Nearer the Sky: Guiding Lights

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Guiding Lights For 120 years, SCGS has been transforming girls into articulate, intelligent and independent young women, brimming with creativity and confidence, who go on to serve in society with distinction.

The school has been able to do this thanks to the tireless Principals and teachers who have toiled in classrooms, labs, fields and campsites. Often making do with limited resources, they taught, instructed and guided the girls, accompanying them as they negotiated the journey from childhood to adolescence, and then beyond.

Through how they lived their lives, and their daily interactions with the

If there was one person who truly embodied the school motto, it would be Miss SK Tan. Born in China around the end of the First World War, she had to overcome numerous obstacles in her life to recieve the education she wanted, simply because she was a girl.

She overcame these through sheer determination and then left her stamp on the school in the post-war years as its Principal for over two decades. She raised academic standards, hired excellent teachers and raised money for new buildings. She trusted her teachers and the girls, and this allowed both teachers and girls to spread their wings.

Miss SK Tan handed the baton over to Miss Rosalind Heng, who then helmed the school over

close to three decades. Miss Heng ushered the school into the modern era, a new status as an independent school, into new premises in Dunearn Road laying the foundation for the future. As is often the case, taking charge requires the courage to make difficult and unpopular decisions.

Fortunately, Miss Heng had courage in spades. She may not have been an old girl of the school, but she is surely one by adoption.

even after retiring, has continued to serve in the school up to this day.

While SCGS has many excellent teachers, two in particular, have made a larger than usual impact.

Miss Beatrice Wee took charge of the Girl Guides in school and turned it into a proud institution that has produced numerous Guides who have gone on to serve in the wider Guiding movement.

Meanwhile, Mrs Jean Chan’s Mrs Ng Leng Eng and Mrs Florence passion for dance and her decades Phuah were Vice-Principals who of service to the dance troupe assisted Miss Heng in the transition. made the school synonymous These two women embody the with dance. Her legacy, too, lies in spirit of Service, Sincerity and the many girls who continue to Generosity. Between the two of pursue dance as a career in one them alone, they have close to way or another.

90 years of service to the school.

Mrs Ng was the first Vice-Principal These six women are, of course, of the combined primary school only the tip of the iceberg. If there and did a good job uniting the is one thing that SCGS excels in, two schools. Mrs Phuah helped it is identifying loving, dedicated, develop enrichment programmes nurturing teachers who, every day, for the independent school, and help the girls grow nearer the sky.

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girls, these women demonstrated to the girls what it meant to live up to the school motto of Sincerity, Courage, Generosity and Service.

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Image credit to Tan Sock Kee

Tan Sock Kern

The Embodiment of Sincerity, Courage, Generosity and Service

Miss Tan Sock Kern, or Miss SK Tan as she was popularly known, was a dearly beloved Principal of SCGS who will be remembered for her dynamism, her dedication, her strength of character, her independent streak and her idiosyncratic personality. She led the school for over two decades, between 1956 and 1978, in a way that allowed SCGS teachers to do what they do best — to nurture the girls into confident and capable young women.

In a tribute to Miss Tan after she retired, the Deputy Chairman of the SCGS Board, Mr Chan Kum Chee, wrote: “That she was a good Principal just like the others is an understatement. That she was an outstanding Principal is a correct statement without exaggeration.”

Under Miss Tan, academic standards rose, both at the Primary School Leaving Examination and the O-Level, and parents jostled to enrol their daughters into the school.

an uncle who was ill. Stranded in Singapore because of the civil war in China, her father decided to send his children to English schools so they could learn the language before returning to China.

They lived in a rented house in Emerald Hill and since SCGS had just begun operating, it made sense for the young Sock Kern to make the 10-minute walk to school in 1927.

In hindsight, it is ironic that she became synonymous with SCGS as she did not enjoy being in SCGS as a girl, she did not plan to be a teacher, and after qualifying, she did not even apply to join the school and even briefly resigned from SCGS.

She started school with a handicap because she only spoke Teochew. She recalls that at the time, most of the girls in her class either spoke Baba Malay or Cantonese (because of their amahs) in class. “I couldn’t speak a word and I was very, very much alone,” she says in a 1993 interview with the Oral History Department.

Miss Tan was not just an old girl of the school; she was one of the first girls to study at the school’s new premises in Emerald Hill.

Together with her family, she had come in Singapore from Swatow (Shantou), China, in 1926 to visit

After a few months, Mrs Nunes her class teacher sent her to a more advanced class with older girls who spoke a little more English. She ended up going through five classes in the three years she was at SCGS because

the school wanted to move her to be with girls of the same age.

She still struggled with English though, and her failure to understand the teacher one day earned her a smack on the hand.

This deeply offended her sense of justice.

“I couldn’t express myself, neither could I understand her when she talked to me. I felt that she was wrong, that she has no right to smack me when I didn’t understand her.”

The 10-year-old subsequently marched to the Principal’s office to inform Miss Jessie Nesbitt (later known as Mrs Jessie Geake) that she wanted to leave the school.

She did not tell Miss Nesbitt the real reason though, not wanting to be a tattletale. Instead she said her cousins had told her that Raffles Girls’ School (RGS) had an opening (which was true) and she wanted to get in that year, instead of waiting a year or two when it would be harder to get in. At the time, SCGS did not offer secondary education so girls who wanted to further their

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She helped raise funds so that the school’s facilities could be expanded and she touched the lives of thousands of girls with her talks at assembly, her hiring of talented teachers, and her philosophy of education, which permeated the school. Growing up in a time when educating girls was seen as unnecessary, she bulldozed the obstacles before her through sheer force of character. She then devoted close to four decades of her life to SCGS. Her legacy, fittingly, is two generations of kim geks who are able to “grow nearer the sky”.

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studies would leave at around Standard Five or Six for a different school anyway.

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Miss Nesbitt was reluctant to see her go because she could tell, even then, that the girl was different from the rest. She stood out because unlike the others, she would always volunteer to stand up and sing whenever Miss Nesbitt taught them singing in class.

Young Sock Kern was not to be dissuaded however, and as a result, the determined young girl joined her older cousins in RGS. While her limited English led her to leave SCGS, it actually, accidentally, helped her get into RGS. When she was interviewed by the Principal, Miss Dorothy Buckle, she was told that without being born Singapore and a birth certificate, she could not be enrolled in the school. However, the girl had not understood what Miss Buckle had said, and assumed that she had gotten in.

She then joined the class that her cousins pointed out. About a month later, the school finally put her on the class register.

Her command of the language caught up later and she eventually qualified for Raffles College.

This was when she encountered a major obstacle: her father refused to continue to pay for her education. As a traditional Teochew father, he believed that it was not crucial for girls to be well educated. Furthermore, he did not want her to be in a school with boys, fearing the worst and that she would “bring shame to the family”. He would not have minded sending her to an all-girls college, but Raffles College was a co-ed school.

She stubbornly insisted on going though and used her own savings to pay for her first year.

Her mother continued to give her $5 a month for pocket money and Miss Tan would sometimes borrow money from her sister for bus fare at the end of the month.

She brought food from home so she would not have to buy lunch.

To minimise wear and tear on her only pair of shoes, she would use the cast offs from her brothers while walking to the bus stop and taking the bus. She would only slip on her own shoes on reaching

the Bukit Timah campus. With no money for books, she made friends with the librarian and read the necessary texts in the afternoon while the other students were sleeping off their heavy lunch.

This continued on for a whole year before her father finally relented and paid for the rest of her course, on condition that she passed.

She studied English, History and Geography, and graduated in the same year as classmates Goh Keng Swee and Hon Sui Sen. Interestingly, being a teacher was not Miss Tan’s first choice. After graduating from university, she was offered an office job that paid well but her father would not allow her to accept it because he wanted her to work in an allfemale environment. He offered to give her $50 a month as pocket money for her to stay home.

“I was offered a job three times the pay of a school teacher but I was not allowed to work in an office. I’m only allowed to be a teacher in a girls’ school and I wasn’t very happy.”

Courtesy of SCGS

She spent an extra year earning a Diploma in Education, and completed her traineeship at SCGS for three months because it was close to where she lived in Cairnhill. She recalls that, at the time, the girls were not vocal. “In fact, some of the girls told me that I was one of the first teachers who talked to them instead of at them, and I think they enjoyed my teaching because I treated them as equals.”

Miss Tan started work on April 1, 1940, and was paid the princely sum of $125 a month. She was assigned to Standards Six and Seven and taught all the subjects except Mathematics. She even

taught cooking and sewing, which the girls learned on alternate weeks. For cooking, she used the recipes she inherited from Mrs Ting, the mother of old girl Mary Rauff, who had taught Standard Six the year before. (Mrs Ting’s recipes, uniquely, listed out ingredients by cost. To make mee siam, for example, one needed one cent worth of tau cheo (fermented bean paste) and one cent worth of koo chai (chives).)

As for sewing, Miss Tan taught the girls to make garments such as cheongsams and at least one eventual SCGS teacher, the future Mrs Fok Joo Quee, learned to make a cheongsam thanks to the future Principal.

Miss Tan even taught the girls to make swimsuits and promised them that if they were successful, she would take them swimming.

They did, so she kept her promise, even though she could not swim herself. She took them to the public pool at Mt Emily on all-girls day and the off-duty lifeguard that she had befriended beforehand taught the girls to swim.

She roped in her brothers to help her as well. She had one brother provide the music to accompany the girls for folk dancing, and another brother, who was keen on table tennis, to coach the girls in the sport.

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After getting her teaching diploma, she almost did not end up in SCGS. The Principal of RGS at the time had been her former teacher and wanted to hire Miss Tan. However, because she had no birth certificate, the government said she could not be employed.

SCGS, on the other hand, was not a government school and was short of teachers. In fact, she did not even apply for a job at SCGS; the school approached her, thanks to the three months she spent with them doing her practicum.

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Those halcyon days ended abruptly in December 1941 when Japanese bombs rained on Singapore. The British surrendered in February 1942 and during the Occupation years, the school was closed, and the premises used for entertainment for officers.

During this period, Miss Tan took on a bigger role in her family. She was the fourth in a family of 14 children and was the second girl.

However, when the war broke out, she was the oldest child still living with her parents at the time. Her brothers were studying abroad and her older sister had married and moved out.

Soon after the Occupation began, the Japanese arrested her father and held him for weeks. It was a frightening period: they had no idea where he was, their lives were in turmoil and to make things worse, the Japanese requisitioned the family home on Cairnhill and evicted Miss Tan and family. In desperation, she turned to her Indian neighbours, who had also been evicted, and asked

them to plead with the Japanese for two replacement houses, for themselves and for Miss Tan’s family.

While the Japanese were hostile to the Chinese, they wanted India’s help in the war. Hence, ethnic Indians were treated better.

The Japanese acceded to the request and Miss Tan and her family decamped to a small house in Chancery Lane. They were given one day to pack and leave.

Fortunately, her father was later released, though he would subsequently be re-arrested

Courtesy of SCGS

and interrogated again. For the next three years, Miss Tan kept the home together. Food was the main concern then and it was she who would go to the market and who would cycle out to buy food and sundries. She also took care of a pair of goats that, by the end of the war, had multiplied to 14.

After the Japanese surrendered in 1945, Miss Tan rejoined SCGS almost immediately and the school slowly began to rebuild. She discovered, however, that her pre-war enthusiasm for teaching had dimmed.

The government gave 90 days paid leave to all teachers who had been in Singapore during the Occupation years so in 1948, she went to Perth to visit two of her brothers who were studying at the University of Western Australia.

She enrolled in the university for the intellectual challenge, but found it so engaging that she wanted to stay on to complete a full course. From Australia, she wrote to SCGS asking for six months no-pay leave. Receiving no reply, she sent a second letter, a letter of resignation, so that she could complete the full ninemonth course. Fortunately, when she returned to Singapore, happy and reinvigorated, the school took her back.

When she returned, she offered to take over all the Physical Education (PE) classes in school and got the girls to do dancing

and singing, which raised morale.

“When I came back to the school, I remember the Principal saying ‘You know Miss Tan, you’ve been back a few weeks and now the school is alive.’”

“Mr Evan Wong was deputised to speak to me because I know him personally. He asked me and I said ‘No. I’m so young and I have no experience and I don’t want to be Principal.’”

Elizabeth Sam (Alumna 19461955) remembers Miss Tan as a “vibrant, independent lady keen to impart her knowledge and to try new things.” She recalls, “One of the things that she did introduce us to at school was folk dancing. Perhaps this is where I acquired my love for dancing which I was to take up more seriously in my retirement years! She touched the lives of all the girls who passed through her hands at SCGS. In her own inimitable way, she imparted some of her qualities – whether it is her intense love and loyalty to SCGS and all things SCGS, her enthusiasm, her dedication, and her independent nature.”

She told him she did not want the responsibility. “I said ‘I want to live first. I don’t want to be tied down.’ So he said, ‘But the Board wants you.’”

Miss Tan was very happy as a teacher and would have liked to continue in that role but the Board had other plans. Mrs Geake was due to retire in 1951 and the Board wanted Miss Tan, who was about 33 at the time, to take over.

She worked out a compromise with him. Mrs Tan Swee Khin would be the overall Principal as well as Head of one of the school’s two primary schools.

Meanwhile, Miss Tan would became Principal of the other primary school as well as the secondary school.

Ironically, it was because the Board wanted her to be Principal that she ended up thwarting its Chairman. Still the Board had wanted her to assume greater responsibility, so Mrs Geake suggested that Miss Tan join the Board as a Secretary, to take minutes.

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“I found that after three and a half years of unhappiness and depression, I did not have the same attitude towards teaching as I had at the beginning of my teaching career. So I decided I must get away somewhere.”

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At one meeting, she discovered that the school was in the red to the tune of between $30,000 and $40,000. During the war, the school had taken a direct hit and, among other things, one of the staircases leading to the hall had been completely destroyed.

In total, repairs took about six months, and the Ministry of Education advanced the money to the school to pay the contractor to rebuild the school.

At the meeting, the Chairman of the Board at the time did not believe that the school could raise the money to repay the debt and proposed writing to the government to turn it into a government school “for the sake of the teachers”.

It was at this point that Miss Tan put her foot down. “I was only a member of the school staff sitting on the Board and I said, ‘Don’t go and put the blame on the teachers... We can find jobs anywhere. If you want to turn the school over to the government, it’s the decision of the Board, it’s got nothing to do with the staff.’”

After the meeting, she relayed the news to her colleagues in the staff room who were similarly aghast.

“More than half, the qualified ones, all went up to his office and told him, ‘Turn the school over to the government, but don’t say it’s for the sake of the teachers.’”

The Chairman was furious and resigned. Miss Tan and the Board subsequently managed to find the funds to not only repay the Ministry, but to add on the Song Ong Siang block, which was completed in 1957.

The school, by this point, had received a bequest from the estate of Mrs Song Ong Siang, the Lady Helen Song, after her death in 1951. The amount, about $35,000, however, would not have been enough to repay the Government and add on the new buildings that the school needed.

As a result, the school went on a fund-raising campaign involving the Board, parents and teachers.

Apart from the funfairs and concerts that were organised, Miss Tan also tapped on her

Courtesy of Julie Kwong-Lee

network. Her own connections were formidable: Sir Song Ong Siang, for example, had been her father’s lawyer. She also knew business figures such as Loke Wan Tho and Tan Chin Tuan personally, so she approached them and they made significant donations. They, in turn, introduced her to Sir Runme Shaw, who subsequently also contributed.

The money raised, however, was not enough for the planned two buildings so midway, the idea of a second block was scrapped and

Buddha and Jesus. What she was trying to teach the girls at that time was that in the overarching scheme of things in life, it was not as important to be a leader of men, as it was to have the right philosophy and values in life, for these would stand the test of time.”

She treated her teachers with respect. Mrs Tay Eng Lee (Alumna 1952-1963, Teacher 1965-2007) knew Miss Tan as both Principal and boss who was a born leader.

She admired her calm and confident manner and her good sense of humour.

“As a young teacher, I was once called into the office to answer to a complaint. Miss Tan pointed out my mistake very kindly and diplomatically and did not allow me to feel demoralised.”

“Firm, well-liked and commanding respect through the way she handled the staff, she articulated her thoughts clearly, communicating her ideas effectively. Beyond her intelligence and clear ability, she was also kind and caring,” says Mrs Tay. “I felt incredibly

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She was also taken by the fact that a third floor for classrooms was added to what had originally been Miss Tan made it a point to read essays by many of the secondary a two-storey block. school girls even when she was Principal. She explained that by As Principal, part of what made reading their essays, she was able Miss Tan popular with the girls to gain an insight into the girls was how she would praise them rather than scold them, and speak and understand them better. to them like adults — a departure She recalled too, her telling them from how educators in her time about the school’s O-Level results treated their charges. one day during assembly. “At that time I was in Secondary Three and Miss Chew Gek Khim (Alumna she was delighted to announce 1968-1977) recalls, “A modern that the school had 100 percent woman for her time, when she passes for the O-Level. She then arrived in Singapore she was went on to explain her philosophy shocked at how backward the of focusing on getting 100 women were, compared to those percent passes rather than getting in China. In China, Sun Yat Sen a few top students to gain credit had established a republic and for the school. Her view was that women were, in her own words, it was better for all the girls to get ‘riding horses’. In contrast in a certificate so that those who had Singapore, women were still to go to work at least had a paper travelling in rickshaws and hid qualification. As for those who behind curtains, unable to go out were brilliant, they could manage on their own.” on their own.”

Gek Khim suggests that this “On another occasion, she also “modern” attitude towards gave a talk about great leaders, women’s independence and first starting with Churchill, Gandhi education is the underlying philosophy behind the school and and even Hitler. However, the most important leaders in the for that reason she emphasised world, she said, were spiritual education and independence in leaders such as Muhamad, young women.

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privileged to have been a member printed, get advertisers and of the SCGS staff under her watch”. sponsors and get the show on the road. Miss Rosalind Heng, then Yet another old girl Julie Kwong a new teacher at the school, was (Alumna 1967-1970), remembers a assigned to assist them.

Principal who empowered, trusted and lifted her charges up.

The 15-year-olds worked through their year-end holidays In 1968 Miss Tan had announced for the show scheduled for the proposed development of a March 14, 1969, trying every new three-storey block (eventually connection they could muster named the Lee Kong Chian Block) up for advertisements in the to house the Secondary Three and programme, cajoling a recently Four classes so that the Secondary graduated graphic designer School would have enough space sister to design the programme, to operate on a single session. calling on every parent or relative who might have a business to “Eight of us, then in Secondary advertise, making appointments Two, conjured up this plan for a with the secretaries of managing pop show, believing we would directors of companies in the have an enthusiastic market in the Orchard / Cairnhill area to sell an teens of the land. The local bands advertisement or get sponsorship and Talentime were riding a wave of sorts. of popularity then, so how could we go wrong?”

Determined to secure the services of a professional emcee pro bono, They approached Miss Tan for they headed to the music studios permission to go ahead with where some of the popular their audacious plan to stage the names of the day worked. Mr concert at the National Theatre and Tan Swee Leong, a well-known she gave an unequivocal “Yes”. compere in broadcasting, was sympathetic to their cause and Adrenalin flowing from Miss Tan’s when he was ultimately unable avowed faith, they proceeded to help, got Mr Larry Lai, another to sign up acts, book a theatre, well-known personality to take his get a programme designed and place. Mr Lai helped boost the

lineup of acts by getting in some performers from the finals of the last Talentime show.

Any adult might have raised the brutal question “And how much do you expect to raise?” bringing down their pipe dream with a quick lesson in accounting. Not Miss Tan. Behind the scenes, she had signed up sponsors. Mr Tan Hoon Siang, then Chairman of the Board, had generously stepped up to the plate.

Miss Tan empowered the girls to do what she believed they could do and trusted them to do their part. She did not lecture them on their limitations but left them to do what they could and took care of the rest. Such was her strength and wisdom as a facilitator and educator, such was her magnanimity that she would engage these teens in trying to build a dream.

In that process they learned what the businesses in the neighbourhood were, how to sell an idea, network for resources, seek funding and how to persuade others to join in a project – all valuable life lessons.

Some years later Julie wondered why the donation board for contributions to the Lee Kong Chian Block never recorded the results of their efforts. It dawned on the young adult then that maybe it was because they really raised nothing or had made a net loss, but to Miss Tan, it did not matter – she had raised them up.

Looking back on her long career in SCGS, Miss Tan told the Oral History Department in 1993 that her greatest joy was seeing old girls returning and bringing their daughters to the school. “That’s really fun because suddenly I see the mother as the little girl I saw when she first came to the school.

It is much happiness for me to see the second generation coming in and now I see even the third generation coming in. And that is the feeling of family again.

Courtesy of Julie Kwong-Lee

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“That’s how I always see SCGS, as a family. All the teachers are aunties and the girls are children and when they bring their children and their grandchildren to the school, that is the real happiness for me.”

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Rosalind Heng A Life of Some Purpose

The offer looked irresistible — school principals would be given more autonomy to run their schools, able to run their own enrichment programmes and given more resources by the Education Ministry. All this to encourage creative and independent students for an economy that needed creative and independent workers. The icing on the cake? The ‘independent school’ status would enshrine the school as being among the top in Singapore.

Yet Miss Heng hesitated. The then-Principal of SCGS recalls, “We were quite reluctant to be independent.”

Dr Tony Tan, then Education Minister, was aware of these concerns. He called the Board and also spoke to Rosalind. He told her, “Look, if you go independent, the Ministry will help you as much as we can. Do not worry about students not being able to afford school fees.”

In addition to the reassurance from the government that needy students would not be shut out, Dr Tan promised that if the school went independent and needed more facilities, the government would help it get more land.

With these assurances, the school went independent in 1989.

The fees did increase, from $10.50 to $25 a month in the first year it became independent, with more increases in the following years.

At the same time, the fees were, in general, lower than others.

In 1991 for example, the fees at Raffles Institution and Anglo Chinese School were $200 a month, while the girls at SCGS paid $70 a month. At Methodist Girls’ School, the other all-girls school to go independent, the fees were $75 a month.

To ensure that the families would not face financial strain from the higher fees, Miss Heng asked the teachers to keep their eyes peeled for students who might be from struggling families.

The school also kept rents in the school canteen low and vendors were encouraged to keep food prices affordable.

In return for the higher fees, class sizes dropped as the school hired more teachers. It also added more enrichment classes.

According to Miss Heng, managing the shift to an independent school was the biggest challenge in her career as Principal of SCGS between 1979 and 2006.

In the end, she believes that she successfully embraced the independence offered without compromising her vision of ensuring the school was accessible to all.

While taking the school independent was her biggest challenge, it was not the first major problem she had to tackle. Soon after becoming Principal, she had to deal with what was then a brand new concept: streaming.

In 1979, the Goh Report recommended that schools in Singapore categorise students by ability and in 1981, streaming was put in place.

Based on results at the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), students would be channelled into the Special, Express or Normal streams.

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She was concerned that being independent would turn SCGS into an institution of privilege for the children of the class who could afford it, reinforcing a sense of superiority among its students, where a feeling of being different, and better than everyone else, would be entrenched. At the most basic level, she was worried about how poorer families would afford the higher fees that an independent school would charge.

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This change threatened to disrupt the flow of SCGS girls from primary to secondary school. Prior to 1981, girls who passed their PSLE would simply move up to the secondary school. However, with the introduction of streaming, the affiliate rate would be much greater because merely passing would not be sufficient. SCGS was too small to have a Normal stream so it could only accept girls into the Special and Express streams.

To maximise the number of primary school girls who stay on, Miss Heng implemented a policy of requiring a relatively low cut-off point for girls from the primary school to get into secondary school. “We kept the cut-off point of 200 Aggregate Score for our primary school to qualify for admission into our secondary school. This was the minimum qualification for the Express Stream after the PSLE. The Ministry wanted us to raise our cut-off points because they were worried too many of our girls had low cut-off points.”

Miss Heng resisted as long as she could because she wanted to keep the girls in SCGS as long as possible. “I believe in a continuous education from primary to secondary education in SCGS. I need the 10 years to develop them holistically.”

In contrast to dealing with streaming and the transition to an independent school, the task of moving from Emerald Hill to Dunearn Road was much simpler.

While many girls had strong feelings about the premises on Emerald Hill, the site faced numerous limitations. Singapore’s population had grown and the school’s intake had increased in turn. Yet the school was unable to expand significantly because of space constraints in Emerald Hill.

Therefore, when Education Minister Tony Tan promised a plot of land to build a new school with new facilities if the school went independent, it was the answer to her dreams.

Miss Heng, together with Miss Olive Tan, the senior assistant from Primary School II, began inspecting the locations offered

by Ministry of Education (MOE).

The initial list was a disappointment, however, as none of the sites was felt to be suitable. After Miss Heng turned down all the options on the list, the Director of Planning, MOE, finally offered the site occupied by the Whitley Secondary School.

To sweeten the pot, they added the adjoining land that used to be partially occupied by Swiss Cottage Secondary School so that the entire plot of land would come up to 4.8 hectares. “Immediately, there and then, I said, ‘I’ll take it.’”

He says, ‘You can’t just say you’ll take it.’ You have to go back to your Board of Directors.’ I said, ”No, I am sure they will approve. I quickly reserved it!”

“To me, it’s a wonderful location, not too far from town and the piece of land was huge. I saw potential in it.

The school was able to raise $8 million towards the building cost of the new premises. Thanks to fundraising efforts by the girls, staff and the Board as well as generous donors. A small core team in the school helped to ensure that costs were kept low.

An experienced facilities manager worked with the engineer’s designs to ensure that with the new school building, monitoring and maintenance would be easy and safe. Rather than purchasing from the recommended items from the Ministry’s standard list, the team carefully bought different items that allowed them to cut costs significantly without compromising quality and did not purchase items which were either unnecessary or near obsolete.

Courtesy of SCGS

The new school was completed in 18 months despite an islandwide cement shortage. Friends of the school pointed to sources of cement available and work was able to proceed. The delighted girls moved into their spanking new premises on July 4, 1994.

Like her predecessor, Miss SK Tan, Miss Heng did not plan to be a teacher. Instead, her real ambition was to be an artist. After 12 years in Raffles Girls’ School, she went to the University of Singapore and majored in History and Geography. Her plan was then to go overseas to study fine arts, painting in particular. However, the term in London started late in the year, so she decided to do something useful in the interim.

She considered an accounting or a secretarial course but in the end chose to pursue a Diploma in Education.

She was posted to SCGS to complete her practicum, thanks she believes, to Lee Siok Tin, a former teacher at SCGS who was her lecturer and supervisor in the National University Singapore (NUS) — School of Education.

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Another attraction was that it was not in an intensely developed residential area, opening up the possibility of more people coming from beyond the 1 to 2km range,” she says.

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Courtesy of SCGS

Miss Heng had a culture shock when she got to SCGS. “Everything was rather relaxed, I must say. Despite there being very few rules, the students knew how to behave and the teachers were very caring, very committed and responsible.So I was really pleasantly surprised when I went in. I took to the whole environment,” Miss Heng recalled.

Before she graduated in her Diploma in Education course, the senior assistant called her up, saying that the school’s History teacher was leaving asked if Miss Heng would be interested in taking over?

At the time, Miss Heng still had hopes of studying art so she told the senior assistant that she would do it for a year.

Two years in however, the school offered her the chance to teach Art. “That was the clincher. That’s why I stayed on.”

She joined as a History and Geography teacher on February 14, 1968, and plunged into teaching with enthusiasm, though she still kept her options open in the beginning. “I applied to one or two advertising firms, thinking I could do art,” she reveals. Unfortunately for her but fortunately for SCGS, they turned her down because she was overqualified.

She recalls taking some girls to collect shells from the beach on Coney Island so they had something to paint for their ‘still life’. “We had a Head Prefect whose father was very keen to help us. So he organised a tongkang (a light wooden boat) to Coney Island because the beaches were covered with shells, beautiful ones, including cowries.”

They brought back bags of shells which the students could paint.

They were, perhaps, a little too

Very soon after she joined, she ended up taking charge of the National Cadet Corps (NCC). Her decision to do so was prompted by a clause in the employment contract which indicated that she would be liable for National Service as an aided school teacher (under the 1952 National Service Ordinance). Doing this seemed the better alternative.

why don’t you take charge as an officer?” Miss Heng saw this as a way to prepare herself for possibility of NS and went for NCC training. “In my time, it was very intense and very tough,” she recalls. How tough was it? “The very first day we reported to Maju Camp, we were told, ‘fall in into the parade square’. And we were marching in civillian clothes and high heels. That really gave us an indication of how tough it would be. I thought ‘What did I get myself into?’”

However, she believes that the NCC training was a good experience. “I came out tougher.

I could take things in my stride.

We had a lot of experiences and it made me more disciplined.”

They made quick progress and just a year later, the NCC girls

Miss Heng had been an athlete in her younger days, but in university, had become a little less active. As a result, she was horrified at the thought that she might have to do National Service given her current state of fitness.

Miss SK Tan said to Miss Heng, “We are starting a new NCC unit, Courtesy of Julie Kwong-Lee

were able to put up a silent drill at the school’s 70th anniversary celebrations. At the event, Mr Lim Kim San, the Guest of Honour and the Interior and Defence Minister was impressed and said to the Principal, “You have a better army than we do.”

As a teacher, Miss Heng was unflappable. When some girls decided to release a stink bomb in the class, she gave no indication that anything was amiss. Instead, she remarked at how chilly the room had become and asked them to close the windows. Then she left the room — shut the door behind her.

When it was Miss SK Tan’s turn to prepare for retirement, Miss Heng was on the shortlist, much to her dismay as she was happy to remain a teacher. There were

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beautiful, because over time, those shells slowly disappeared.”

Miss Heng recounted.

To make history come alive, she took the girls on a trip to Malacca.

This was well before it was fashionable to take students on overseas trips. She simply hired a coach and took the girls to see the historic sights like A’Famosa, St Paul’s Hill and the Church of St Francis Xavier. No bureaucratic paperwork needed whatsoever, though this did not last long.

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more senior teachers. However, Mrs YW Wong, the senior assistant, was just two years away from retirement while the next most senior teacher was planning to migrate to Australia.

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spent a year as a senior assistant, and then became Principal in 1979.

“She approached me, I said ‘No. I’m just a happy teacher, teaching History and Art and taking NCC.’”

At the time, there was no course that a soon-to-be principal could take to prepare for the promotion.

“You just went in and you just learned the ropes – all on-thejob learning.”

Miss SK Tan indicated that if she could not persuade a staff from the school to succeed her, the Board would have to approach the MOE to appoint a successor from the public service.

When Miss Heng became Principal, she had to figure out how she would do the job. “I had to think for myself: If I were a parent sending my child to SCGS, what would I want?”

Many of the teachers persuaded Miss Heng, then 33, to step up and promised to support her. She

Miss Heng says her goal was for the girls to grow up healthy and happy. “If they are emotionally

Courtesy of of SCGS SCGS Courtesy

and physically healthy, and received a holistic education, I would be happy.”

Sports was important to her. “I am a great believer in sports.” Under Miss Heng, there was a strict policy that there should be no reduction of the PE period for academic lessons.”

As a History teacher, Miss Heng naturally had an affinity for the subject and she decided to leverage the Peranakan roots of the school to build the school identity.

Courtesy of SCGS

“We teach them the history of the Peranakans, try to hold regular Peranakan events. Every year, we try

to have Peranakan Night, and we encourage them to come in their sarong kebayas. The shops that sell sarong kebayas in the East Coast would be doing fantastic business.”

The Heritage Room in the school was part of this push to create a Peranakan identity for the school and girls in Secondary One would go to the room as part of the orientation.

The idea was not merely to create an identity but to give the girls purpose and direction.

Beyond the traditional role of mother and wife, Miss Heng also wanted the girls to do more, to become “women of substance.”

The other thing that Miss Heng did was to insist that Literature be compulsory in secondary school.

This was not popular with some parents who felt that it would disadvantage girls who were stronger in the sciences. Miss Heng held firm.

“It’s important for them to read, to understand other aspects of life. Through the novels you live different worlds and that gives you a fair understanding of human nature when you come out to work.”

She held many meetings with parents to explain to them that

making Literature mandatory would open a lot more options for their daughters.

Now that she is retired, she keeps herself busy. She takes care of her aged mother, reads, sits on interview panels for scholarships and is involved with a mentoring scheme together with old girl Tan Wan Joo. She also regularly meets with old colleagues and old girls.

Looking back, Miss Heng says that hers has been “a life well spent.”

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“We’ve got to let our girls know why they are here — kim gek. If you had a daughter, she was very precious to the family. If she was a good mother, a good wife, well educated, she would be a treasure to the family.”

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Beatrice Wee

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Four Decades of Service to SCGS, and to the Girl Guides There’s something special about being a Girl Guide.

Maybe it’s the fact that you are part of a global movement that empowers girls. Maybe it’s the memories forged from many sweaty hours spent hiking, camping and singing around campfires.

If being a Girl Guide is special, being a Girl Guide from SCGS is particularly noteworthy.

Image credit to Joan Leong

SCGS has one of the oldest Guide companies in Singapore (it was not originally known as 4th Company for nothing). Guiding is so popular that the school is one of the few in Singapore to have two Girl Guide companies.

Courtesy of Beatrice Wee

Some of her more memorable moments include taking the girls camping on the grounds of an old rural school. “It was the Guides’ first experience with the bucket

system — it was a rude shock to many, but many came away appreciating their toilets at home much better!”Another time, an army helicopter landed amongst the girls while they were camping.

“Gusts of wind filled the air with sand. Our tents were flapping strongly, one or two of them near collapse. The men said they thought it was an army camp — they apologised and soon whirled out of sight.”

The opportunity to camp next to the sea was one of the pleasures of being a Guide under her, in part because the girls were able to buy fresh flower crabs from fishermen bringing in their catch.

“Managing those crabs certainly prolonged our mealtimes and delayed our chores, but shouldn’t camp be fun?”

Many old girls from SCGS have gone to serve in the Guiding movement in Singapore. Their ranks include Yvette Cheak, the former Chief Commissioner; Chew Gek Khim, a former VicePresident on the Girl Guides National Council, and former council members Goh Soon Gek and Goh Soon Poh. The former Chairman of the Asia Pacific

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When Miss Wee started teaching at SCGS, the once proud tradition of Guiding in the school had faltered and the school’s Girl Guide company had gone dormant. Two years later, the Principal, Miss SK Tan, approached Beatrice and asked her to restart Miss Wee started teaching at the unit. Miss Tan did not choose SCGS from 1952, retiring only in Miss Wee at random; the young 1992, and during her 40 years of teaching, she was in charge of the Beatrice had been a Girl Guide in SCGS in the late-1940s, and Miss Girl Guides at SCGS. She turned Tan had been a Lieutenant in the a once moribund institution school’s Guide company then. At into one of the most popular uniformed groups in school and, the time, there was no camping or hiking, just a lot of schoolin turn, raised a group of girls based activities. who would go on to serve the larger Girl Guide movement Miss Wee took on the task of as well. starting up 1st Company Central (by then, the Guides in Singapore were divided up by region). She began adding outdoor activities such as hiking and camping, which the girls enjoyed. She did such a good job that over time, she had to turn away girls because the company was full. To meet the demand, the 2nd Company Central was set up in 1967.

The success of the Girl Guides unit in SCGS boils down to the dedication and enthusiasm of the people running it — people such as Miss Beatrice Wee (SCGS: 1939 - 1941; 1945 - 1950).

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Region of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, Low Li Jeng, also cut her Guiding teeth in SCGS.

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Miss Wee herself was active in the Guiding movement beyond merely serving in school. She became a District Commissioner, then later a Division Commissioner and also a Training Commissioner. In 1970, she received the Palm Leaf award from the association, in recognition of her years of service to the Guiding movement in Singapore.

One of her most memorable moments as a Guide leader was meeting the Chief Guide, Lady Baden-Powell, wife of the founder of the Scouting moment, Lord Robert Baden-Powell. The meeting was at a conference held in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur in the 1960s. Miss Wee can still recall the event clearly.

“We had a chit chat with her, and two things I took away from that conversation: One was “always buzz”. If you have a problem, talk it over. Turn round, gather your friends and talk about it. The other one is, you can spell “God as G-O-O-D.”

Miss Wee spent just over half a century with SCGS, first as a student, and then a teacher. She had a close aunt who lived a few doors away from school, which is how she ended up in Emerald Hill in 1939.

After the war, she received two double promotions to enable her to catch up. She moved from Standard 2 to Standard 4, then then from Standard 4 to Standard 6. She studied in SCGS until Standard 9.

She was only in school for three years when war broke out and the school was closed. When it reopened in the 1945, Miss Wee remembers how they could only occupy the ground floor initially because the upper floor had been divided up in small cubicles.

In her last year, she had to decide what to do after leaving school.

There were not many options for women then — you could be a teacher, a nurse or work in an office. However, the Principal, Miss SK Tan, had other plans for her. Young Beatrice was helping out backstage during the endof-the-year concert when Miss Tan approached her and said: “When school reopens, you come and see me.” And that is how she ended up back in SCGS as a teacher.

She also recalls being selected to attend a Christmas party organised for school children that was held in December 1945. It was hosted by Sir Miles Dempsey, the head of the British army in Malaya, at his residence in Tyersall Road and young Beatrice was accompanied by the then- Principal, Mrs Nunes.

More than anything else, she recalls the apple that topped the bowl of fruits on the table in front of her. “We hadn’t seen apples for years, so I was eyeing that but somebody snatched it away before I could reach it.”

She started as an untrained teacher, and when the Teachers’ Training College started in March 1952, she joined it, teaching in the morning, and attending lectures in the afternoon.

Courtesy of Beatrice Wee

After graduating in 1955, she started teaching in the primary school for about five years before eventually moving to the secondary school, where she taught History, English and Moral Education. “At the end of the day, I grew to learn to love English.”

Yvonne Chew is another old student that Beatrice recalls fondly. Yvonne was a Head Prefect of SCGS who, three decades later, would became a Carmelite nun in 2015. She is now known as Sister Jacinta.

One of the privileges of being a teacher is having students who go on to become doctors. Miss Wee still calls on Mary Rauff for

her medical problems and sees Tay Khoon Mei when she needs a dentist.

Miss Wee never married, and after she retired, she began volunteering at a hospice and also at a home for the elderly.

She now spends her time reading and meeting up with small groups of former students regularly, some of whom have become grandmothers themselves. The students hold gatherings where they invite their former teachers, so these are opportunities to catch up with old colleagues as well.

Now close to 90, Miss Wee can say with an authority that comes from experience that the key values of SCGS — Sincerity, Courage, Generosity and Service — are more than sufficient for the girls.

“The values,” she says,“are never out of date.”

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Over her four decades of teaching at SCGS, she formed close ties with many old girls. They include Ng Swee Miang, who joined the Canossian Daughters of Charity and became a nun, taking on the name Sister Angela.

She went on to teach and then become Principal of St Anthony’s Canossian Primary School.

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276 Courtesy of Seah Kay Mui

Ng Leng Eng Serving SCGS with Integrity, Commitment and Sincerity

For some decades, prior to SCGS turning independent in1989, Mrs Fok Joo Quee, better known as Mrs JQ Fok, was the Senior Assistant in School I while Miss Olive Tan was the Senior Assistant in School II. The role of Senior Assistant is today, the equivalent of Vice-Principal, and the two women were running the two separate Primary Divisions that SCGS had.

The school had two separate Primary Divisions operating in the same premises because of the situation in post-war Singapore in the late 1940s. One division, in the morning, was the regular school meant for girls who were of the correct age. The other, on the other hand, was meant for girls who started school late because their education had been disrupted by the war. Over time, the overaged girls were cleared but SCGS continued to have two parallel Primary Divisions.

By the late 1980s, however, change was in the air. Both Senior Assistants were due to retire, which provided an opportunity to unite the two divisions under new leadership. However, that new leader would have to be someone acceptable to both Mrs Fok and Miss Olive Tan, and the different histories and cultures of the two schools, especially since there would be a transition period where both would still be around.

She would have to be someone who commanded their respect, whose integrity was beyond reproach and who could be counted upon to be scrupulously fair in her dealings as she merged the two divisions.

For this perilous job, Miss Rosalind Heng, then the Principal of SCGS, selected Mrs Ng Leng Eng (SCGS: 1948 – 1958), who taught Science in School II. In the best tradition of SCGS, Mrs Ng initially turned Miss Heng down. “When I was

approached to take up the VicePrincipalship, I told Miss Heng that I didn’t want to do it.”

Miss Heng did not give up and asked Mrs Fok to speak to Mrs Ng. It says something that Mrs Fok, who was in charge of School I, felt that Mrs Ng, a Science teacher in School II, would make a good Vice-Principal for the combined school.

Mrs Ng told Mrs Fok honestly: “You and Miss Olive Tan have difficulty getting along, it’s going to be very tough. It’s not something I will look forward to.”

However, a number of factors eventually persuaded her. One was that both Senior Assistants were due to retire by the end of the decade. The other was the possibility that someone from outside the school would take over at a delicate time, given that the secondary school was going to go independent and the two Primary Divisions were merging.

So when Miss Heng spoke to Mrs Ng again, the latter reluctantly agreed to take on the role “for the sake of the school”. Mrs Ng thus became the first ever VicePrincipal of the Primary Division in 1989, a position she would hold Courtesy of Seah Kay Mui

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While it did not make sense to run two separate Primary Divisions for a number of reasons, including the fact that there were two established and able Senior Assistants in place, merging the two was not feasible for a long time.

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until January 2000. Mrs Fok retired in 1989 and it was Miss Olive Tan’s turn the next year.

In 1990, a year after Mrs Ng assumed her role, the two schools finally became one.

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In many ways, because of her background, Mrs Ng was the ideal person to usher the primary school into the new era. As a young girl in SCGS, she had attended the morning session, as it was called then. “During our time, the system was that if you didn’t do well academically, you would be sent to the afternoon session. When we were students, we were always worried we would be sent to the afternoon school because we didn’t make the grade.”

By the time Mrs Ng started teaching in SCGS in 1959, there was still a stigma around the school, which had been renamed School II by then. “The School I children were mostly from parents who were professionals. When I was a young teacher (in School II), we were teaching the children of hawkers. Most of the parents were uneducated. They were stallholders in Koek Road or

they operated shops on Orchard Road. There were a lot of fishmongers’ children, butchers’ children.

“The children were disadvantaged. They didn’t come from a perfect home where there was a lot of concern for education. Many of the parents were busy making a living outside and left the children to their own devices.”

Quite a number of the students had to apply for free textbooks.

In addition, the girls of School II also had more disciplinary problems than those in School I, and were thus more challenging to teach.

Mrs Ng did not mind it though.

“I was very idealistic in those days. I took it as a challenge and I enjoyed it very much.”

The young teacher probably also had a lot of sympathy for the poorer students in School II as well. While she herself had gone to School I and had grown up in a nice house on Emerald Hill, she also knew what it was like to be desperately poor.

The young Tan Leng Eng was the granddaughter of a rubber trader who had done well in business.

Her father, however, did not do as well. “My father was a spoilt eldest son. He was supported by my grandfather and after my grandfather passed away in 1955, he took over the business.

However, he had no skills. He only knew how to spend money and other people took advantage of him.”

The business went bankrupt soon after and young Leng Eng’s mother had to go out to work.

She had been born in a kampung in Hougang and was not an educated woman. She thought she had done well by marrying someone in town. A life of ease, however, was not on the cards for her.

“In the end, she had to bring us all up. She washed and ironed clothes for people.” All the neighbours in Emerald Hill knew of the family’s predicament, so thanks to their help, the family managed. The home that she grew up in did not belong to her family either. It was rent-controlled premises that her grandfather had

Courte

her family’s circumstances, she couldn’t afford to go to school; her family needed her to work to bring in income.

The young Leng Eng was the eldest of three children and she bore the burden of helping to earn money as well. In Secondary Three, she started giving private tuition to two girls who lived in Emerald Hill (and studied in SCGS) to support the family.

When Miss SK Tan, the Principal, found out that the young Leng Eng was not going to continue schooling because she had to start working, Miss Tan said to the 17-year-old:“What about coming to school to teach?”

After completing what was then known as Senior Cambridge, the equivalent of today’s O-Level, she did well enough to go to Raffles Girls’ School to do her Higher School Certificate (the A-Level today). However, because of Courtesy of Seah Kay Mui

So on May 4, 1959, the young Miss Tan Leng Eng joined SCGS as an untrained teacher, drawing $110 a month.

She was too young to join the Teachers’ Training College that year (you had to be at least

17-and-a-half) and could only do so the next year. She did it parttime, teaching in the morning, and then going for classes in the afternoon at the campus in Paterson Road. Fortunately she was able to get a salary increase as a trainee teacher, and brought home $180 a month. After graduation three years later, her salary jumped up to $240 a month.

As a primary school teacher, she taught most subjects but had a special affinity for science, teaching the subject to the girls in the upper primary classes.

It was Mrs Ng, who was the favourite teacher of Tong Wenfei, an old girl featured in this book who is now an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alaska Anchorage. (Interestingly, Wenfei’s grandmother, Lee Siok Tin, had taught English and Literature to the young Tan Leng Eng back in secondary school. When Mrs Ng taught Science to the girls, she always thought it was important for the girls to actually see and touch things. “Whenever I teach Science, I would always bring specimens. The only way to learn is by having specimens.”

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paid $44 a month for. After he died, they were only able to afford to stay on because of her grandmother.

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She would go to the market to buy ikan kuning and give it to the girls to handle and dissect so they could learn about the different parts of fish (like fins, gills, and the swim bladder).

Of course this was an out-ofpocket expense for her as she was not able to claim the money back, which partly explains why she chose the cheapest fish in the market. Nonetheless, she persisted because she felt it was important to the girls.

Like many others, she looks back on her own school days with great fondness, even though she managed to get the fearsome Mrs Long as her teacher in Primary One. “We were afraid of her. We knew that every once in a while, she would throw tantrums, and somebody would be punished. But somehow, I managed to escape.”

It was this attitude of “we were given the job to do, so we must do our best,” that motivated her to fork out for fish, and to subsequently take on the job of being Vice-Principal of the school.

She recalls learning English by listening to stories on the radio with Mrs Jessie Geake, the Principal of the school who lived in the Principal’s House on Emerald Hill. “For English lesson, we were brought to her house to listen to the radio, stories in English, and we enjoyed all those stories very much.”

Mrs Ng retired in January 2000 at the age of 58 so that she could spend time with her daughter and grandchildren (all old girls of SCGS as well). Although she retired earlier than usual, thanks to her career path, Mrs Ng still managed to spend 51 continuous years of her life in SCGS.

In the late 1940s, early 1950s, SCGS was a very different school from what it is today.

Back then, the school did not offer Additional Mathematics, so together with two friends, the young Leng Eng went for night classes in Killiney Road twice a week. She did this because when she was younger, she had wanted

to have lunch with their old English and Literature teacher, Lee Siok Tin, as well.

Courtesy of Seah Kay Mui

to be an accountant and had thought that Additonal Mathematics would be useful.

What she holds dearest about her school days are the friendships that were formed. In fact, the graduating class of 1958 has been meeting yearly ever since, well, 1959. At one of those meet-ups, they managed

When her granddaughter was enrolled,this was the advise she gave to her daughter, “I told my daughter, ‘Don’t put any pressure on them. Let them enjoy school.’

“What is important is that when they go to school, they must want to learn, to be a lifelong learner. And they must make friends.

“Friendship is also very important.”

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That is why when Mrs Ng was a Vice-Principal, she would tell parents, “You must make sure your daughter enjoys school.”

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Courtesy of Florence Phuah

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Florence Phuah

An Enduring Spirit of Generosity

Mrs Florence Phuah (SCGS: 1952 - 1962), the former Vice-Principal of SCGS Secondary division, is a byword for generosity. She is an excellent cook and baker and no special event or gathering would be complete without a contribution from her kitchen, whether it is her famous apple pie or her delicious tauhu goreng.

However, her generosity extends well beyond food.

Even though she retired in 2006, she has not stopped contributing to the school.

Mrs Phuah’s post-retirement involvement in the school dates back to 2008. Appropriately enough, it began with food.

Leveraging on her expertise, she was asked to come back to help.

The Principal put her in charge of the Home Economics programme in the school. Once there, she revamped the cooking aspect around three broad modules: basic pastry and cake making, local cooking and basic Peranakan cooking.

For the last module, she included a visit to the school’s Peranakan Garden for all Secondary One students so they could learn about the herbs and plants, and see for themselves what the spices looked like before they ended up in the kitchen, being pounded up for rempah (spice paste).

Mrs Phuah, whose late motherin-law was Peranakan, was also uniquely able to contribute to the Peranakan culture of the school.

She would introduce the classic nonya kebaya and sarong to the girls and allowed them to handle Peranakan jewellery from her personal collection.

Perhaps her biggest postretirement contribution has been the Living and Lifeskills programme, which was originally called the Living and Lifestyle programme. SCGS, of course, has long had various enrichment programmes for students but it was Mrs Phuah’s suggestion

to combine home economics, dance, art and physical education under one umbrella to make it more integrated.

“It’s to give the students an allrounded experience that has in mind the values of SCGS,” she says. “We want our girls to come out with not only academic skills but also social and life skills.”

Today, Living and Lifeskills is one of the three pillars of education in SCGS. Thanks to Mrs Phuah’s own involvement as a docent at the National Museum and the Peranakan Museum, she came up with the idea of the Young Docents Programme, which is part of the Humanities Department in SCGS. She has been training the young docents in guiding skills.

The ostensible goal is to train the lower secondary girls to be able to lead their peers through the

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Currently, she is busy in the library where she is not just filing books away but also turning students into highly motivated librarians who are making the library buzz with activity and excitement (in as much as a library should be buzzing with activity and excitement). She also conducts regular cooking classes for the alumni association. Her sessions ‘Cook On With Mrs Phuah’ are held in the school and slots are booked up quickly.

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National Museum of Singapore.

However, being part of this programme also teaches the girls about the history of Singapore as well as useful skills such as public speaking and speech writing.

In 2009 she was responsible for helping to reorganise and curate the existing Archives Room into the Heritage Centre. The latest refurbishment to the Heritage Centre this year has also seen her involvement as an advisor and resource person. Mrs Phuah’s generous contribution of her time to the school springs from her passion for the school, nurtured over decades of involvement, first as a student, a teacher, then finally as Vice-Principal.

Not that she is complaining because she had a good time in school, in part because she was able to dodge the more fearsome teachers, who were known for pulling ears and making girls stand on their chairs with the wastepaper basket on their heads.

Mrs Phuah’s own memories, consisted of warm, loving teachers like Mrs Nunes, and life as a Brownie, and a Girl Guide.

Recess was about playing with friends and tucking into countless bowls of mee pok. She went on to Raffles Girls’ School and then to the University of Singapore where she majored in Philosophy and English. After getting her Diploma in Education, she taught for three years in a government school, but she always knew where her heart was.

Mrs Phuah actually spent 11 years as a student in SCGS, instead of the usual 10. She spent an extra year in primary school because at the time, changes in the education “I knew I wanted to go back,” system that meant that after she says. Why? “You always completing Primary Two, she had had this belief that this was the to do Standards One to Five, and best school.” then Form One to Four.

Courtesy of Florence Phuah

Mrs Phuah joined in 1973 and started off teaching English and Literature and by the late 1970s, she was made a Senior Subject Teacher.

By that time, she found that the teaching of English in SCGS was

too compartmentalised. There would be one period set aside for composition and one for comprehension and “ne’er the twain shall meet. “

dissolved. Students would do some basic research and more thinking and exploring in order to put together their essays and comprehension pieces.

As Senior Subject Teacher, the equivalent of a Head of Department, she got rid of the textbooks and got the teachers to teach English thematically.

Lessons would be designed around a theme, like trees or architecture, and the division between composition period and comprehension period was

Sometimes, the exploring was literal. “I took them on a walk on Emerald Hill and made them observe the Peranakan houses, the tiles. I also tried to share with them what little knowledge I had.”

When they came back to the classroom, she made them write down their observations, working

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She could not join SCGS immediately because there was no vacancy at the time. Eventually, however one opened up. “One day, Miss Tan Sock Kern , the Principal, called me and said, ‘We have space for you.’”

though some of the teachers were worried because they no longer had a textbook to follow.”

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Florence was happy just teaching English and Literature but with the retirement of the Vice-Principal, Mrs Wong Yuet Wah, new blood was needed and Florence was persuaded to step up to the plate in 1987.

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Courtesy of Florence Phuah

in pairs. All this was long before the Education Ministry put out guidelines on getting students to do group work.

She even screened an adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s My Cousin Rachel so that the girls could use it as source material.

Some 40 years later, these ideas do not seem novel, but for their time, in the early 1980s, they were revolutionary. “The students felt more stimulated by the classes,

She came in at a particularly important time for the school.

SCGS was going to become an independent school in 1989 and many new programmes were initiated to provide the girls with a more well-rounded education.

Believing the girls needed to be better grounded in Singapore history, Mrs Phuah introduced heritage tours for the girls to visit the old districts of Singapore.

She also took students overseas.

“When I became Vice-Principal, I took the first batch of students to England for a Literature tour, to the Lake District, to Stratfordupon-Avon and London.” This was the beginning of an effort to

The school even invited Juliet McCully to conduct speech and drama classes. To give added polish to students, Secondary Three students were given lessons in dining etiquette, grooming and personal hygiene.

While much has been made about the mandatory study of Literature in SCGS, much less has been said about efforts to make the girls do Additional Mathematics and Physics. The school made a strenuous effort to allow as many girls as possible to take up both these subjects to ensure that t hey were not shut out from careers in science, technology and engineering.

as a former Vice-Principal, Mrs Phuah’s advice to the girls still in school is to make the most of the opportunities available.

“SCGS has a unique quality about it. The school offers a huge menu of opportunities.

If they don’t maximise opportunities, they stand to lose.”

Certainly one of the unique things about the school is how it provided an environment for creating enduring friendships.

Notes Mrs Phuah, “I still see my friends from Primary One.”

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When she finally retired in 2006, after 33 years of service in SCGS, Ms Phuah found that she missed being in the school so much, she returned just two years later.

Based on her experience at SCGS and her vantage point Courtesy of Florence Phuah

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bring the girls overseas (beyond just Malaysia) so that they could expand their horizons.

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Courtesy of SCGS

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Jean Chan A Passion for Dance

What does passion look like? Ask an SCGS girl and she will tell you it looks an awful lot like Mrs Jean Chan.

Even though she turns 83 in 2019, she still goes to school almost every day. Mrs Chan has been teaching dance in SCGS for five decades and more than anyone else, she has helped build the school’s reputation for dance, she is an SCGS institution.

Mrs Chan joined SCGS in 1970 as an English and Literature teacher. Put in charge of the Literary Drama and Debating Society, she introduced dance into the activities of the society. Soon after, in 1972, with Miss SK Tan’s full support, she was able to set up dance as a discrete co-curricular activity in school.

Today, close to half a century later, she is still going

While it is a well known fact that Jean Chan is the backbone of dance at SCGS, what is not wellknown is that she was posted to the school in exchange for another teacher — Mrs Lee nee Leong Sow Ling. Lee Sow Ling had been posted to SCGS to teach Literature and the thenPrincipal, Miss SK Tan, saw tremendous potential in her and recommended that she receive a scholarship to complete a Masters programme in London. However, upon her return, Dr Ruth Wong,

the head of the Teachers’ Training College wanted her. Recalled Miss Tan in a 1993 interview with the Oral History Department: “So I said, ‘Ruth, you can have her on condition you send me a good one in exchange.”

That was how Mrs Jean Chan ended up in SCGS — ­ this, even though she was not a graduate majoring in English, but in Economics, such was Dr Wong’s regard for her abilities.

As Miss Tan noted, “Jean was the best thing that could happen to us because she’s so good with the children. They all adore her and once you love a teacher, you’ll just do anything for her.”

At the time, there was no dance group in SCGS. Miss SK Tan herself had introduced folk dancing in the school, including Australian and Scottish folk dances, but these were mass excercises that the whole school took part in and were taught in Physical Education lessons.

It was Mrs Chan who suggested to Miss Tan to introduce dance and ballet. Mrs Chan herself had studied ballet under Maudrene

Courtesy of Jean Chan

Yap, the first Singaporean teacher to obtain an advanced certificate from the Royal Academy of Dancing. She had danced in many lead roles in Maudrene’s concerts.

By 1972, dancers from SCGS were taking part in the Singapore Youth Festival. They have consistently won the top level awards for their efforts since.

As an indication of their high standards, from 1977, dancers from SCGS began performing

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strong, her elegance and grace not diminished by time. She has groomed numerous girls who have graduated from her exacting programme to become dance professionals, either as dancers or as dance educators. Old girls who are currently active in dance include Melissa Quek, the Head of the School of Dance and Theatre at LaSalle College of the Arts; Phua Sze Ping, the Head of the Faculty of Dance at the School of the Arts; Kelly Ng, a teacher in that faculty; Kwok Min Yi and Chua Bi Ru, both First Artists at the Singapore Dance Theatre; Joy Wang at Frontier Danceland and Lim Sing Yuen who started Jitterbugs Singapore.

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at the Prime Minister’s National Day Rally. That was also the year that they began touring overseas, starting with the Philippines.

Since then, the girls have toured North America, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Barcelona and the United Kingdom. In Barcelona, they have won top awards in the face of international competition.

Mrs Chan has always maintained high standards for every performance, insisting on excellence in staging, costuming, make-up, discipline and rehearsals for any performance – whether the show be at a ward in a home for the elderly, on the school stage, community club or at grander venues such as the Victoria Theatre, University Cultural Centre or the Esplanade.

This attitude is also reflected in the way in which she deals with those around her – with grace, respect and the best of manners no matter who she engages with.

Under Mrs Chan, dance became so integral to the school’s identity that in the 1980s, Miss Rosalind Heng, then the Principal of the

Courtesy of SCGS

school, installed parquet flooring, barres and full-length mirrors in the hall of the Primary School so it could be used as a dance studio.

In 1995, thanks to its tradition of dance, the school launched the Royal Academy of Dancing Ballet classes, making SCGS the first school in Singapore When planning the new premises to offer a formal ballet training in Dunearn Road, the school programme for its students. Tap ensured that the new campus dancing was also introduced would have two dance studios, that year. Both dancers and one of them large enough that the students of the school people could observe dance were educated in the nuances workshops. Both studios have air- and culture of ballet through thrust floors (to minimise damage Master classes, workshops, to dancers’ bodies), a piano, a talks and demonstrations by sound system, barres and fullrenowned international and local length mirrors against three walls. professional dance companies.

Non-dancers in the school grew through these to appreciate the nuances of dance culture

becoming, over the years, a more educated audience.

Throughout all this, Mrs Chan is the person who holds everything together: liaison for partnerships, teaching, training, rehearsing and choreographing the dancers for the various competitions and performances. She also oversees the production of the annual dance performance, right down to designing and tailoring of costumes.

Courtesy of SCGS

Dance is popular in the school even though it is a discipline that asks a lot of the girls. Beyond learning the routines and the endless hours of rehearsals, there is also the stiff competition to clinch a coveted spot in an upcoming show. No girl, no matter how talented, is assured a place. Anyone who wants to be on stage has to earn her place by auditioning for the roles.

That Mrs Chan can get the girls to willingly sacrifice their time, energy and their social lives speaks volumes about the kind of person she is. Her passion for dance and for SCGS is an inspiration to all.

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The school has enjoyed visits by the Paris Opera Ballet Master, the American Ballet, the New Zealand School of Dance and Sean Curran, a founder member of Stomp as well as offered modules led by Mr Han Kee Juan of the Singapore Ballet Academy and by the Singapore Dance Theatre.

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Epilogue 292

For 120 years, generations of educators have guided our kim geks on the journey to grow ‘nearer the sky’ instilling in them our precious school values and helping them to pursue and realise their passions. This is a lifelong journey. We are tremendously proud of how our girls have continued to grow after leaving school, gone on to shine in various endeavours and situations, and contributed meaningfully to the community.

These stories are but a modest sample of the teeming heartwarming stories that the old girls have shared with us over the years - stories of how our kim geks have blossomed because of the strong foundation we have provided; stories that also give us a glimpse of fascinating possibilities that await our current students in their near future. These unique anecdotes inspire us as a school to renew our calling and commitment to our girls.

We remain thankful for the farsightedness of our founders who, in the 19th century, saw girls’ education as critical for the progress of the nation. We will continue their vision to build our school to be an asset to the nation by educating our girls to contribute to the next phase of Singapore’s exciting progress.

As we are swept into the great wave of the Fourth Industrial Revolution with its emphasis on innovation, job redesign and upskilling, and the need for internationalisation to strengthen Singapore’s global presence, how will we ready ourselves to navigate the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous contexts that we are in and surmount surges of continual change and challenges?

To stay responsive and relevant to the needs of the 21st century, our kim geks need to have the inner strength of jade, and the flexibility of pure gold. They need

are building the competencies and values needed to become world-ready women who make a difference no matter where their passions or circumstances bring them.

As we move onto another chapter of our school’s history, these are the qualities we are developing in our girls through everyday learning experiences in our holistic curriculum. When our students work in teams to reach out to the marginalised, organise conferences to discuss global issues, advocate for a worthy cause, or engage in any of the numerous platforms to contribute to the school and beyond, they

Join us to continue writing this grand narrative of SCGS!

So our story continues, and the next chapter will not be written by just one or two people, but by staff, students, parents, alumnae, the Board and other partners-ineducation, as each contributes to our school’s journey to grow ‘nearer the sky’.

Jennie Chua Chairman Board of Directors

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Eugenia Lim Principal

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to hold fast to and live out the school values in their journey to be Sincere Collaborators who communicate confidently and work well with people across cultural contexts; Courageous Change Makers who are visionary, innovative, and possess grit; Generous Contributors who use their talents and skills to benefit the community, and stay relevant through continual learning; and Servant Leaders who are anchored in values and have a heart for those they serve.

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Acknowledgements

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Nearer the Sky: Pieces of Jade and Gold II – this collection of inspiring stories is a testament of sincerity, courage, generosity and service, pouring forth from the many who care deeply about the school.

First, we would like to thank our Alumni for conceptualising and spearheading this project.

This precious publication is the brainchild of Dr Serene Toh (Alumni President 2007 to 2019), who commissioned the stories that have been woven into a wonderful gift of legacy to the school. We are inspired by the sincerity of the project manager Mrs Julie Kwong-Lee, who undertook the work of coordinating more than 50 sets of interviews over the two-yearlong project. We are thankful for the support and direction provided by the Board of

The book would not have been possible without the hard work of the author Mr Jimmy Yap, who interviewed the SCGS alumnae and educators, and stitched their stories together skilfully. Many thanks are also due to the SCGS English Language and Literature Department teachers who served on the editorial team on top of their regular duties in school.

contributed her photography expertise and whose work graces our book cover.

We would like to thank the many organisations and families to whom we have reached out, as well as SCGS staff, for having generously contributed their photographs to create the rich tapestry of colours and history that enriches the stories told.

Last but not the least, we would like to express our appreciation to all the SCGS alumnae and educators who agreed to be featured in this milestone publication, not just for taking time to share their stories with Our deep appreciation goes to us, but also for serving as role Mr Tan Khee Soon, a former SCGS models of SCGS values for future parent, for generously giving generations of kim geks. his time to advise on the design concept of the book, and oversee its development with his team of recently graduated design students, ensuring coherence with the first volume, the design of which he had created. We are thankful to our alumna Ms Joan Leong, who readily

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Directors in shaping this book.

We are also grateful to Mr Tan Jiew Hoe for his generosity in sponsoring the production of this wonderful collection, in celebration of the school’s 120th anniversary.

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About the Author

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Jimmy Yap A writer and an editor for over two decades, Jimmy Yap has penned more than 10 books.

He was a former reporter with The Straits Times and was the managing editor of the pioneering reference work Singapore: The Encyclopedia.