TA TANGLIN

Genesis School Project

CAS (Creativity, Activity, Service) is one of three important elements that IB students must complete as part of their diploma programme. It enables students to boost their personal and interpersonal development by learning through experience. One such example is the Genesis School project where a group of Year 12 and 13 students came together to work with students with special needs. Year 12 student Liam explained, “the true aim of this project was to help the Genesis students grow and develop as a person so they can eventually go on to live a fulfilling life.”

One of the ways Liam did that was to play board games with the Genesis students every week. He said, “The students I work with are roughly around my own age and we play a new board game each week. I’m pretty sure Carat is our favourite! I hope I left as much an impact as they have on me; they taught me how to appreciate the smaller things in life.”

On top of working with the Genesis students on a one-toone basis, our students also hosted a Christmas concert at Tanglin to give the Genesis students the opportunity to perform in a theatre-like environment. Liam reminisced on the experience, “We stayed with them backstage during the performance and rehearsals, they were all so excited and eager to have their turn. It was truly a joy to help them achieve this performance and hopefully it would be a memory they won’t forget, because I know I won’t!”

FESTIVAL OF AUTHORS @JUNIOR LIBRARY

Our annual festival of authors celebrates books and stories from all over the world and the theme this year was Traditional Tales. We opened with acclaimed food writer, Namita Mehra and her new picture book, Anni Dreams of Biryani. This book celebrates the traditional café culture of Little India where the best biryani in the world is made. The children loved learning about the spices used in preparing dishes and the characters who make them. Award winning, international storyteller, Mara Menzies also joined us on her world tour. She acted out traditional tales and shared the art of storytelling with our captive audiences. Joyceline See Tully told thrilling traditional stories of Singapore from her book, Tiger Tales. Last but not least, award winning novelist, Low Ying Ping inspired children with readings from her fantasy novel series, Emily Mount and her translation of the children’s classic, Journey to the West. It was indeed a thrilling week, and the children can’t wait to meet more of their favourite authors!

Learning Art With Ian Murphy

Tanglin recently invited our community to participate in a workshop with Ian Murphy and take away their own piece of art. This workshop gave attendees a chance to work on textured surfaces exploring a variety of drawing techniques. Ian is a contemporary British fine artist who gained initial success with selection to the British Young Contemporary Artists in 1985. He is best known for his powerful, tonal drawings and atmospheric, mixed-media oil paintings of architectural places. On top of that, he is an exceptional practitioner and teacher, and he guided the parents through his process. It was also an opportunity to see some of his monumental work and our parents were thoroughly impressed by the session. One of them even said, “The workshop was fun, inspiring, well-structured, and easy to follow. I liked the small group and casual environment. Ian was very accommodating to everyone in the class and shared so much of his incredible knowledge in a relatively short amount of time.”

GIRLGUIDING THINKING DAY & SCOUTING FOUNDERS DAY

World Thinking Day was celebrated on 22 February by the British Girlguiding Overseas (BGO) Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Rangers at Tanglin Trust School. Many of the girls wore their uniforms for the day to celebrate being part of this amazing international organisation.

The date was chosen back in 1926, as a day to celebrate Guides and Girl Scouts across the world, as it is the joint birthday of Lord Robert Baden Powell, the founder of the Guide and Scout movement, and his wife, Olave, who served as World Chief Guide. Olave wrote a letter to all the Guides and Girl Scouts to ask them to donate a penny, to help raise funds to promote Guiding around the world – to give girls opportunities they may not have been able to access otherwise, and to empower girls to act on issues that matter to them and their communities. That tradition continues today, with girls donating a shiny dollar coin by laying it on the emblem, the trefoil.

Thinking Day is the most important day in the Guiding calendar, an excuse to party, to get together with the other members of BGO, and to discuss the things that are important to the girls in the world we live in today. But as we are planning a big get together in March, the units at Tanglin celebrated in their own way. The younger girls, Rainbows, played some games to see how we are all connected (and to eat chocolate!) after hearing the story of how the movement started. Meanwhile the older girls, the Guides and the Rangers, started with seven girls making their Promise, and the whole unit renewing theirs. They then played a game to reconstruct the trefoil and held a quiz before tying each other’s neckerchiefs in friendship knots (these are special knots given in friendship tied by someone else).

British Girlguiding Overseas has been at Tanglin since 1989, with groups for girls from the ages of five to 18. All the units are run by volunteers, who love bringing new experiences to the girls, developing, and sharing skills to help them reach their full potential. The sense of community and friendship amongst the adults is just as important as the younger members have, with many photos of past events and well wishes shared globally across social media on World Thinking Day. If you would like to volunteer, then please contact us via our website www.bgosingapore.com.

Fobisia Climbing 2023

The Tanglin climbing team recently went to Kuala Lumpur to compete in the FOBISIA Climbing 2023 along with 12 other schools. The competition featured two disciplines, Boulder and Top Rope. Our students were exemplary throughout and their sporting performance led to Tanglin emerging as overall team winner with a huge haul of medals as well as a clean sweep in the Boys U15 Top Rope! Congratulations, everyone! Here are the final results:

Overall Team Winner

Tanglin Trust School

BOULDER - U13 Female

3rd - Juliet (Year 9)

Finalists - Heloise (Year 7)

U13 Male

3rd - Connor (Year 7)

Finalists - Sejoon (Year 8) and Robert (Year 8)

U15 Male

2nd - James (Year 9)

3rd - Oscar (Year 11)

Finalists - Jamie (Year 10)

Rgs Excellence Award

Congratulations to Rattan Bhatti from the Class of 2022! She received the highest raw mark in the world in 2022 for Higher Level Geography and has been recognised by the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) with their Excellence Award. These awards recognise and reward excellence in geographical examinations. In fact, this is the second time in three years that a Geography student at Tanglin has been recognised by the RGS, so we are very proud of Rattan for her achievement. She told us, “I am delighted to receive the

U17 Male

1st - Lucas (Year 11)

U17 Female

2nd - Anna (Year 11)

Finalists - Avan (Year 11)

TOP ROPE - U13 Female

1st - Juliet (Year 9)

Finalists - Heloise (Year 7)

U13 Male

3rd - Connor (Year 7)

Finalists - Sejoon (Year 8), Liam (Year 7), and Daniel (Year 7)

U15 Male

1st - James (Year 9)

2nd - Jamie (Year 10)

3rd - Oscar (Year 11)

U17 Male

1st - Lucas (Year 11)

U17 Female

2nd - Avan (Year 11)

3rd - Anna (Year 11)

LET’S ROCK ON

RGS Excellence Award for IB Geography. I certainly didn’t expect it - it was a wonderful surprise! I have always had an affinity for geography, particularly since the beginning of senior school. I would like to thank my family for being my biggest support. Mr Thomas and Mrs Ruben have played a huge part in this achievement - I can’t thank them enough for the constant effort that they put into our lesson material and for their support throughout the process.”

We can’t wait to see what else Rattan can accomplish in future. In the meantime, the award will be posted on the RGS website at www.rgs.org/schools/competitions/ excellence-awards/ so don’t forget to check it out.

At Tanglin, personal development is not just limited to students and academics; our staff also took the initiative to add to their arsenal of life skills by joining a rock-climbing course with Josh and Mario from Progression Vertical at the Centenary Building’s 15m high wall. Martin Foakes, Head of Outdoor Education, explained why he decided to offer the course, “This is a much bigger wall than our other (climbing) walls so it’s more exciting and offers more opportunities to lead climbs and run competitions. We need competent and confident staff for that, so we need the best instructor training we can get, and these guys (Josh and Mario) are the best.”

Although the training was challenging, it didn’t stop first-time climbers like Lead Netball Coach Shuangru from joining the course. She said, “I thought I could add some value to Tanglin’s sports programme by getting a proper certification to help train our student climbers safely. We got lots of practice on climbing, techniques on using the equipment, safety checks etc so it’s been great.”

It’s inspiring to see both faculty and business team members try something new and out of their comfort zone. Martin said, “They’ve been great role models; they’ve learned a lot. The same as what we’d expect of our students; thirsting to try new things and it’s been really exciting to watch!” ■