NEWSLETTER FOR PARENTS

St Hi lda’s Primary School Establ ished in 1934

A dynamic learning communi ty that nurtures loyal c i t izens wi th g lobal out look and Godly character .

Dear Parents

Greetings from all Hildan staff and children! A Blessed New Year to you, and may 2017 bring joy with glad tidings to one and all! I give thanks for the past year and for having the school community with us as we continue the jour-ney through the coming 40 weeks that God has given us in a school year.

New Year means new hope and expectations. 2017 will be a bet-ter year than the one that has gone by and that our strength from the Lord will be more than sufficient for the days ahead.

The school year started well with Back to School with Dad on the first day of school followed by two Friday evenings of Meet-the-Parents sessions for P2 to 6 lev-els. The school is very pleased to have good participation and sup-port from all our parents including having more fathers coming to school with their children on the first day. Indeed, it was a very good start for the children having their fathers take the effort to join them in school.

This year, the school is putting in more effort to encourage our Hil-dans to be active in serving the community through various val-ues in action platforms. For exam-ple, to promote students' owner-ship of the common spaces, i.e. classroom, canteen and common corridors around the canteen, our students will be involved in main-taining the cleanliness on a regu-lar basis. P2 to 6 classes will be rostered to clean the canteen ta-bles at the end of their recess. For classrooms, the school initia-

Term 1/ 2017

tive entitled “Yes We CAN” (Clean, Attractive and Neat) is to incentivise our Hildans to do their part to keep their classroom clean. In each semes-ter, the top 5 classes in each lev-el assessed to be clean, attrac-tive and neat based on a set of guidelines will be recognised with a special class award during the school assembly.

We hope that over the years of a Hildan’s life and experience in school, he or she will imbue a positive attitude of civic con-sciousness in the community and ultimately develop a sense of em-pathy for those who kept Singa-pore clean and help them see dignity in all forms of labour. On this note, we seek the help of par-ents to reinforce the same mes-sage at home.

On 5 Jan 2017, Lianhe Zaobao’s article on the “Joy of Learning is the joy of life” was a commentary by Assoc Professor Eugene Tan (Associate Professor of Law / SMU) (translated in English) stat-ing that parents and educators had to rethink what was the foun-dation of education as excellent academic results were only one part of the equation. He added that intangible outcomes such as critical thinking skills, moral val-ues and beliefs were equally im-portant. He also highlighted the need for students to have a posi-tive attitude towards lifelong learning and stressed the im-portance of having both the skills and desire to innovate, to prepare themselves for the future. He added that the education system

must also understand that fail-ure was a key part to learning and growth, and allow stu-dents to be unafraid of making mistakes during their studies. The commentary concluded that the education system must not only equip students with relevant skills, but also ensure that they had the prop-er values and spirit such as resilience and adaptability. At our school, we are cogni-zant of the points raised by Associate Professor Eugene Tan and have been painstak-ingly reviewing our school’s programmes and initiatives to promote critical thinking skills and sound moral values. Hopefully, at the end of a Hil-dan’s six years of education in SHPS, he will develop the spirit of resilience and adapta-bility that are important for the future.

All the best to our students’ learning in 2017!

Kew Mee Ying

PAGE 2 TERM 1 / 2017 NEWSLETTER FOR PARENTS

2016 EDUSAVE AWARDEES FOR STUDENTS

Congratulations to all our P6 2016 cohort for passing their PSLE! We are happy that all of them are now in Secondary schools. Hope that our 2017 P6 cohort will do just as well as the 2016 P6 cohort in ttheir PSLE.

2016 PSLE RESULTS

PSLE National SHPS

% Passes 98.3% 100%

Express

Stream in Sec

Sch

66.2% 76.2%

Normal Academic 21.7% 17.2%

Normal Technical 10.4% 6.6%

Subject National SHPS

English Lan-

guage

96.7% 99.3%

Chinese

Language

96.6% 97.0%

Malay

Language

98.1% 100%

Tamil

Language

97.0% 89.5%

Mathematics 85.2% 91.4%

Science 90.6% 95.7%

Higher MT

(CL)

97.9% 100%

Higher MT

(ML)

95.0% 100%

Higher MT

(TL)

99.8% 100%

Congratulations to our students who were awarded the various Edusave awards! The details are:

No. of Students

Edusave Scholarships 53 (P5 & 6)

Edusave Merit Bursary 362

Good Progress Award 137

EAGLES (achievement) 35

EAGLES (Leadership) 28

EAGLES (Service) 15

Edusave Character Award 33

Edusave Character Award is launched in 2012. The eligibility criteria include:

> Singapore citizen

> Student must demonstrate good con-duct and values on a consistent basis

> Student must show a high level of civic responsibility and qualities associated with resilience.

For more details on the Edusave awards, please refer to the Student’s Handbook Pg 11.

Key Personnel

Mrs Tan Bee Li

HOD English

Mrs Melissa Chew

HOD Maths

Mr Lim Hui Zhi

HOD Mother TongueMrs Daphne Phua

HOD CCE

Mrs Junice Tan

HOD ICT

Mr Vaithilingam

HOD PE & CCA & AestheticsMs Joyce Tan

HOD Discipline & SL

Mrs Susana Lim

School Staff Development

PAGE 3 TERM 1 / 2017 NEWSLETTER FOR PARENTS

2017 SCHOOL STEERING COMMITTEE

- Heads of Department

Newly

appoin

ted

Key Personnel – Subject Heads/Level Heads

Mrs Sheryl Cheng

LH Maths

Mr Daniel Ng

SH ICT & Data Management

Mrs Elizabeth Simon

SH Aesthetics

Mrs Eleanor Goh

SH CEMrs Jasmine David

SH CS & SS

Mr Isaac Lee

SH PE

Mr Mohd Noh

SH VIA & PartnershipMrs Elaine Wong

SH SCMdm Rohayah Ya’acub

SH ML

Newly

appoin

ted

Key Personnel – Senior Teachers

Mrs Tiong-Tan Ee Peng

ST Art

Mdm Zhang Tao

ST CLMs Teo Kah Sze

ST CL

Mr Edwin Lim

ST English

Mrs Cindy Simon

ST English

Mrs Irene Tai

ST EnglishMrs Wong Li Ching

ST Learning Needs

Mr Aloysius Loh Yun Kong

ST PE

Key Personnel – Year Heads

Mr Andrew Soong

Year Head P5 & 6

Mrs Gina Ow

Year Head P1 & 2

Mdm Sonia Lee

Asst Year Head P3 & 4Mrs Jocelyn Chan

Asst Year Head P5 & 6

Key Personnel – Senior Teachers

Mr Dan Ang

ST Math

Mdm Natila Abu Bakar

ST Math

Mrs Nazima S Mohammed

LT English

Mrs K Bala

ST TL

Key Personnel – Internal Subject / Level Heads

Mr Andy Ng

Internal SH GEP

Ms Poh Lin Hui

Internal SH CL

PAGE 6 NEWSLETTER FOR PARENTS TERM 1 / 2017

SCHOOL COMMUNICATIONS WITH PARENTS

VICE-PRINCIPALS

By now you would have been introduced to the two new Vice-Principals that have joined the school. Mrs Goh Hui Cheng is the new Vice-Principal for curriculum and Ms Penny Ng is the new Vice-Principal for admin-istration.

If you have concerns or feedback for the school re-garding teaching and learn-ing, you can contact either Mrs Goh or Mr Jeremy Ang.

Their email addresses are:

Goh_hui_cheng@schools.gov.sg

Ang_wei_teck@schools.gov.sg.

For administrative matters, you can contact Ms Penny Ng at ng_lee_yong@schools.gov.sg.

SNAC

The school has engaged SNAC to communicate with our parents this year as they

2017 SCHOOL INITIATIVES & UPDATES

SCHOOL ASSESSMENTS

P1—5—No Continual As-sessment for Term 1 and 3. This year, we have also tak-en away CA 2 for P5 in line with the school’s direction to have assessment of learning rather than assessment for learning.

P6—Continual Assessment in Term 1 still applies to ena-ble the students to have more practice in preparation for PSLE.

DAILYWORK

The component of Daily Work still applies in the overall Se-mestral Assessment results.

SCHOOL MUSICAL CUM

DRAMA PERFORMANCE

This year, there will be a school musical cum drama production in November. Do look out for more details es-pecially for those students who have musical talents and skills in drama to join in the performance. The venue for

INSPIRING CHINESE LANGUAGE TEACHERS’ AWARDS 2017

Organised by Lianhe Zaobao and zaobao.sg, co-organised by SGP Chinese Middle Sch Teachers’ As-sociation and SGP Chi-nese Teachers’ Union with the strong endorsement by the MOE and sponsored by Lee Foundation, the 20

th

Inspiring CL Teachers’ Awards is now open for nomi-nation.

The award aim to give due recognition to deserving CL teachers who have shown exemplary efforts towards the teaching of CL and culture. They also reward those who

the performance will be in our school.

This year, the school is not or-ganising the Innovation and Enterprise Carnival which is a platform for the school to raise funds as we have no plans to embark on any special project. The funds raised in 2016 have been used to spruce up the school canteen. Hope that the new canteen would be one of our students’ favourite places to go to.

develop in students an apprecia-tion of the CL and culture in year 2016.

The nomination form can be downloaded from www.zaobao.sg. The closing date is 28 Feb 2017. Hope that parents will nominate our CL teachers for the award.

offered the best quotation. .

As we have been using this channel of communication for the past four years, we hope that all our parents will leverage on SNAC. This real-time web-to-mobile device communica-tion channel will be used by the school to send PDF attach-ment, messages or event notifi-cations to you.

If you have not downloaded the apps, please search for SNAC on Apple’s App store or Google Play to download the apps.

TERM 1 / 2017 PAGE 7 NEWSLETTER FOR PARENTS

We bid farewell to the following colleagues who have left the school:

Mrs Zahira - promoted to be a Vice-Principal in Ang Mo Kio Primary School

Mdm Noorhaslin (EL teacher)

Mr Koh Chaik Koon (Math teacher)

Mdm Noor Nadiya (Malay Language teacher)

RETIREMENT

Mrs Yvonne Chu (HOD/SC) has retired from the teach-ing service with effect from 1 Feb 2017 having served for more than 30 years. We wish her God’s blessings of good health and abundant joy in her future endeavours.

WELCOME & FAREWELL

FOR OUR TEACHING STAFF

2017 TERM 1 KEY EVENTS

The following colleagues have joined the school in Jan-uary namely : Mrs Goh Hui Cheng — Vice-Principal Ms Penny Ng — Vice-Principal (Admin) Mrs Junice Tan — HOD / Info & Technology Mdm Rohayah Ya’acub — SH / Malay Language Mrs Desiree Chua — Assistant Year Head Mrs Cassandra Choo — English Language teacher Mr Muhammad Zikri Hakim — English Language

teacher

Student Exchange with Anubaan Chiang Mai school - 13 Jan

Student Exchange with Chia Yi City Taiwan school - 16—17 Jan

Student Leaders’ Investiture— 9 Feb, Thursday

Total Defence Day—15 Feb, Wednesday

Talent Fiesta—10 Mar, Friday