Detailed Reply from ACS

Hi Kate

We appreciate your invitation to work with you on school health promotion and regret that we are unable to collaborate with NUS this term. Here are the main points stated by the 3 teachers who sat in for the presentation on Friday, 14 September:

1) Mr Elkan Lim (Head, Pupil Management): The 2-hour sessions for 5 weeks do not seem adequate for true leadership development, and as the project has to do with first eliciting the needs of the pupils, it does not have a fixed plan on what traits/skills to develop. This might lead to an overlap of the things we may have planned to develop next year.

2) Mr Kelvin Lim (Head, PE and CCA): The main problem we are facing now is the high rate of obesity of our pupils, and it is a school-wide issue. The pilot project you are proposing targets a small group (one class) which makes it difficult for us to select, as there are some obese pupils in each class.

3) Mr Lim Yong Ming (Coordinator, Health Education): The ideas proposed in the presentation are refreshing and it would be good to try a bottom-up approach with the school's health promotion efforts. However, as it is not feasible during the last term where we are focusing on the exams, we have to give it a miss. Problems include having to re-do the time table for the chosen class to free up 1.5 to 2 hours of curriculum time, which group of pupils to choose, time to showcase their mini-projects, and additional manpower or monitoring which might be required of the teachers during this stressful period where we are bogged down with a lot of marking, exam planning etc. There will also likely be resistance from both teachers as well as parents regarding the initiative being carried out this late during the academic year.

Recommendations: Timing is of the essence. If this project were to be attempted again next year, ironing out the operational details would be best done before the school term starts. Thus, all pupils and teachers involved could be briefed on their role and what to expect. Term 1 and Term 3 are the better times for such programmes.

I sincerely hope you were able to find another school whose objectives fit your group's. We are open to such programmes, though feasibility remains our chief concern. If another opportunity arises, feel free to contact my principal. We look forward to having NUS as a partner from the larger community for our school health promotion efforts.

Thanks and regards
yong ming