres near my area. At that time, Apex Education was relatively clean, neat and tidy. There weren’t many things to look at and it wasn’t as distracting as the other tuition centres near my home. After the free trials, I eventually chose Apex Education to be my desired tuition centre, but little did I know things were about to go bad, really bad.

I first started with Mr. M, he used to be my math tutor and I can say that he isn’t so bad after all? He improved my Math a lot, from a C5 to an A1. I really do like him (not now), but he isn’t the main tutor I want to talk about right now..

I want to talk about this tutor, Mr. Gordon (not censoring his name because he doesn't deserve it). He used to be my Science and English tutor. From my experience with him, I can see that something was a little off about him. My gut’s telling me that something's not right with this tutor. During tuition, he tends to go off topic talking about his property agent job, other weird ass stuff that doesn’t even apply to the lesson that my parents are paying for? One thing that ticks me off about him is that whenever I always ask him a question, he tends to go “okay, you listen ah”, then proceeds to tell me bullshit and soon I would eventually give up on what I was planning to ask him, whether it was a question about a topic, or why this is this etc.

Eventually when my grades came back, I was not surprised. I still did not do well for my Science, nor English. My English lesson with him was like throwing money in the firepit because he gave me worksheets that a primary schooler should be doing, just on a secondary school difficulty level. What the fuck? Shouldn’t I be learning how to construct my situational writing? Or my comprehension, how can I find my answers from the text easily? The only thing he helped my English grade improve was when I was doing project work where we were assigned 4 topics to talk about and make a presentation about that topic. That was when I was Secondary 3 and it was obviously so easy to pass it when it’s presentation work, like?

I also want to talk about his attitude, both offline AND online. Starting off with this big, red flag.

There was this one time where he told me he was gonna get something from his car and he told me he needs to leave the tuition centre to get it. After 30 minutes when he last left, he still has not come back. I eventually left the tuition centre on my own and told him that I’ve left the centre because I had to eat my dinner. All he responded was “Ok bless u”, no apology or anything, pathetic.

Another time was when I had gotten a hundred for my WA1 Maths (this was when I had a new tutor, calling them Tutor X, because Mr Gordon can’t teach shit), I sent my paper to Tutor X and they said they needed my permission because Mr Gordon was asking me if he could have a picture of my paper. I accepted it. Moments later, I was met with this message: “Congrats to our student who worked very hard for this. Improved from Fail to Full marks”. When I read that, I was fuming inside. I absolutely did not fail last year, what the hell do you mean that I failed? No??? That shit already pissed me off, it felt like something was DEFINITELY wrong with him.

I also want to talk about the tuition place, the environment. The hygiene has really plummeted ever since I’ve joined Apex Education. The floors started to get really dirty, there was hair and debris on the floor, food left behind by previous students and more. There was even a dead cockroach at one of the smaller classrooms at the glass door that remained there for over a week, maybe more than a week because Mr. Gordon did not even bother cleaning up the god damn place. I can’t comment on the toilet because it was a shared toilet by the other hairdressing stall next to us. There were 3 rooms, one at the glassdoor (for people to see how diligent Apex students are 🥺), one big main classroom and another smaller classroom further inside. There were no doors, only curtains. I couldn’t really concentrate with only the curtains but I’ll get back to that topic. There was a big sofa in the main big room, which I used to sit on but now didn’t because it was really starting to get really dirty. There was so much junk on it, worksheets, food particles and other unknown stuff I can’t really describe. I even witnessed the cleaning process which was SO unhygienic and dirty. It was like a water vacuum clear that can suck up the dirty stuff in the sofa, leaving the sofa all wet and damp. There was a wooden floor carpet with holes kinda thing on top of the main floor which was so frustrating as the chairs kept on rocking and I occasionally always fell on my chair when the chair was out of the wooden floor carpet thing (try to visualize this..)

Not sure if I should add this but there was one time (even before Tutor X taught me), where Mr. M and Gordon brought their “saved” bird to the tuition centre. They let me play with the bird during tuition and I was a bit creeped out because the bird was flying around the tuition centre while I was trying to solve my Math questions

Back to Gordon’s attitude, I found out something far worse about him. Once at night, I joined Telegram, and you know how you could see contacts you previously deleted or never talked to anymore? I saw my tutor’s Telegram account and saw that there was a group chat linked in his bio/about. I obviously clicked on it, scrolled to see what was going on and saw his Reddit account. I was curious so I looked up his account. Fuck, am I seeing what I’m seeing? Him bragging about how much money he earns, how he calls other people with “low IQ” when they do not agree with him and how he thinks vaccines can cause dementia? Am I reading this right? Isn’t he a Science tutor? He was relatively active on his subreddit “SgHENRY”, and after I looked at his comments, I immediately confronted him. I told him to delete his whole account or else I was going to tell my parents about this. He got worried and immediately deleted his whole account. After that incident I remember I was at a chalet for some family event, I was alone in a room when I posted on SGExams here ranting about my tutor. The post immediately gained attraction and someone DMed me saying that there was a Twitter account posting/mocking him. I got curious again and my jaw dropped. This is far worse than seeing his Reddit account. What do you mean that I’ve just seen a dick picture of the person that taught me before? Him 打飞机’ing/doing a jackaton and showing the results later? What am I even witnessing right now? I immediately told Tutor X about this because we were quite close, they were shocked and disgusted as fuck. I don’t know what to comment about him anymore, I’m just so speechless. Even worse is that I saw him and Mr. M actually in a relationship, no wonder they’re so close together, they are actually gay (but nothing wrong with that), but still that kinda creeps me out.

Back to the Telegram group he was in, I saw his comments ranting about how his students make his blood boil and how he wants to find other tutors who can help the more “slower” students. Obviously I get it, but if you are going to send it in a public group where everyone and anyone can see it, it’s already a problem. So, there were these two Apex group chats. One for English and one for Math and Science. Math and Science one was okay but the English was just taking up storage in my phone because why are you commenting on how the DJ in the radio made a grammatical mistake or how you saw shit at the HBD and just posted it in the group chat without any warning like dude, no one cares. No one fucking cares if the DJ in the radio made a grammatical error. Anyways, I left the English group chat but remained in the Maths and Science group chat. When I saw the comments Gordon made, I screenshotted them and sent it in the group chat with all of the parents to see. Obviously I got reprimanded by Mr. M when I got out of school early for a health check-up but I told him to check up on Gordon first.

Also, he rarely crashes out on his students, or so I thought. I think back when I was still being taught by him, I did not know a certain topic in Science and he basically gave up, talked nonsense again, and recommended me to go to Tutor X. He also mentioned how Tutor X is pretty when he showed me Tutor X’s profile picture. Of course at that time, I did not really think much of it but when I think about it now, I feel disgusted. That might not be a crash out from him but there was something that made him actually crash out. When Tutor X and I were having tuition class together in the main classroom with the wooden floor carpet thingy, Mr. Gordon’s class with 12-year-olds were in a smaller room further inside because Mr. Gordon wanted to buy Milo for them. When he left, I told the kids inside the classroom to keep quiet because I would be having lessons. Mind you, they had curtains instead of doors, so the soundproof was terrible. We still can hear the kids laughing around and making too much noise while playing their own games. After when Mr. Gordon came back with the Milo, one of the kids dropped their Milo drink and it spilled all over the floor. Mr. Gordon then proceeded to crash out when none of the kids wanted to admit who spilled the drink. He shouted profanities and cursed at them, saying that he already tried so hard to keep the place “clean” (even though he did little to none in helping to keep the tuition centre clean), then acted like a little kid. He also then proceeded to say to the kids that I have “no future”, and “don’t be like him”, even though I wasn’t part of the conversation? 😭 When most of the kids left, there was one kid who left behind to clean the mess with Mr. Gordon, crying while he was cleaning the mess. Tutor X and I just tried out best to do our own thing but what Mr. Gordon said about me is just, too much? I did tell my parents about him but when my parents came to confront him in text, he basically just avoided what my parents wanted to say to him and left the group chat that my ex tutors, Tutor X and parents were in. My parents already found out that something is wrong with him.

Speaking of the kid who helped to clean the mess, apparently he has, ahem, “anger issues”. Sorry, if you’re going to secondary school next year and still have those “anger issues”, I don’t even know if you can even survive in secondary school any longer. I don’t know if he ACTUALLY has some mental disorder that can lead him to have “anger issues”, or it's just an excuse for him to act like “that”.

“That”, was when he once fought with his friend during my tuition class with Tutor X again. It happened way before Mr. Gordon’s crash out scene. I don’t know the full story but I think one of the kids made a WhatsApp sticker about him and he did not like it? So when Tutor X and I were having Maths class, suddenly a fight broke out. The kids were fighting, the tables were shuffling, there was so much noise and shouting. The kids were cursing but they weren’t cursing properly, they were just cursing to make them look bad or something. I just wondered in my head: “should we evacuate?”. Mr. M tried his best settling down the students but of course it did not work, Mr. Gordon on the other hand just laughed when they were fighting. Then the kid with “anger issues”, went out of the tuition centre for god knows what reason, went back because I guess he was more calmer, and fought again. Even if Mr. M did not know how to settle the kids down, he could’ve apologized to me and Tutor X for causing so much trouble, but they did not even say anything to us and just left when they were done with their own class. What the fuck?

Don’t know if this is also relevant or not but last year, Mr. Gordon drove me to his other tuition centre (when Tutor X was not teaching me yet), because I had a new Math tutor which I did not like. He drove me to his other tuition centre for Mr. M’s classes. Can I just say that his driving skills are so wacky? Sometimes, he drives fast, and sometimes he drives slow. But anyways, when I reached the condominium, or the tuition centre, the floor was messy, full of worksheets and books everywhere. There were like 3 other people in the centre and I had to sit with another student because Mr. M was managing TWO classes at the same time, meaning that I cannot ask him questions 75% of the time. But thankfully, I left earlier because I had to attend the National Day Show (and did not even made it into the venue because the line was so fucking long). But holy shit, the tuition centre was very far from my home and time consuming. Yes, Apex Education has 4 outlets across Singapore, and I do not know how that was even possible with a person like Gordon. I think I even once glanced at the bedroom in the “tuition centre”, the bed was full of worksheets and other things I can’t describe. Gordon was having his classes with his other students through video conferencing, on his bed. Yucks.

His personal hygiene also needs to be spoken of. His body odor stinks, stinks like hell. The smell was like secondary school boys after PE, sweaty and all with no deodorant. I don’t even know if he actually showers because I also want to talk about his DANDRUFF. I also have dandruff but this is WORSE. It was as if someone put snake powder on his hair and back because there was a whole mountain of dandruff behind his back, plus wearing his black shirt was worse because we could meticulously see each and every type of dandruff at his back.

Overall, everything I’ve shared comes from my own experience, and I just want people to be aware of what really went on at this tuition centre. I’m not writing this for drama, I’m writing it because students and parents deserve to know what they might be walking into. What I went through shouldn’t happen to anyone else. If you’re planning to join this tuition, or if your child is currently studying there, PLEASE BE CAREFUL ‼️ Pay attention to the environment, the tutors, and how things are handled. A tuition centre is supposed to help you improve, not make you uncomfortable, stressed, or confused about what’s going on behind the scenes. I’m sharing all of this so that others won’t end up in the same situation I did. Just please stay alert, and don’t ignore all of the red flags 🚩

More photos can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1BnHNieLTpZ9hcQRaLdYT2fbhWT118dE9