2024 Term 3 Message

21 June 2024

Dear Parents/Guardians,

A very warm welcome back to a brand-new term and semester! This promises to be an exciting new chapter of learning and discovery, and I hope that our Admirals are looking forward to learning and growing in the days ahead. As adults and role models in their lives, let’s grow alongside our Admirals, and continue to show them how learning for life is joyous, energising and uplifting.

In my Term 2 letter to parents, I wrote about the importance of nurturing our children’s capacity, ability and willingness to learn.  I also mentioned how this is far more important than solely the pursuit of academic grades and results for results sake. I also shared with everyone that MOE has identified 3 emerging 21^st Century Competencies (E21CC) that will be critical for our students to master, for them to thrive in a world that is moving ahead and changing so rapidly. It is my firm believe that for our students to become wholesome individuals who are able to do well in the future, these E21CC are no longer “good to have” – they are essential and fundamental skills that all our Admirals must possess and strengthen over time.  To reiterate, these are the E21CC that I have been emphasising: 

1.       Critical, Adaptive and Inventive Thinking;

2.       Communication, Collaboration and Information Skills; and

3.       Civic, Global and Cross-Cultural Literacy.

I would like to use this letter to share my thinking on the second point of “Communication, Collaboration and Information (CCI) Skills”. As a school, we have been providing several platforms for our students to communicate their ideas, both written and verbal. We can certainly do more to build the confidence of our students to speak up and express their ideas in an eloquent and coherent manner.  We will leverage platforms both in class and beyond the classroom to further hone our Admirals’ communication skills. A fundamental building block of communication is also how deeply and widely our Admirals read. Through reading, our students can pick up new insights and knowledge to nourish their minds and challenge their thinking. As such, it is my wish that parents/guardians could continue to partner us strongly in our focus of getting our Admirals to read – both English Language and Mother Tongue Language medium books – widely and voraciously.

It is, however, insufficient for our Admirals to be developing their skills and competencies in an individualistic manner. The importance of teamwork and collaboration is well-documented, and our students need to know how to collaborate and partner one another in their pursuit of knowledge and excellence. The ability to collaborate also hinges upon the idea of treating one another with respect and dignity; the school setting is a microcosm of the real world, and we are exposing our students to the opportunity to learn and play alongside their friends with respect and kindness.

Finally, “Information skills” refer to the ability to source for, select and connect the dots between digital and non-digital information with discernment. With tools like internet – and now, Artificial Intelligence – at our fingertips, our Admirals are confronted with a deluge of information. Being able to select and utilise the right types of information, and being discerning and ethical in the process of doing so, is a skill that needs to be developed over time. We should certainly help to facilitate how our students learn these skills in school and at home.

I would also like to take this opportunity to inform all parents that the school will be making an adjustment to the end time of our school day on Mondays next year. Starting from January 2025, school will end at 2.10 p.m. on all days for all levels.  (At present, our Admirals finish school at 2.40 p.m. on Mondays, and 2.10 p.m. from Tuesdays to Fridays.)  For this to happen, we will need to make slight adjustments to our timetable.

While the start time for our P3-P6s on Mondays will not change, CCA will end at 9.10 a.m. instead of 9.40 a.m. P3-P6s will subsequently have their Healthy Snack Break (HSB), before the first lesson starts at 9.30 a.m.  The P1-P2s of 2025 would hence be required to report to school latest by 9.30 a.m. on Mondays. Reporting and dismissal timings for Tuesdays to Fridays remain unchanged from our current arrangement.

The table below shows the reporting and dismissal timings for the different levels for 2024 vis-a-vis 2025, and we hope that this comparison would make for ease of reference and understanding.

(P3-P6s) Current arrangement:

(P3-P6s) New arrangement, starting only next year:

(P1-P2s) Current arrangement:

(P1-P2s) New arrangement, starting only next year:

By making such an adjustment, we have effectively aligned dismissal timing for every day of the school week. In our conversations and dipstick surveys with different parents, we have gotten feedback that this alignment of dismissal timing makes good sense, and many feel that an earlier dismissal would also allow our Admirals to have a better/earlier rest as the dismissal timing of 2.40 p.m. is relatively late, especially when compared to the other Primary Schools. Nevertheless, we would like to acknowledge that with any adjustments in timings, there might be some of our parents/guardians who are not positively impacted.  As such, we hope that by communicating this adjustment to parents and guardians about 6 months in advance, we can work with you to effect the change smoothly.  We have been/will be communicating these changes with our school-based Student Care Centre (SCC) – Learning Harbour – as well as the Kids Excel vendor. Please be assured that we will work closely with you and the different partners to transit to this new dismissal timing on Monday (as well as the new reporting timing for P1-P2s) smoothly. Should you foresee any challenges, pls do not hesitate to get in touch with us so that we can work something out together.

Thank you once again for partnering us in the educational journey of our Admirals. If you have any concerns of questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with your child’s teachers or the school. Take care and here’s wishing everyone a very fruitful Term 3!

Yours faithfully,

Mr Chen Zhongyi

Principal