The NE Home Concept
The school adopted the NE Home Concept at the end of Term 3 in 2005. The home concept was introduced to allow for a whole school approach to the NE programme. The whole school was already involved in the NE programme as teachers have voluntarily come forward to plan and assist in NE. This structure ensures that teachers are given the due recognition for the contribution and effort in NE.
At the heart of the NE Home Concept are the pupils. This is to ensure that the key focus of our NE programme is our pupils. Every NE programme we plan intends to touch the hearts, soul and mind of our pupils. The departments in the school play important roles in bringing NE over to the pupils. Each year, two departments organise one of the four NE commemorative events. For example, in 2006, the CPA and Humanities departments organise the National Day. The other department teachers may also come on board to provide the necessary support for these two departments.
Apart from the commemorative events, the departments could also infuse NE into their plans through the time and space provided for NE related activities. Throughout the year, departments are infusing NE into their own programmes.. For example, the C&T department and the PE department incorporated NE as a key component of their Healthy Lifestyle week in February 2006.
The NE Gallery, also known as ExCITe @ NE Alive is a space for the pupils to actively participate in NE. The departments have also been using the space for NE related activities and to incorporate NE into their programmes. This gallery was actively used by the C&T and PE departments during the Healthy Lifestyle week. The gallery was also active when the Earth week was organised by the Science department in April 2006.
I&I refers to infusion and integration. Each department has been given ample support in infusing NE into their subject areas based on the four levels of NE infusion. The NE framework allows for this infusion to be elevated to integration through vertical and horizontal alignment.
The school adopts a Year Master structure with 2 Heads of Department overseeing a particular level. The year masters assist the teachers at their level on NE related matters such as Learning Journeys for the whole level.
With the NE Home Concept, the role of the NE committee has elevated from one of organising commemorative events to one of supporting NE to move forward. The present NE committee members are actively training the NE Ambassadors and NE Delegates. They are also busy preparing the NE resources like collated articles on racial integration, collated articles on events in Singapore, development of NE games with the pupil leaders, development of NE website, overseeing the use of the NE gallery, rental of the NE traditional games and working in partnership with other schools and partners. This has allowed NE to reach a greater height than it has ever achieved in the school.
The NE Advisory Committee is the school management committee. It consists of all the Head of Departments and the NE Coordinator. This committee provides support and guidance on the NE programme. The members in the committee play dual role. For example, the English Department's Head proposed the plan for the International Friendship Day in 2006 while the rest of the committee studied and endorsed the proposal. On another occasion, the English head becomes part of the committee endorsing a proposal on NE put up by another department head. This way, the members of the committee becomes well versed in NE.
School leaders hold the highest posts of NE Advisors and are also part of the NE Advisory committee. Their vast experience based on involvement in MOE related, cluster related and national level programmes place them in important positions to advise the staff members on the direction for NE.
