March 2016
Term 2 edition
Turning the tide
Annual Report highlights
Environmental stewardship
Turning the tide
By Chris Edwards
Head of College
Something remarkable has happened.
The Harvard Graduate School of
Education has issued one of the most
significant and potentially powerful
reports I have read on the matter
of university admissions. Entitled
Turning the Tide: Inspiring Concern for
Others and the Common Good through
College Admissions, the report sets
out recommendations for university
admissions processes that are intended
to adjust the focus of young people (and
their parents) away from exclusively
individual success and towards
contribution to the common good.
The report comes from exploratory
meetings hosted by the Making Caring
Common project at the Harvard
Graduate School of Education, and
is signed and endorsed by 80 key
stakeholders in admissions from US
universities (including the Ivy League
universities). Specifically, the focus
is on “how to improve the role of
the college admissions process in
promoting and assessing ethical and
intellectual engagement.” The following
quotation from the Executive Summary
encapsulates the position very clearly:
“Too often, today’s culture sends young
people messages that emphasize
personal success rather than concern
for others and the common good.
And too often the college admissions
process—a process that involves
admissions offices, guidance counselors,
parents and many other stakeholders—
contributes to this problem. As a rite
of passage for many students and a
major focus for many parents, the
college admissions process is powerfully
positioned to send different messages
that help young people become more
generous and humane in ways that
benefit not only society but students
themselves. Yet high school students
often perceive colleges as simply
valuing their achievements, not their
responsibility for others and their
communities … The messages that
colleges do send about concern for
others are commonly drowned out by
the power and frequency of messages
from parents and the larger culture
emphasizing individual achievement.”
Now my opening sentence used the
word remarkable because this report
does nothing less than redefine student
achievement. It endorses an approach
to education that has meaningful
service and concern for the common
good at its heart.
Since arriving at UWCSEA in July
2014, my mantra has been that of the
Buddha: one candle can light a thousand
others without losing its lustre. I believe
that narrow lives can quickly become
shallow lives and it is all too easy for
us to avoid engaging with the wider
world. For many, engaging, if they do
it at all, is a spare time activity. We
live in what those who do not work in
schools frequently call “the real world,”
and from time to time we at UWCSEA
are quietly and often apologetically
pulled up for not doing enough to let
young people know that if they want
to “succeed” later in life, it’s a dog eat
dog, kill or be killed paradigm. The
conversation will often finish with
“that’s what happens in business.”
How US university admissions can make a better world
Photo by Denise Wan
candidate crammed with thousands of
hours of extra tuition trump an equally
(possibly more) intelligent candidate
with super grades of course, but also a
broad portfolio of meaningful service,
a deep understanding of and concern
for social justice and the potential to be
creative and effect change? We think
not. Indeed, we have long thought
not. And now it would appear the
most significant voices are saying the
same thing.
As pressures grow on students, schools
and parents, we dare to hope that
Harvard, Yale, Princeton and other
US universities may be about to help
release the pressure on students to
focus on a narrow understanding of
education that is confined to academic
achievement, and instead see success
and achievement as deeply connected
to acts of service to others and the
world around us.
Following such an endorsement,
the temptation to smugly trumpet
“told you so” must be resisted. True,
UWCSEA has been focused on high IB
Diploma scores and developing ethical
students with a bias for action for more
than 40 years: indeed, our current
Impact Study (coincidentally, led by
researchers from Harvard Graduate
School of Education) is focused mainly
on whether or not we develop students
capable of ethical decision-making,
with a concern for social justice and an
appreciation of the diversity of human
life. But until we learn more about our
impact, we must exercise caution.
What we can say is that the finest
minds in America’s top universities are
telling us we have long been journeying
on the right road. There is much
comfort, hope and inspiration
in that. We do not change
direction: we quicken our step.
Many articles in this edition have
expanded content on eDunia
(www.uwcsea.edu.sg/edunia)—
look for the symbol as you
read the magazine and visit
eDunia for more photos, video
and expanded content.
Other stories featured only on eDunia:
Primary School
Stepping into
their shoes
Infant School
leadership spent a day
in the classroom – as a student
The power of words
Personal and Social Education unit
develops thoughtfulness and kindness
Middle School
Dragons basketball
Strong start to the season for both
the boys and girls teams
Fresh fruit Fridays
Supporting migrant
workers develops
teamwork
High School
Fresco supper club
One boarder is keeping it local and
raising funds for refugees in her home
country of Malaysia
SEASAC success in
Season 2
Team reports on
SEASAC basketball,
tennis, rugby and touch
Community
UWCSEA sweeps
ACSIS Swimming
Championships
Careers Fair
Family Festival
Cover: East Campus Grade 9 and 10
Drama production, Cyrano de Bergerac.
To an extent, league tables for schools’
academic performance (whose
correlation with how academically
selective you are renders them all
but meaningless) start this process of
commodification. To get into a Ferrari
school, some parents will start the
academic coaching process early, and
to get into a Rolls Royce university that
coaching will continue for many years.
Many people want their child to have
an edge. Heavily coached young
people who are crammed with facts
are a godsend to assessment and
admission systems because it doesn’t
take a Stephen Hawking to work out
that memorisation is very easy to
measure. It is an important skill, of
course, and in my view its significance
is sometimes downplayed too much.
Nonetheless, the place of memorisation
in the hierarchy has rightly changed,
and now the higher order skills of
acquiring, analysing and synthesising
information reign supreme along with
the wider skills such as working well in
teams, using initiative, problem solving
and creativity. And so the disconnect
between what the 21st century
demands and what it is testing grows
ever wider because assessing these
new skills is trickier than asking an
eighteen year old to name the capital
of Honduras.
So now let’s ask ourselves an important
question. What is the good of higher
and wider skills if all they mean is we
have a few more collaborative friends
in our narrow home? Should not these
skill sets enable us to dive deep into
the waters around us, be they clear
or murky, and share, generously and
humanely? And should not that sharing,
which will be a two-way process as
we learn from those we engage with,
be recognised not as tangential but
central to the university admissions
process? Should an unengaged young
By Frazer Cairns, Head of Campus,
Angela Erickson, Head of Middle
School English and
Seán McHugh, Digital Literacy Coach
Dover Campus
Handwriting is in decline. Many of us will
have written a shopping list or a note
on a post-it in the past few days but few
of us will have drafted a long text—a
‘proper’ letter, for example—using a pen.
It is not, of course, true that everybody
has the same access to alternatives such
as email—even though the number of
users had increased tenfold from 1999
to 2013, nearly 75% of all internet users
in the world live in just 20 countries.
The remaining 25% are distributed
among the other 178 countries, each
representing less than 1% of total.1 That
said, a survey in the UK of 2,000 people
in 2015 reported that one in three
respondents had not written anything
by hand in the previous six months. On
average they had not put pen to paper in
the previous 41 days.2
But if handwritten copy is fast
disappearing in the workplace and at
home, what effect does this have—
should this have—in schools? In the
United States ‘cursive’ writing (in which
the pen is not raised between each
letter) has been dropped from the
Common Core Curriculum Standards.
Forty three states no longer require
the teaching of cursive handwriting
in public schools. Finland, a country
whose education system rocketed to
prominence by occupying the top spot
when PISA tests were first introduced,
has also announced that from 2016
students will be taught only print
handwriting and will spend more time
learning keyboard skills.
However, there is concern in some
quarters that giving up handwriting may
affect how future generations learn
to read or, indeed, might hinder their
overall learning. Marieke Longchamp
and Jean-Luc Velay, two researchers at
the cognitive neuroscience laboratory
at Aix-Marseille University, have
studied children learning to write.
They found that children who learned
to write letters by hand were better
at recognising them than those that
learned to type them on a computer.3
The evidence suggests that handwriting
provides on-line signals from a variety
of sources including vision, motor
commands and kinaesthetic feedback.
In contrast, typing predominantly
requires only visual discrimination.
Though there is less robust research
in this area, there is also evidence that
writing in cursive seems to have some
benefits as the brain has to visually
track rapidly changing positions of the
pencil and control hand and finger
movements. To learn such skills,
the brain must improve its control
over eye-movement saccades and
the processing of visual feedback to
provide corrective feedback. According
to William Klemm, “Both tracking
and movement control require much
more engagement of neural resources
in producing cursive or related
handwriting methods.”4
Daniel Oppenheimer and Pam Mueller’s
research indicates that older students
who took handwritten notes retained
the information learned for a longer
To hand write or to type?
duration of time. After a week, those
who took longhand notes performed
better than the laptop users on both
factual and conceptual questions.
For Mueller and Oppenheimer, the
reason is clear: because working on
paper by hand was a more laborious
process, people tended to paraphrase
information. This required them to
carry out a preliminary mental process
of summarising and comprehension.
By contrast those working on a
keyboard tended to take verbatim
notes. Transcription, it seems, requires
little mental engagement. In a recent
interview, Mueller explained: “There
is such thing as a desirable difficulty,
having a little bit of difficulty when
you’re trying to learn something is
actually beneficial and longhand note-
taking might be just that for us.” Maria
Alonso reached a similar conclusion:
“Since handwriting is slower, the pace
of the inner voice allows more time for
rehearsal and facilitates in a greater
scale the retention.”5
All that said there are, of course,
a host of advantages to typing
rather than handwriting in many
circumstances. There is clearly the
question of speed: an average person
hand writes at 31 words per minute
for memorised text and 22 words
per minute while copying whereas
an average professional typist types
usually in speeds of 50 to 80 words
per minute. More than this, though,
online tools also allow one to read,
review, and edit text almost anywhere;
there is access to proofreading tools
such as a thesaurus and a dictionary;
one can cut, copy, paste, drag and
How can schools balance the rise of digital technology with evidence that handwriting could
be better for learning?
1 http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
2 http://media.cfhdocmail.com/2012/06/handwriting-dying-slow-death.html
3 http://www.ac-nice.fr/iencannet/ien/file/apc/velay_longcamp.pdf
4 https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201502/improve-reading-hand-eye-coordination-learning-cursive
5 Alonso, M., A., P. Metacognition and sensorimotor components underlying the process of handwriting and keyboarding and their impact on
Learning. An analysis from the perspective of embodied psychology, p.266. 2015.
drop, undo, redo, format, develop and
edit without starting again; students
can use text to speech features to
hear how their writing sounds, or to
motivate reluctant readers, who may
well be more inclined to listen than
decode; one can collaborate online
with peers who can respond. Indeed,
according to Ito et al, this ‘peer-based
learning’ is characterised by ‘a context
of reciprocity,’ where participants don’t
just contribute, but also comment
on, and contribute to the content
of others.6
When students come to examination
time there are also some benefits to
using digital technologies. A number of
studies have suggested that teachers
and professors grade students less
positively if they have poor handwriting,
even if the content is identical to
someone with good handwriting.
Clearly this is an effect that is reduced
with word processing. Interestingly,
Nora Mogey and James Hartley report
that in the end there is little difference
stylistically between examination
essays written by hand and those that
are type written.7 They then go on
to suggest that the disappearance of
handwritten essays in examinations
is ‘inevitable.’
It is easy to see how this issue could
be a polarising one; however, a way
forward rests on a simple question:
How can we best support students to
be successful learners? When looking to
develop a strategy, it might be useful to
keep in mind four guidelines:
• We need not create a false dilemma
between handwriting and typing as it
is not an either-or situation. Schools
should try to support children to
develop the necessary skills for
proficiency in both techniques
without forcing them to prioritise one
of the two methods.8
• In early childhood (and beyond) we
most effectively learn to recognise
and form letters through handwriting.
The additional context provided by
the complex task of writing results in
better memory.
• Students who have taken notes on
a laptop often perform worse on
tests of both factual and conceptual
understanding than students
who have taken notes longhand.
Assimilating new information through
good note taking is not a question of
transcription but of active processing.
This requires note takers to have the
skill and motivation to summarise
and recast information regardless
of whether they are using a pen or
a keyboard.
• Typing can make accessible a host of
advantages, not least of which is that
it can be faster and more efficient
than writing by hand and will be used
for assessment purposes in essay
examinations.
If we look at the history of writing and
we look at the history of technology,
there is both loss and positive change.
Socrates famously worried about
what writing would do to civilisation.
With writing there was a loss of the
required vast memory that those in
an oral culture hold. However, we
gained all of the benefits of living in a
literate culture. On the horizon, we can
foresee the loss and positive change
that will someday occur when speech
recognition and dictation tools are likely
to supplant both handwriting and the
keyboard. But for now, as a society,
we are navigating the loss of writing
by hand as the primary tool to record
information and thoughts. We can
see the positive changes and it is our
collective job to mediate the perceived
loss. For the foreseeable future,
therefore, schools will need to actively
manage the tension between the use of
a pen and a keyboard.
6 https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/free_download/9780262513654_Living_and_Learning.pdf
7 Mogey, N & Hartley, J. “To Write or to Type? The Effects of Handwriting and Word-Processing on the written Style of Examination Essays.”
Innovations in Education and Teaching International, v50 n1, pp.85-93. 2013.
8 https://sites.udel.edu/victorp/files/2010/11/Psychological-Science-2014-Mueller-0956797614524581-1u0h0yu.pdf
The annual Writers’ Fortnight organised
by the East High School English
Department brings published writers to
campus to speak about their experiences
as a writer and to encourage students
in their own writing. This year, students
met novelists Alison Jean Lester, Mukul
Deva and Chris Huntington, and special
guest speakers—migrant workers
supported by Transient Workers’
Count Too.
In addition, poet-in-residence Kosal
Khiev came from Cambodia thanks
to support from the UWCSEA Annual
Fund’s Artist-in-Residency programme.
Through assemblies and student
workshops, Khiev shared both his
remarkable personal story of going from
‘prisoner to poet’ and his passion for
his craft.
Grade 9 students were given the writing
assignment to persuade the intended
audience of something they feel strongly
about, as authentically as possible,
following their experiences during
Writers’ Fortnight.
Following are two examples of the
student writing that was produced by
Grade 9 students on East Campus. The
first is about Kosal Khiev and written in
the style of a feature article. The second,
an op-ed, seeks to remind people of the
power of literature and persuade them
to read more books.
By Aparajitha Anantharaman
Grade 9
East Campus
Piercing brown eyes which have
experienced too much grief, yet still
gleam with exuberance. Deft hands
which have been beaten one too many
times, yet still bear the crafty gait of
an artist. A man, who has been forced
to confront his darkest fears, who
has been exiled from his own home;
a man, who has been broken to the
point of oblivion. You would expect
his face to be streaked with tears, yet
Kosal charges on with the passion of an
ardent fire.
When we first heard about Kosal Khiev,
the man who had gone from “prison
to poetry”, our reactions were mixed:
while most of the class were slightly
apprehensive about meeting someone
who had been imprisoned for 14 years,
there were others who couldn’t wait.
His story was a touching one, and we
were all keen to hear about how poetry
came to him, and brought him out of
the abyss of insanity he had nearly
fallen into.
“I realised, that I had the power of choice”
Kosal Khiev: the man who found poetry
Before our first workshop session, the
fifth floor was abuzz with the constant
chatter of eager Grade 9 students:
“Will he tell us about his experience in
solitary confinement? Can we ask about
that? How did he turn to poetry?”. The
questions were infinite, and there was
a tingle of excitement lingering in the
air. Upon entering the room, and seeing
him up close, he seemed different. We
might have expected him to be cold,
and quiet, but there was a glowing aura
of warmth surrounding him, and it felt
as if the tips of his fingers were almost
spewing out energy.
Then he began to speak, nay,
articulately recite his thoughts with
conviction. The poetry took over him:
the words weren’t words anymore, but
rather, slicing twangs of significance.
Kosal was working his magic with us,
transporting us back in time, back to
the harsh days in his confinement cell.
The room was stock-still: mouths
agape, faces hanging, and eyes bulging
out of sockets, immersed in the awe-
inspiring tale he was retelling—spinning,
weaving, nimbly intertwining the pieces
of his life together through poetry. We
could feel what he had felt, understand
what he had gone through as if it
had happened to us. Such was the
power of Kosal’s poetry. The pace, the
rhythm, the pathos, was exhilarating;
he had struck us, with his jagged bolt
of enchantment.
But how does one create such an
intense feeling through poetry? Life had
thrown one of its greatest challenges at
Kosal, and instead of passively accepting
his fate, he had picked himself up.
Instead of giving in to the confinement
cell, he battled on, searching for the
light in the darkness, and in the process
he found poetry.
“I had the power of choice,” he said,
“The power to fight, or to die.”
He found solace in poetry: he was
able to express his deepest feeling and
emotions through words. This did not
make them go away, but gave him
strength to face them. The great thing
about Kosal, is that when he performs
his poetry, he performs for himself—so
unaware of his surroundings, that he
touches the depths of a poem. And in
that blissful process, not only does he
Literary persuasions
Writers’ Fortnight 2016
rediscover himself, but he also takes
the audience on a sensational journey
through poetry.
“There is no umbrella, or ceiling to poetry.
There is nothing new under the sun. There
are ideas everywhere, so all you’ve got to
do, is take what’s out there and make it
your own. When one commits oneself to
poetry, there is magic.”
So what can we learn from Khiev? We
can learn to reflect on our past—it is
not about what happened, but the
important thing is how we learn from
it, and how we become better people.
Poetry teaches us empathy, and with
that, we can turn sympathy and pity,
into compassion and kindness. We can
learn to stand up for ourselves: if life
The power of literature
By Urja Gaurav
Grade 9
East Campus
Take a moment, stop taking selfies for
Snapchat, or checking Facebook for
your friends’ recent updates and try and
remember the last book you read. What
do you remember about it? Which
character was your favourite? Did you
enjoy it? Who was the author? Can you
even remember what it was about?
In our world today, technology
has taken over. It’s in everything,
smartphones, televisions, cars, iPods,
Kindles, laptops, microwaves, even
some toilets are computerised.
Many young children, instead of
going outside or reading a book, are
glued to their television screens or
phones. While we are blessed to have
automated voices telling us the latest
sports updates, children, especially
teenagers have gotten lost in the
interwebs and have forgotten what a
good book can do for them. Fictional
writing takes you into a different
world. At least that’s what it does for
me. I remember, when I was little, I
had a bookshelf and it was completely
stacked with all of my favourite books.
I loved them. The words captured
every part of me and the illustrations
sparked images in my mind that no
TV show or YouTube video has ever
done. I spent every spare moment on
the couch, reading. Even today, after
hearing an author, Alison Jean Lester
talk about how she fell in love with
writing and everything that literature
has done for her just reminded me
about how powerful it is.
There’s nothing not to love about
reading—its complexity, its smell, its
feel, everything about it. It’s so close
to magical. Everyone gets one life and
in that life, you follow your own story.
Your life is a story but every time you
pick up a fictional piece of writing, you
get the chance to explore another story,
explore another life. It’s just that a
bright screen is a lot more inviting than
a small beige page with words on it. The
problem is, easy access to computers
and the incredibly knowledgeable
side of Google has caused a decline in
reading habits …
“Literature is the reflection of human
experience”, every literary piece is
based on an experience that someone
goes through and experiences are
different through different people’s
eyes. It is a tool that lets writers and
readers go back in time and relive big
and small moments that for some
reason or another, changed a life or two.
It is a tool that lets people see the world
from a different perspective. It is a tool
that gets people to think, feel and live
through the imagery of the words the
author uses.
Literature is one of humanity’s most
powerful tools. It has been around for
centuries and is the foundation of our
entire world. Writing, reading, these
are skills that a lot of people want to
be able to do, and are skills that a lot of
people can do. So try it! Stop watching
TV and pick up a book. Learn about the
different characters that this author
has come up with. Follow along with
the crazy plot and brace yourself for
every twist and every turn. Savour the
feeling of the smooth pages between
your fingers. And remember that the
book you’re holding has an entire world
inside it.
hurls us down, it is always possible to
get back up, every time, stronger than
before. And we can learn to embrace
our fears, like Kosal said, “Courage and
bravery cannot exist without fear, they
go hand in hand. Every time you take a
risk, you overcome a fear.”
To read more of the
Grade 9 persuasive writing
pieces, please visit eDunia.
is that real writers will only devote
their energy and their skills to pieces of
writing that they think are good enough
to revise. It’s a very different lesson for
the students to take on board and a far
more positive one. Real writers will tinker
with a piece that is worth tinkering with;
the rest goes in the bin if they feel they
can never take it anywhere.
This poem by Avi is a lovely example
of a piece of writing inspired by an idea
which resonated with him. Avi may look
at it again and decide to revise it and we
may even encourage him to do so. The
difference will be that if we do, Avi will
take that as a compliment to his work
rather than as a criticism. Well done Avi
for experimenting with a form of writing
that was new for you as a writer.
By Avi Asthana
Grade 4
Dover Campus
When I think of South Africa I think
of all the greenery, space, blue skies,
my friends, safaris and the museums.
I was inspired by Nelson Mandela, the
Apartheid Museum and South Africa.
Apartheid and the freedom struggle are
a part of every museum. The exhibitions
in the Apartheid Museum were very
informative and interesting. They
kept answering questions that I asked
or thought.
I wrote a poem, Freedom, during class
after I had just come back from a holiday
in South Africa. It was decided soon after
that holiday that we will move there for
a few years. When I wrote this poem
I was mostly thinking of how people
were treated and how much struggle
there was for freedom. I wanted to tell
everybody who read the poem how
things changed and how much effort
went into it.
Freedom
Freedom,
Protests, Arrests,
Segregation, Apartheid,
Jail, prison, political freedom,
Prisoners, death,
Freedom, freedom, freedom,
Struggle, struggle,
Hard.
When I wrote a poem for a first time I
thought all poems had to rhyme and
have a happy thought behind it. After
I studied poetry in class I realised that
I could write a poem about anything,
anywhere. The idea came to me when
the poetry unit was coming to an end,
and I started writing poems.
Nelson Mandela and South Africa
continue to inspire me. Freedom means
different things to different countries
and their people. Freedom to me is what
brings people together.
Inspiration
is entirely
individual
By Brian ÓMaoileoin
Primary School Principal
Dover Campus
In our Writing Workshop lessons,
students are encouraged to do what real
writers do and write about what interests
them. Before we introduced this model,
though we never told the students what
they had to write, we did often tell them
what they had to write about in terms
of subject matter—we integrated our
writing with our humanities studies, for
example. The quality of the language in
the children’s writing since has improved
immeasurably.
Ask any writer and they will tell you that
generating ideas for writing in the first
place is very often the hardest part of
the entire process, and our students are
no different. When students are stuck
for ideas, which happens often, they are
reminded to think of a place or a person
or a feeling that had recently struck
them. Every unit begins with generating
ideas and the students keep track of
these in their writer’s notebook and
choose them to elaborate upon during
the weeks that follow.
Whereas in the past, sending students
back to their desks to revise a piece of
writing gave them a clear message that
it was because their current efforts were
not yet up to standard, now our message
Readers and Writers Workshop
methodically and strategically
teaches students to read and write
in a critical way. Researched and
developed by the Teacher’s College
Reading and Writing Project at
Columbia University, the programme
was adopted in the Primary School
in 2011. Supported by the UWCSEA
Foundation, the College has run a
tailored professional development
programme for staff with visiting
specialists from Columbia University
and expanded the model into the
Middle School. More details
can be found on eDunia.
“Do not judge me by my successes, judge
me by how many times I fell down and
got back up again.” – Nelson Mandela,
former UWC Honorary President
Through his
magnifying
glass
“I love writing, as I can share
my thoughts that can help
others to look at things
differently.”
Aryan Shanker, Grade 6
Commitment to care:
Willing Hearts
Willing Hearts is a soup kitchen where
volunteers help to make meals for
people in need in Singapore. It is a lot
of hard work and it is worthwhile to
participate in different food preparation
activities. This also helps the students
to improve their kitchen skills and
collaboration skills.
My school has chosen this organisation
for the Grade 5 local service project
as 22 pairs of extra helping hands can
make a big difference. When I went for
my first visit, I saw a very big kitchen.
There were other people making food.
I looked around and saw a peeling and
chopping station, egg cracking area,
scooping and packaging area, and
cleaning area.
I imagined myself in a big restaurant …
and was reminded of the mouse chef in
the Disney movie Ratatouille, and the
crazy kitchen there as well. I felt like a
little chef on a major mission. I love to
eat but cooking is a lot of work. I was
assigned to the chopping and peeling
station and given a small chopping
board and knives and peelers to use …
I cut zucchini and cucumbers and
almost cut my finger. Phew!
… The cleaning station was a lot of hard
work too … This environment was a
tough place to accept and to get used to.
After my first visit, I was eager to tell
my Mum all about the experience … I
told her everything, and she smiled at
me. I thought she felt proud. But she
had a mysterious smile … I knew she
had some other plans for me.
On the weekend, she got me into the
kitchen and told me to chop the vegetables
for a minestrone soup. WHAT?!
This started a whole new journey of
cooking at home.
Critical thinker, creative and
collaborative: Songwriting
All my learning of music has come
from school. Through the years, it
has been fun to learn to play different
instruments like the Balinese gamelan,
samba drums and tambourine, and
to perform on stage. Over the years,
Music class helped me to become more
creative and explore new things.
In Grade 5, a big assignment was to
do songwriting independently. I was
surprised, and thought it would get
tough. I was no musician, but it was
amazing to learn the chords on piano
and work hard to do the lyrics and the
melody. It was a difficult journey for me
but I made it in the end.
My Music teacher showed us how to
make a short piece of music. It was a
process that I had to follow. It made
me go through different stages of
songwriting like brainstorming the idea,
choosing chords and writing lyrics that
made sense.
I continued to experiment more and
try out new things in my song … I felt
powerful that I could really create
something out of nothing.
When UWCSEA East opened in 2008,
Aryan Shanker was among the first
intake of K1 students. He and his peers
are now Middle School students in
Grade 6. Over the course of his years in
the Primary School, Aryan discovered
a love of writing—along with a mission
to always have fun. As mentioned in
the previous article, Writers Workshop
encourages students to write about
their interests and passions. As Aryan
learned about the UWCSEA profile, he
began to notice everyday experiences
at school that helped to develop and
reinforce the qualities and skills, and
started writing them down. Eventually
the compiled stories and anecdotes—
organised around the qualities and
skills—became a book. In Through My
Magnifying Glass, Aryan ‘zooms’ into
moments from his primary school
years that illustrated or deepened his
understanding of particular qualities
or skills in the UWCSEA profile.
Following are two excerpted stories
from the book.
Aryan’s book was published
through a company sponsorship
and the paperback is available for
sale in the College Shop on both
campuses with proceeds going to
support I-India and the UWCSEA
Annual Fund. A Kindle
e-book version is also
available online.
Aryan speaking on the ‘True Value of Fun’ at TEDxUWCSEAEast on 27 February. Photo by Aaryan Natali
10
Asian Arts and Culture Week
Focus 2016: Cambodia
From 1–5 February, East Campus’ annual Asian Arts and Culture Week
(AAC) celebrated Cambodia’s rich history of traditional art forms. Now in its
third year, AAC aims to deepen understanding of a specific Asian culture by
providing multiple perspectives on the arts of that country. Respect, empathy
and a connection to the country are fostered through participation in
activities such as workshops where students work directly with visiting artists
from the focus country.
Layers of Cambodian culture were uncovered and explored through arts
workshops, talks, demonstrations, games and performances. Workshops
introduced students to a range of art forms including the kramas dance,
lotus flower folding, pin peat music, coconut dance and, for the whole of
Grades 1, 4 and 7 shadow puppetry art. Grade 9 and 11 arts classes were led
by two visiting troupes: Epic Arts and Cambodian Living Arts (CLA).
Through performances by Epic Arts and CLA in assemblies across the schools,
students had the opportunity to witness some beautiful physical and creative
performances. The impact of the performances, which not only brought to
life traditional arts such as shadow puppetry but also showcased a creative
and thoughtful representation of Cambodia before and after the Khmer
Rouge, was deeply felt. In addition, the libraries had educational displays and
collections of books about Cambodia available, and the plaza was a hub of
activity with lunchtime performances as well as stalls for raising awareness of
the many Cambodian Global Concerns groups and their NGO partners.
The focus on Cambodia was particularly meaningful because of the deep
connections our community has through our Global Concerns and NGO
partners. It also provided an opportunity for the Cambodian students at
East Campus to take pride in sharing stories from their childhood as well as
their thoughts about the future of their country. They also shared culinary
skills, talks, photos and hosted the visiting artists with kindness, patience and
respect. Following, a Grade 12 Cambodian scholar who has been at UWCSEA
East since Grade 8 writes about the experience of celebrating her culture
through AAC.
11
Sharing my culture
By Kimheang Chham
Grade 12
East Campus
This year’s Asian Arts and Culture Week
focused on Cambodia. It was definitely
a highlight of the year for all of the
Cambodian students at East Campus,
especially for two of us who got to see
it before we graduate in May. I was
fortunate to be involved in part of the
organising process and was incredibly
proud to be able to share my culture
with the UWCSEA East community.
There were so many moments that just
took my breath away.
We had the privilege of having the
Cambodian Living Arts (CLA) NGO
on campus to run some workshops
with students and to give several
beautiful performances of traditional
arts. On Tuesday, they performed
Cambodian shadow puppetry for my
grade’s assembly. That brought me
to tears as soon as the music started,
which reminded me so much of the
beauty of Cambodian culture and how
much I miss it. I couldn’t describe the
feeling during that time; it was a mix
of pride that my culture was being
shown abroad to my classmates and of
reminding me of the spirit of who I am
and where I come from. I was amazed
by the performance. It was also very
special because many Cambodian
traditional arts are in decline or are
already lost after the Khmer Rouge; and
it was my first time seeing a Cambodian
shadow puppetry performance.
Nobody in my hometown knows how
to perform this art anymore and in the
whole of Cambodia, being able to see
such a performance is a luxury.
On Thursday of AAC Week, I
presented my personal story about
rural Cambodia and where I come
from. During the mid-term break in
October, I brought a group of friends
from East Campus, who come from
all over the world, back home with me
to Cambodia. It was an incredible trip,
both for the fun we had with my family
and also hearing my classmates say that
they had never seen anything similar
before and that they all learned a lot.
It was very nice to tell more people in
school about the specific area where I
come from, which is representative of
life in rural Cambodia. I was so excited
to tell the story during AAC and was
also nervous. It was amazing to be able
to share about where I grew up, which
left me with such great memories,
but I was also nervous to do it wrong
because the town means so much to
me. It was great to have support from
friends, staff and even Junior School
students at the talk.
On the last day of the celebration
week, we had some Cambodian
performances from CLA, Epic Arts and
Cambodian students in the community
along with some other students. It
was another incredible moment to
share our different types of music and
dance. One of the best moments was
when I started singing a folk song and
a member of CLA joined me (I was
very honoured to sing with him). Then
many others from the audience and
CLA joined us with dancing to show
their support. That moment reminded
me so much of what it is like when we
celebrate arts and music back home
in Cambodia. This shared musical
celebration was an amazing way to end
a very special week.
To see more photos from Asian Arts and Culture Week as well as the slides Kimheang shared during her
presentation on life in rural Cambodia, please visit eDunia.
Third photo at the top by Kit Ling
12
By Cathy Jones
High School Vice Principal
East Campus
What happens if your family relocates
just as you are about to start Grade
10? Or if you want to begin the IB
Diploma Programme but you’ve never
experienced inquiry-based learning
that requires you to be self-motivated
and independent? At UWCSEA we are
lucky to be able to provide an answer
to these questions: you enrol in the
Foundation IB (FIB) course. Designed
to provide both breadth and depth of
learning, the one-year FIB provides
both a perfect introduction to the UWC
mission and learning programme and a
solid preparation for the rigours of the
IB Diploma Programme (IBDP).
The FIB group is typically highly
diverse. Students come from a range
of educational systems and cultural
and national backgrounds and many of
them come as boarders. All are new to
the College. Most speak a number of
languages, with English often a second
or even third language for them. They
are looking to share their experiences,
extend their thinking and prepare
themselves for the IBDP academic
programme. Their positive approach
and new perspective make them an
important part of the Grade 10 cohort.
Students tell us that some of the
academic challenges of the FIB courses
are connected to new ways of learning.
Critical thinking, independent research
projects, working collaboratively, or
creating new solutions and knowledge
are sometimes new skills to acquire.
The ability to devise research questions
of their own, to use a wide range
of sources and analyse data are all
essential skills for the IBDP. FIB courses
are designed to build these skills.
One student said, “At my last school
teachers told us what to think but in the
FIB programme my biggest challenge
has been to understand many new
perspectives and think critically about
my own.”
FIB students also have the opportunity
to focus intensely on two defining
aspects of the College: the UWC
mission and the UWCSEA profile.
Students develop the skills and qualities
of the UWCSEA profile, while focusing
on all five elements of the learning
programme. For many students it is
the first time they have been involved
in an outdoor education trip or service
activities. This introduction to the UWC
mission and the learning programme
is also excellent preparation for both
Project Week in Grade 11 and the
Creativity Activity Service (CAS)
component of the IBDP.
Most importantly, the specific FIB
service learning and outdoor education
programme has a significant impact
on students. On East Campus, this
programme involves working with
fishermen on Bintan, who are members
of the Panglong community. This
community used to be a sea people but
they have had to transition to the land,
and now need to develop an income
that’s land-based. Students work with
them to develop ideas around how
they might tap into the tourist industry
on the island. Helping them to set up,
advertise and market a tour and appeal
to tourists visiting the area is a new
venture for both the community and
the students. It requires students to not
only understand the challenges faced
by the community, but also to adapt
their academic learning to a ‘real world’
situation.
One FIB student described the learning
that took place through the Bintan
project: “Before this trip, we were
discussing what we could do to solve
it or we were creating goals that we
thought were right. But when we
actually visited this village, it appeared
that some goals or solutions might not
work, because we had been thinking
theoretically … When we went there
we saw real life and different situations
require different solutions and goals.
So it helped to understand the problem
from inside, to see it and how a solution
would need to work.”
This ability to adapt their thinking, to
apply academic learning to practical
situations, to collaborate and to stretch
themselves beyond what they believe
they can achieve are critical for success
in Grades 11 and 12. The FIB year is
intense and challenging but students
finish with a deeper understanding of
themselves as learners and as members
of the UWCSEA community.
TO FIB
OR NOT
TO FIB
13
By Danny O’Connor
High School Principal
Dover Campus
Examinations are a necessary and
important part of the High School
years, as students strive to achieve
internationally recognised qualifications
that are widely accepted by higher
education institutions and employers
around the world as evidence of
academic achievement. However,
if there is one thing students dread
most, it is the thought of having to sit
examinations. This shouldn’t come as a
surprise to teachers and parents and I’m
sure the distant memories of entering
an examination hall will still bring about
physiological changes akin to running up
a flight of stairs. The pressure of exams
influences people in different ways and
for some it can result in high levels of
anxiety and an inability to think clearly. It
takes time and practice to perform well
under pressure and the exam process
in the High School has been carefully
planned to help students develop the
essential skills and qualities that will
prepare them for their all important final
examinations in Grade 12.
The first set of examinations in the
High School takes place near the end of
Grade 9. For the majority of students,
these internal examination are the first
time that they will experience sitting
in the Exam Hall, surrounded by up to
300 other students. The key focus for
this first set of exams is to experience
what it is like to work under exam
EXAMINATIONS
conditions and to learn how to revise
properly. An extensive study skills
programme is taught as part of the
personal and social education element
of our learning programme. Students
are guided through all aspects of the
examination process, which educates
them on how to develop a revision plan,
identify effective revision strategies, deal
with exam related anxiety and to learn
from the feedback given to all students
following their examinations. Having the
opportunity to practice using different
revision strategies is essential, because
many students have misconceptions
about the most effective strategies
to help them remember information.
Several memory strategies1 have been
found to be effective and this first set of
examinations in Grade 9 allows students
to practise proven revision strategies and
to discover what works best for them.
Mock examinations for Grade 10
students are the second set of
examinations that students experience
in the High School. On Dover Campus,
they are scheduled in the two weeks
immediately after the December
break. The break allows students time
to relax with their friends and family
at the end of a busy term, whilst also
providing them with time for revision.2
The mock exams mirror as much as
possible the type of experience that
students will encounter in their final
external examinations and it provides
them with an invaluable opportunity to
use the revision strategies that they’ve
developed in Grade 9. Research indicates
that mock exams are an effective way of
improving a student’s subject knowledge
and their ability to recall information.3
The timing of these examinations
provides both students and teachers
with ample time to address areas that
need improvement before the final
external examinations in May.
The exam schedule for Foundation IB,
Grade 11 and Grade 12 students is very
similar to the format used for Grade 9
and 10 (I)GCSE candidates. It is worth
noting that results from any internal or
‘mock’ examinations are not included
on grade transcripts for university
applications. This alleviates some of the
pressure associated with this process
and encourages students to view these
exams as a learning experience.
The Personal and Social Education
programme in Grade 11 and 12, building
on the work done earlier in the High
School, focuses on developing resilience.
By the time students sit their final IB
Diploma examinations in May of their
final year at UWCSEA, they are equipped
with the revision strategies necessary to
be successful and they possess the skills
to deal with the pressure of high stakes
examinations. However, the learning that
takes place throughout this examination
preparation process doesn’t just benefit
students in these final examinations; it
helps them develop knowledge and skills
that will benefit them at university and
in life beyond UWCSEA.
1 http://www.innerdrive.co.uk/Release_Your_Inner_Drive/maximise-memory/
2 On East Campus, these mock examinations are held immediately prior to the December break, in order that the students will have time to
relax over the break. Both approaches have proved effective.
3 http://learninglab.psych.purdue.edu/downloads/2006_Roediger_Karpicke_PsychSci.pdf
An adrenaline inducing
opportunity for growth
14
The 2014/2015 Annual Report was published in February 2016, providing
up to date statistics on the College learning programme and operations.
Charles Ormiston, Chair of the Board of Governors, remarks in his
opening message that “the annual report reflects our commitment to
transparency about our achievements and our shortcomings, so that
we have no alternative but to improve … it is a clear demonstration of
our desire to be a global leader in international education.” As such, the
Annual Report plays an important role in the College’s reflection process
and provides the community with clear and detailed information on the
previous year’s activities, allowing anyone to raise concerns or provide
ideas for improvement.
As Charles Ormiston is coming to the end of his tenure as Chair of the
Board, he took the opportunity to reflect on both the 2014/2015 year
and the changes at the school since he succeeded Kishore Mahbubani as
Chair six years ago. In his opening message, Chris Edwards paid tribute to
Charles’ achievements, remarking that he “led with a blend of compassion
and precision such as I have seldom seen. Under Charles’ leadership things
changed at the College: quickly, significantly and for the better.”
Included in the report are sections on student achievement in each
element of the learning programme; information about our community,
including the results of the survey; the business report incorporating HR,
Admissions and the financial statements for the College; and a summary
of the activity in College Advancement. The report includes a large number of statistics that describe the breadth and depth of the
programme. A selection of those statistics is below.
Read the full report online at www.uwcsea.edu.sg/AnnualReport. If you would like a printed copy of the report, please contact
Farhani Alias, Communications and Marketing Officer (farhani.alias@uwcsea.edu.sg).
Annual Report highlights
Financials
Service
Outdoor Education
$1,292,339
691,416 82,416
Total money raised for Service
programmes across the College
Student hours spent
overseas
Staff/parent hours
spent overseas
Teachers salary and
benefits – 65%
Educational resources – 4%
Boarding salary and benefits – 1%
Administration salary
and benefits – 5%
Boarding expense – 2%
Depreciation – 6%
Central admin – 1%
Maintenance and
operations – 5%
Educational support salary
and benefits – 10%
Dover Campus
expenditure
Marketing and Communications – 1%
Teachers salary and
benefits – 65%
Educational resources – 4%
Boarding salary and benefits – 1%
Administration salary
and benefits – 5%
Boarding expense – 3%
Depreciation – 4%
Central admin – 1%
Maintenance and
operations – 7%
Educational support
salary and benefits – 9%
East Campus
expenditure
Marketing and Communications – 1%
Cash in bank
$3,439,882
Available-for-sale bonds
$2,385,125
Total endowment
$5,825,007
15
College IB Diploma results
Average IB Diploma score
30.1
Worldwide
36.2
UWCSEA
498
Students
Pass rate
98.4%
UWCSEA
79.3%
Worldwide
Activities
2,157
Activities
Community
5,389
Students on both campuses 344
Boarders
91
Student
nationalities
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
53%
From parents
Overall
NPS
(May 2015)
IB Diploma score comparison
UWCSEA
Worldwide
35–39
42.0%
18.1%
30–34
23.4%
28.3%
25–29
7.8%
31.6%
<25
0.2%
15.2%
40–45
26.5%
6.8%
Participation
The average
number of activities
that students in
each grade took
throughout the
year. Students in all
grades are taking
full advantage
of the offerings
from the Activities
programme.
G7
G8
K1
K2
G1
G2
G3
G4
G5
G6
G9
G10
G11
G12
Average number of activities
Dover Campus
G7
G8
K1
K2
G1
G2
10
G3
G4
G5
G6
G9
G10
G11
G12
Average number of activities
East Campus
Leadership 125
Music
ensembles 80
Enrichment 94
Sports and
fitness 1,028
281
Clubs
71
Visual and
performing arts
40
Academic
extension
438
Sports teams
Australia – 12.3%
Canada – 8.9%
India – 1.5%
Others – 5.3%
(14 nationalities)
Netherlands – 1%
USA – 7.9%
New Zealand –
7.9%
Ireland – 2.1%
Spain – 1.9%
China – 1.5%
UK – 49.7%
25
Nationalities
among full-time
teaching staff
Human resources
3,410
Applications received
60
Teaching jobs
advertised
16
in Singapore. Green Mark Platinum
buildings must be able to demonstrate at
least 30% savings in electrical and water
consumption when measured against
normal building codes and standards.
This is a significant achievement
particularly on Dover Campus where
25,000m2 has been added since 2009,
but total energy costs have been reduced.
Dunia sat down with Simon to discuss
environmental stewardship at UWCSEA.
Dunia: Can you give us some insight
into the UWCSEA facilities and
buildings?
Simon: The UWCSEA buildings are
unique in the region and last year we
had over 9,000 visitors from external
companies from all across the world
come to visit our campuses to learn
more about our energy and water
efficient building systems. What we do is
so much more than putting solar panels
on the roof—it is a system of looking
at the entire design of the building in
relation to the environment, with the
goal of firstly lowering resource need and
secondly, resource use. We think very
carefully about what contributes to the
best possible building environment for
learning. For instance, minimising east
and west facing facades not only reduces
the cooling load but also allows us to
maximise daylight which has a proven
link to occupant wellbeing.
ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP AT UWCSEA:
Buildings are responsible for 38% of
energy usage in Singapore. Making a
design change that allows us to reduce
the need for air conditioning and thus
the overall usage offers substantial
environmental benefits and also utility
savings. All of the savings that we are able
to make are reinvested into the school,
and thus benefit the entire community.
Dunia: How are the facilities being
used by students?
Simon: What’s unusual about our
buildings is that they function as a living
laboratory for modelling environmental
stewardship. Not only do we share with
many outside organisations how we have
made significant savings and maximised
environmental benefits through
technology and design, but we teach
students about the innovations within the
College curriculum. Recently, I gave talks
to East Campus Grade 3 and 5 students
about water usage, and about how their
behaviours on campus can impact energy
use. As part of the Grade 5 unit of study,
Energy, students visited the chiller plant
facility to see the technology in action.
Our electronic dashboard displays and
meters make it easy for students to
make the connections between lighting,
electricity and water consumption and
environmental impact, and how they
can take direct action to reduce their
collective and individual impacts and
Inspired by the UWC mission toward a
‘sustainable future,’ and the College’s
commitment to ‘environmental
stewardship,’ the UWCSEA leadership
saw the development of both the
East Campus and the Dover Campus
redevelopment as opportunities to
embed principles of sustainability
within the building designs to ensure
the campuses would be as ‘green’ as
possible. As one of the cornerstones
of a UWCSEA education is raising
consciousness of an individual’s impact
on the environment and awareness of
how to minimise harmful impacts, so too
would the developments be consistent
with these values. These ambitions were
pursued throughout the building process
and continue to be maintained today.
Simon Thomas, Director of Operations
and Facilities, was Project Director for
the building of East Campus and the
redevelopment of Dover Campus, each of
which have a footprint of approximately
one million square feet. The resources
required to run these facilities in tropical
Southeast Asia are substantial, and
Simon and his team have worked hard
to reduce the environmental impact.
Both Dover and East Campus have
been awarded the prestigious Green
Mark Platinum certification by the
Building and Construction Authority
(BCA) of Singapore, the highest level
of award given to sustainable buildings
17
MORE THAN GREEN BUILDINGS
make positive changes. Students can also
use the buildings to learn about other
topics such as physics and engineering,
and I’m looking forward to developing
more units about this in Term 1 next
year. Overall, this has been done in a very
deliberate and forward looking manner,
which is probably very UWC!
kW/RT to <0.60 kW/RT). I was really
pleased that the government recognised
the improvements that we made and
awarded the entire campus, not just
the new High School block, Green Mark
Platinum status. In the future, Green
Mark Platinum will be a benchmark for
other buildings to meet, rather than a
special award, and so we will need to
work hard to continue our position of
leadership in this field and have many
more interesting projects in the pipeline.
Dunia: Thank you, Simon, for talking
with us. UWCSEA continues to
strive for more sustainable
campuses—and for a
sustainable future for all.
“I learned that I can use water
in many ways and not just
once; such as washing dishes
and collecting the water in a
tub and then I can reuse it for
watering plants.”
Giles Flint, Grade 3
“If you take water from a
cooler or tap, you should only
take the amount you need, so
you don’t waste any.”
Milana Hill, Grade 3
“When they built East
Campus, they didn’t just strive
for perfection, they strived
for a sustainable school,
promoting the green society,
inspiring change.”
Maya Sagnak, Grade 5
Dunia: The size of Dover Campus
was substantially increased, but
the environmental impact was
decreased. How did your team
manage this?
Simon: A really important part of the
Master Plan was retrofitting our older
buildings that were from the 1950s and
also upgrading and relocating the ‘heart
and lungs’ of Dover, the chiller plant. This
was a complicated project but the move
and a retrofit, a step clearly in keeping
with the overall principle of reduce,
reuse, recycle, has brought about an
efficiency improvement of 40% (for the
engineers out there, improving from 1.05
GREEN DESIGN FEATURES
ON EAST CAMPUS
The East Campus has been
recognised for both sustainable and
universal design, receiving BCA’s
Green Mark Platinum status as well
as their Gold award for universal
design and accessibility.
The buildings on East Campus were
designed to consume around 40%
less electricity than conventional
buildings of similar size and
function without any compromise
in functionality.
Opened in 2011, the campus
also has a solar-powered air
conditioning and hot water system,
the first of its kind in Singapore and
one of the world’s most energy-
efficient air conditioning systems.
The buildings were also designed
with measures to increase
water efficiency and to reduce
consumption through special
fixtures and fittings. In addition, a
rainwater capture system passes
rainwater from a football field
sized section of one roof through
a special student garden which
serves as a natural filter before
recycling the water for non-
potable use.
18
The Professional
J.David Neidel, parent volunteer
We are fortunate to have a professional expert in our community and even luckier
that he generously gives of his expertise and time to the College. David is the Asia
Programme Coordinator for Yale University’s Environmental Leadership & Training
Initiative and a Senior Research Fellow at Yale NUS College; the majority of his work
supports reforestation partnerships throughout Southeast Asia. A UWC-USA alum
and East parent, David has provided invaluable assistance to both campuses through
his involvement with the Rainforest Restoration Project. From preparing soil mix with
students in our tree nurseries, to refining our research experiment with Yale-NUS, to giving
guest lectures as part of our student training programme, David’s knowledge and guidance has
been invaluable.
The Upcycler
Andy Tan, Head Gardener, Dover Campus
Despite the considerable upheaval created by the Master Plan building works in the last
few years, the campus remains an oasis of greenery and floral colour largely thanks to the
work of Andy Tan and his team.
Andy says the most enjoyable part of his job is supporting the student gardeners but
his skills are not limited to the caring of plants; he is also a talented carpenter and has
redefined the attribute ‘green-fingered’ by creating innovative uses for waste timber.
Andy’s upcycled pallet-planters are in great demand by the many gardening groups at
Dover. Not only do they increase valuable growing space on the campus, but they serve as
an excellent example of the creativity that is necessary to reduce waste—one of our major
environmental stewardship goals at the College.
ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP AT UWCSEA:
By Nathan Hunt
Director of Sustainability
UWCSEA
Central to the aims and values of a
UWCSEA education is a commitment
to environmental stewardship, not
only to reduce our negative impacts
but also to help restore and enhance
our natural environments whether
at a local or wider scale. In rapidly
growing Southeast Asia and especially
in affluent Singapore, this is a major
challenge for us—one where we
often feel our ambition to be leaders
in the field is way ahead of our
current practices.
However members of our community
are showing that we can work towards
these ideals through their efforts on
our campuses. Those featured are just a
small selection of the many involved, as
virtually every student, parent, teacher
and support staff has played a role in
their daily work or in special events,
with many making considerable, often
unrecognised contributions.
Environmental stewardship can be a
misleading term, implying somehow
that we as human stewards stand above
and separate from nature like caring
parents of a precious child. In truth,
all of us are intimately connected to
all parts of the ecosystems around us
from the air we breathe to the waste
we create. Thus the work carried out by
these stewards encapsulates what we
mean by a commitment to care as this
is as much a care for ourselves and for
others as for the environment.
19
The Partner
Shoeb Syed, UWCSEA Site Manager, Sodexo
UWCSEA’s partnership with Sodexo is yielding many opportunities for developing campus
environmental projects, much of this due to the enthusiastic engagement of our Site
Manager Shoeb. Two of the College’s biggest stewardship success stories, Vegetarian
Wednesdays and kitchen waste composting have been the result of Shoeb’s work with
Student Councils and Environmental groups. More recent initiatives have included
partnering with the Junior School on both campuses for Sodexo’s global Wasteless
Week, offering discounts on drinks as part of the Bring-Your-Own (BYO) Mug initiative and
working with our gardening groups to use campus-grown fresh herbs in the canteen.
Sodexo are consistently recognised in global sustainability indexes for their commitment to
environmental stewardship. The sustainability of food systems is a huge global challenge, especially
in land-poor Singapore, but Shoeb and his dedicated team are proving valuable partners in putting our shared vision into
practice at UWCSEA.
A COMMUNITY AT WORK
The Supporters
Andy and Mei Budden, supporters of UWCSEA Foundation
Andy, a Trustee of the UWCSEA Foundation and his wife Mei, are long–standing
supporters of environmental stewardship at the College. They initially established the
Budden Environmental Initiative in 2012 to help finance student–led projects such as
composting on Dover Campus and have recently expanded their support to fund the
appointment of five teachers as Environmental Stewardship Coordinators over both
campuses. Andy and Mei’s vision is that practical engagement with environmental issues
should be part of every child’s education at UWCSEA. With this generous gift, their vision
is now being implemented as the teacher coordinators have dedicated time to support the
expansion of projects through the school.
The Activist
Samay Bansal, student leader, Dover Campus
For as long as anyone can remember, Samay’s has been the voice of the environmental
movement at Dover Campus. After 14 years at Dover Campus, Samay will graduate in a
few months, but he can be confident that his years of campaigning have made a lasting
difference to attitudes and behaviours at school. Samay is an ideal activist: outspoken
and committed, he nevertheless frames his campaigns around positive action and uses a
healthy dose of humour to engage students and staff. And these are not the popular or
more glamorous environmental campaigns such as saving endangered species; Samay has
been tackling our own bad habits around eating and waste. Even as mock exams loomed this
year, Samay was marshalling the VIP line he designed for the BYO Mug scheme. Samay’s ideas
come a mile a minute, but the success of this and his other campaigns (which have included No
Drive Day) has rested on the fact that his actions have spoken just as loudly as his words.
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The Systems Thinker
Om Manghani, student leader, East Campus
Few students on East Campus are as involved in everything as Om Manghani. If there is
a Middle School environmental initiative happening, you can bet that he is somehow
connected to it. Om dives into every task with enthusiasm, loves a hands-on challenge
and will doggedly see the job through to completion, ignoring any and all distractions
including heat, humidity, biting insects and the voices of his teachers telling him that
it’s time for lunch. Om is also very skilled at thinking in systems: he sees important
connections even when they aren’t immediately obvious and is able to find creative ways
to achieve his groups’ objectives. Last year Om’s team directed a bumper crop of papayas
from the Middle School gardeners to the Fresh Fruit Fridays team, a Local Service that
provides fresh fruits and vegetables to a Bangladeshi migrant worker dormitory. During the
Haze Focus Week he designed a powerful audio-visual presentation using the Iceberg Model to
show the often hidden connections to our own values and mental models. This combination of hard
work and smart thinking are helping Om contribute to meaningful change at the campus, local and global levels.
The Expert Technician
Ramar Subbaih, Assistant Head of Facilities Services, Dover Campus
For many of us our main efforts towards energy conservation and reducing our carbon
footprint might revolve around changing our behaviours like remembering to turning
off lights or air-conditioning. However behind the scenes at Dover, Ramar and his team
have been quietly and painstakingly upgrading and retrofitting the electrical systems
across the campus to make energy consumption as efficient as possible. The constraints
of having a mix of old and new buildings, a campus in use 24/7 and the expectations
of students and staff to work in comfortable surroundings at all times of day and night
have been very challenging. However, Ramar has somehow managed to overcome these
challenges and it is his less publically celebrated efforts towards energy conservation that
have had the greatest impact on the goal to limit the carbon footprint of the Dover Campus.
The Organiser
Dena Lim, Head of Facilities Department, East Campus
Dena’s hard-working Facilities team is responsible for a wide range of services that
enhance the physical learning environment at East Campus. But it is Dena’s leadership
and personal enthusiasm that has really helped drive progress by engaging staff,
students and parents in her team’s work.
Dena leads the Campus Improvement Team (CIT), a weekly student activity that works
on projects such a promoting waste reduction. She has also recently facilitated a local
partnership with the Buddha Tzu Chi Foundation to make better use of the campuses’
recyclables by linking the process to their community development projects. Dena is also
responsible for designing and driving the Adopt-a-Tree Programme at East Campus.
A greener, shadier and more botanically diverse campus will be the legacy of her caring and
proactive environmental stewardship.