Jointly reported by:
Gaby Seow Jing Yi Jr2Z(5)
Rachel Koh Huey Shin Sr1ScC
Photography by:
Kuen Cheng Photography Club
On 6th January 2023 (Friday), students and teachers from Kuen Cheng High School attended the first day of school. Senior Middle 1 science stream students entered the auditorium while other students watched the opening ceremony live-streamed on YouTube in their respective classes.
Students entering the auditorium
Starting off, students were welcomed back to school by Kuen Cheng Chinese Orchestra Club’s lively performance of a song from the popular video game, Genshin Impact named Liyue (璃月). The song tells the story of a new start in a brand new world with its lively repetitive base. As the song gradually gets quicker, the audience are brought into an adventurous expedition. In the end, the song came to a grand ending with a soothing and cheerful melody, narrating their hope for the future. Needless to say, everyone was mesmerized by this beautiful song.
Orchestra performance of the song Liyue
Moving on, our Principal, Dr Chua Lee Lee greeted everyone with a heartwarming speech to welcome all students into the new academic year after spending years not being able to see each other in real life due to the pandemic. She then started to introduce the school administrative team in detail. The school also welcomed quite a number of new teachers on board with great applause.
The principal giving a speech
New Year, New Arrangements
Following that, the Principal started addressing new arrangements that the School management has made for the new school year, beginning with the change in the way students are evaluated.
She started by shedding light on the challenges of education in the 21st century. A generation ago, teachers’ teachings could be expected to last students a lifetime. However, this is not possible nowadays as schools have to prepare students for jobs yet to be named and unknown problems that might arise due to rapid economic and social change.
In order to prepare students for the challenges of the 21st century, a new evaluation system was designed according to the three must-have skills for 21st-century lifelong learning according to the New Vision for Education Report published in March 2015: Literacy, Competency and Character Qualities.
In this new evaluation system, students are no longer evaluated only by examinations but also by assignments. Courses can be divided into the explicit curriculum which follows the carefully designed learning plan and the implicit curriculum, in which students learn soft skills, values, and perspectives.
Next up, Madam Chua emphasized the importance of reading. She encourages students to read books during the 10-minute reading session every morning and participate in all kinds of reading activities conducted by the library such as the book club and book-sharing session.
Afterwards, Madam Chua introduced the theme for our school’s 115th Anniversary this year, which is “Trials and hardships, never stop learning” (风雨兼程，弦歌不辍). Many thanks to Cheong Yong Xin, a Senior Middle 3 student for designing the 115th Anniversary logo.
Madam Chua moved on to introduce a series of long-awaited activities that resume after 4 years of absence of the physical activities. For instance, sports day, charity fair, the opening ceremony for the school history museum, a musical about our school history, not to forget the 115th Anniversary Celebration.
Then, Ms Loh Hoi Yuen from the Academic Department gave students a rough idea of 2023’s timetable which is available on the school’s website. She also spoke about the sorting of classes, assuring students that there were no classes that were classified as “best” or “worst” since students were sorted into classes randomly. She further informed students on many subjects, such as stream-switching, the upcoming JUEC, a classroom decoration competition, and much more.
Following that, Ms. Lim Siew Lian from the Discipline Department talked about the dress code and the proper handling of students’ mobile phones. She also explained how to fill out the forms necessary after being absent. Students are also reminded of the right manner and behavior, the procedure after being tested positive for Covid -19 which has slightly been altered, and the canteen that no longer provides cutlery and single-use, disposable lunch boxes. Students are expected to provide their cutlery and lunch boxes to the stores when pre-ordering food from the canteen.
Madam Hee Siaw Fuey, the Head of the Co-curricular Department gave a brief speech on how all co-curricular activities will be conducted as entirely physical, starting on the 20th of March for most students as Junior Middle 1 students will start their co-curricular activities on the 27th of March.
Finally, an immensely entertaining 24-Season Drum performance wrapped up the colorful event.
24-Season Drum performance
24-Season Drum performers’ group photo