2024 Term 2 Message

18 March 2024

Dear Parents/Guardians,

A big and warm welcome back to an exciting new term of 2024! I hope everyone has had a chance to recharge yourselves during the March break and spend much needed quality time with your loved ones. The process of relationship building is critical towards developing our Admirals (and ourselves!) into joyful, all-rounded individuals; let’s continue to work hard at strengthening our relationships and partnerships over the term and year.

For my Term 2 letter to everyone, I would like to focus on the importance of two things – “the value of (true) learning” and “21st Century Competencies”. Over the whole of Term 1 and for the rest of the year, my colleagues will be sharing key values to the whole school after flag raising in the morning. They will be touching on topics that connect with them, ranging from developing empathy and compassion, to having a zest for learning. While these brief sharing sessions in the mornings are not part of our Admirals’ formal timetable/subjects, the nuggets of wisdom from my colleagues have been invaluable. I would like to call them “life lessons”, because the teachings, sharing and opportunity for reflection are so rich. I hope your children have been bringing some of these messages back and sharing their reflections with you! If not, it is certainly not too late to start, and by bringing this to your awareness, I would like to encourage you to check in with your child on his/her understanding of what has been said. Most importantly, do ask them to reflect on these values and think about how they can apply them in their daily lives.

Let me give you an example of a “life lesson” that was delivered by Mdm Normala on 8 March, the last day of Term 1 – her sharing on this day has inspired my thoughts for this letter. Mdm Normala shared some good ideas on what we could do during the March Term break, which includes reading, creating an art piece and learning something new. She had also left three questions for all Admirals to reflect on, and I would like to seek the assistance of all parents to set time aside this week to have a good reflection with your child:

1. In what areas have I excelled?

2. What challenges have I faced, and how could I have approached them differently?

3. How can I improve my learning strategies and habits for better performance and personal growth?

Mdm Normala also ended off with a very powerful quote from an author, Brian Herbert, on this idea of “learning”:

“The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice."

Parents/guardians, at Admiralty Primary School, we strongly believe that developing our Admirals’ capacity, ability and willingness to learn is far more important than just achieving the academic grades and results themselves. If our Admirals are too fixated on the end result but not the journey of learning and growth, any result will only be temporary; their growth will be stagnated, and learning becomes a chore for them. Let us all (school leaders, staff of Admiralty Primary School and parents) be the role models and fuel to ignite our Admirals’ joy and passion for learning! I am confident that we can do this together.

How might we be able to do so? Growing our Admirals’ joy and passion for learning is a long process. Indeed, some will say that it is a lifelong journey in and of itself. The Ministry of Education’s Framework for 21st Century Competencies and Student Outcomes (see attached link) offers good insights on this: https://www.moe.gov.sg/education-in-sg/21st-century-competencies

MOE has identified 3 emerging 21st Century Competencies (E21CC) that can enable our students to thrive in school, beyond school, and a future world that is rapidly changing. These E21CC are:

1. Critical, Adaptive and Inventive Thinking;

2. Communication, Collaboration and Information Skills; and

3. Civic, Global and Cross-Cultural Literacy.

Let’s take the skill of “Critical, Adaptive and Inventive Thinking (CAIT)” as an example. Our world is becoming increasingly digitalised and inter-connected; events that are happening in other parts of the world are having deep implications on our country. There is a common saying that we are inculcating in our students, today, the knowledge, skills and dispositions to solve problems of the future. The future is very unpredictable and complex; there are no textbook answers for solving problems of tomorrow. It is hence crucial that we grow our Admirals’ ability to think critically, adapt to different situations, take in multiple perspectives to build on their own ideas, and be driven towards creating/inventing new solutions and ideas. As such, one should also expect that the way our teachers teach must be different from how we were taught in the past. We cannot rely on textbook answers, primarily drill-and-practice methods, and “spoon-feeding” our Admirals with all the seemingly correct solutions. Instead, our teachers are constantly improving their craft to ask our students open-ended questions, provide perspectives but challenge students to debate them respectfully and think on their feet; sometimes, Admirals will ask questions that educators ourselves are not able to answer, and I think that is wonderful! We can then encourage our Admirals to do a bit more research into their query, be discerning about their information sources, and share their findings with their teachers and friends.

The close partnership and collaboration between our school and home can yield desired outcomes for our Admirals. When you have an opportunity today or this week, do pose the reflection questions above to your child, and spend some quality time discussing your responses. Being introspective and reflective is a good way to get our Admirals to learn and internalise what they have learned so far. I hope you will have a fruitful and happy discussion!

I am deeply appreciative of our partnership and collaboration. As always, please do not hesitate to get in touch with your child’s teachers or the school if you have questions or concerns. Wishing everyone a wonderful Term 2 of learning and growth!

Yours faithfully,

Mr Chen Zhongyi

Principal