Tanglin Talk

Before you head into the Christmas holidays, read what our Tanglin community has been up to recently.TATANGLIN

SC VENTURES

Every new academic year brings exciting opportunities and this year is no different. One example is the SC Ventures programme.

This is the first time that SCV is working with a school to deliver a bespoke intrapreneurship programme for Year 12 students and it was made possible thanks to Tanglin parent Lee Dykes. “I had attended a discussion on STEM and future skills with

Sohini from the Institute and saw an opportunity to connect the

Institute with my professional network to leverage industry advice for the school. Happily, » KL this connection resulted in an actual programme where students will gain experience using best practice innovation methodologies while developing skills in collaboration, creativity, and resilience”. So what is this programme all about? Students participating have a unique opportunity to work with experts in entrepreneurship, design thinking, business modelling and pitching so they can learn the skills necessary to develop and sell their ideas to real venture builders at the end of the programme. Participants were selected based on an application process. They submitted an outline of the idea they had to solve one of five problem statements presented to them.

The problem statements were focused on environmental and food sustainability, financial education for children and youth and addressing the needs of marginalised communities. The SCV team was so impressed with our students, they decided to shortlist more candidates than originally planned.

Although it is an intensive programme, our Year 12s are enjoying it immensely and the SCV team have been impressed by their work and enthusiasm. So far, they have come up with ideas that range from food sustainability to refugee integration, and we can’t wait to see what else they can come up with! 3

TALK TANGLIN

TEAM ENERGRYO

NXplorers 2.0 Journey is a global project championed by the Science Centre Singapore and Shell Singapore. It provides a platform for young people to develop sustainable solutions to food, water, and energy challenges. During the process, students learn systems thinking, and scenario planning, and develop change management skills - all of which are necessary for young people to become positive agents of change.

The competition was intense but we are happy to share that a group of four Year 13 students made it to the shortlist consisting of 19 other Singapore schools! Congratulations to Ishani, Meenakshi, Prishni, and Sara (Team Energryo). They received seed funding from Shell to look at utilising water supplies in Singapore to generate electricity. Specifically, their goal is to build micro-turbines in storm drains to generate electricity in order to augment the local power supply.

The team explained, “We joined the Shell NXplorer’s Journey in January and thought that it would be a great opportunity to tackle energy problems while working on an engineering project together. It was an incredible experience to get shortlisted and to start transforming our ideas into reality. The scope of this project is to generate electricity from underutilised water sources - in our case, by making a small hydro-turbine to place in storm drains. This idea came about when we discussed potential solutions we could implement in pre-existing infrastructure and realised that storm drains are everywhere in Singapore. With the help of the science teachers, technicians, Design & Technology teachers, and the Shell staff, we have been building a prototype to fit in the storm drain on the school grounds.”

The team has built a few prototypes so far and it certainly looks like they are on the right track. All the best, Team Energryo! It’s not an easy feat to conquer the English Channel, but Tanglin parent Giles Newmarch managed to achieve this milestone by clocking at 11:19hrs in August. Although Giles admitted that he was not a great swimmer, he decided to take up the challenge during the pandemic because the lack of travel meant that it provided the ideal training conditions.

Giles spent 20 months training for the crossing and during the process, he had to prepare his body for prolonged exposure to the Channel’s cold temperatures. He said, “I bought a chest freezer and converted it into a cold bath that I did 3-4 times a week for one hour. I also travelled to Majorca and Sydney for cold water (aka torture) camps, which resulted in daily hyporthermia. The worst was Sydney; after swimming for 7 hours 30 minutes in 15 degrees, I had to be carried out of the water with extreme hypothermia. I also had to put on weight (12 kg) to insulate myself against the cold so my wife Karina and children became my fat coaches and force fed me. I think they enjoyed helping me eat the chocolate and ice cream!”

Sounds like quite the challenge! But we are glad that Giles managed to conquer the English Channel after much hard work and determination. Meanwhile, the Tanglin Alumni network has an English Channel swimmer of our own as well! Remember Daniel Shailer (2018 Cohort) who swam 33 miles across the English Channel and raised more than $24,000 for the Marine Conservation Society? Since then, Daniel has swum two Channel relays in September 2020 and June 2021. During June 2021’s swim, Daniel was Captain of the Cambridge University’s open water swimming team and they were recognised by the Channel Swimming Association for being the fastest relay team of the season. Today, Daniel is studying a Master’s in Journalism at Columbia University and has plans to become a journalist to cover climate stories in the future.

TANGLIN PARENT CONQUERS THE ENGLISH CHANNEL

INFANT SCHOOL LIBRARY HAS A BRAND NEW LOOK

Every summer break, the Tanglin campus undergoes a facelift to prepare for the upcoming school year and this year is no different. The Infant School Library, for example, went through a beautiful transformation so it can better serve the school’s growing needs. Michael Kelly, Head of Infant Library, said, “Built in 2006, the Infant library has been the reading and technology hub for the Infant School. Over the years, the library collection expanded and technology became mobile. In response to these changes, the computer zone was transformed into a maker space to promote creativity with a variety of STEAM activities. The Tanglin community also grew and evolved, so it was decided that it was time for the Infant Library to transform itself in order to meet the school’s needs.

“As we were designing the new library space, our key focuses were creating a space that was warm and inviting. We hoped to create a third space within the school, a space that was somewhere between home and school that might become the centre of our Infant school community’s learning and wellbeing. With a renewed focus on the centrality of reading and stories to children’s learning journey, the Infant Library redesign was focused on creating cosy reading spaces for children and parents to sit together and share books.”

If you had recently visited the Infant Library, we are sure you’d agree that the refurbishment was a success! Infant children can now enjoy an even better reading experience with spaces such as ‘the hub’ with a touch-screen TV and adjustable mood lighting for storytelling.

IVORY WINS ISMLA

Congratulations to Ivory S for winning the Sixth Form Chinese category of the Independent Schools’ Modern Language Association (ISMLA) Original Writing Competition! The creative writing competition encouraged students to write a creative response in their preferred language to one of many titles that were provided, so the Year 13 student chose to submit her take on Hitchhikers, a story by Chinese writer and translator Sanmao.

Gloria See, Ivory’s Higher Level (HL) Chinese teacher, said, “Ivory always expresses her opinions with a thoughtful and analytical mind and uses her personal experiences to support her arguments during our Chinese literature discussions. In her ISMLA submission, Ivory used complex grammatical structures and varied vocabulary including many idioms to express her thoughts. I truly enjoy reading her writing.”

Gloria’s encouragement not only greatly boosted Ivory’s confidence, it also motivated her to think outside the box and gave her ideas to get started. Ivory said, “I’m proud of myself to have such an achievement in Chinese writing. I wasn’t a great writer but this achievement boosted my confidence and proved that as long as I keep practising, I will see a positive outcome.” Three cheers for Year 10’s Aditi B, who won “Best Speaker” (Silver Division) in the Raffles Debate Academy (RDA) Under-14 Debating Championship! One might think that she’s a seasoned speaker but do you know that it’s her first time participating? David Sheppard, Head of Languages and Classics, told us that Aditi is an ardent reader who loves learning and is very eloquent. In fact, he had been trying to persuade Aditi to join the RDA Championship for the past two years but it was only recently that she agreed to give debating a go. What changed her mind?

Aditi said, “I’d always had an interest in debating, but I think I was too apprehensive about joining! But after giving it some thought, I realised that it would be a good opportunity to experience an actual competition and see how it was like for myself so that I could finally make up my mind about whether I would pursue debating further.

“Going into the competition, I was extremely nervous as it was my first ever formal debate competition, but thanks to the support of my teammates Jamie and Zyra, last year’s team, our coach, Ian, and Mr Sheppard, I found it a lot easier to adjust. After the initial nerves, it was really fun and exciting to work under the time conditions and discuss different topic areas and viewpoints.”

What’s next? Aditi said, “I joined the Scholars’ CCA and I hope to have the opportunity of experiencing more debate competitions!” ■