Junior School By Clair Harrington-Wilcox
The 2019/20 academic year proved to be one of the most challenging I have experienced in my 20 years at Tanglin Trust School. However, through the many and oft-changing challenges of COVID-19, it can be said that the whole school community – staff, children and families – pulled together. While many of us lamented the loss of normal school life, there were many positive outcomes from the disruption. During the Circuit Breaker period, our children demonstrated great resilience, developing a stronger growth mindset and an even keener sense of independence in their approach to their learning. Upon their return to school in Phase Two, staff were impressed by the technological skills the students had mastered with confidence, and the personal journeys they shared. Their sense of philanthropy in supporting others less fortunate, and appreciating the contributions of frontline workers, is something to be admired. This historic challenge also demonstrated quite clearly that Tanglin has a very special community that is able to face adversity head on, remains undeterred in their desire to work together, and continues to strive for excellence. In 2019, we achieved outstanding in every aspect of our British Schools Overseas (BSO) inspection report, which read: “Since the last BSO inspection in 2016, the school has gone from strength to strength with standards higher than ever.” One of the most
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pleasing comments was: “The school’s vision to ‘make every individual feel valued, happy and successful’ is evident across all year groups. Pupils’ attitudes to learning are exemplary; they are confident, self-assured learners.” However, in true Tanglin style, we are never complacent and always aim for every child to achieve their “personal best”. This was the theme of our Speak Up Competition, and the Year 6 Graduation that was live-streamed to families. Our young people demonstrated in their speeches that they are confident public speakers who are confident to express their own views and who I know will go on to achieve great things in their Secondary education. While we continue to drive our school improvement strategic headlines, there have also been many successes to share.
Flourishing Individuals We are absolutely delighted to have been awarded the Gold level of the UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools Award; we are the first school outside of the UK to have done so. The spirit of the award is reflected across our school – in our curriculum, our pastoral care, and the way in which all members of our school communicate and interact with each other. Our Rights Respecting Schools leader and the Library team have also curated an incredible collection of books relating to the different rights, and have developed a dedicated space in the mezzanine for children to access them. This year, we also introduced wrap-around care to support working families, including a breakfast offering that was beneficial to those involved in early morning sports training and music performance preparation, and was extended to the rest of the community. We look forward to resuming this in 2020/21 once we are able to. In addition, we were able to expand the 5pm bus service for Years 5 and 6 students in response to parental feedback.
Inspired Learners Quality learning spaces are at the heart of our development plans. We began with the classroom redesign project inspired by a student visit to Google and our next phase will be to develop the collaborative unit areas; a goal we hope to achieve in 2020/21.
