School Life

After arriving in Singapore, adjusting to the heat and finding a place to live, it was now time to focus our attention on why we came here in the first place, work.  Or in Haylee's case, school.   During the first two weeks we were here, we lived in a hotel in downtown Singapore and completed some training related to operational procedures and expectations of the job.  It was now time to hit the ground running.

The Canadian International School where we teach is a school of 750 students from grades 4-12.  We are currently located at a temporary campus while the new campus is being built.  The school is essentially two schools in one with a middle school wing, where Lisa is teaching grade 5 and Haylee is a student in grade 5 and the high school wing, where I am teaching grades 9-12.

One of the fundamental differences for Haylee was the fact that she would now be wearing a uniform.  And while most kids wouldn't be terribly excited about the prospect, Haylee was positively elated!  It certainly made life easy for us, as we didn't have to think about what Haylee is going to where to school each day.

We have a number of options in terms of how we get to school each day, none of which involve driving a car.  There's simply not a need to own a car as the transit system in Singapore is incredible.  So, each day, we travel to school by either bus, bicycle or taxi, depending on what type of mood we're in and what the weather's like.   Travelling to school by bike, we drive along a bike path through and sometimes we see some interesting things along the way........like monitor lizards!

Our current school is a beautiful indoor/outdoor campus that has a real tropical feel to it.   The classrooms are all air conditioned but the hallways are actually outdoors.  The school has a number of facilities including a track, a large gymnasium and performing arts stage.   There's also a full cafeteria so the students have the option of either bringing a lunch or purchasing food from the canteen.  The school day is quite similar to Canada with a start time of 8:50 a.m. and a dismissal time of 3:30 p.m.  After school the students have the option of participating in ECAs (extra-curriculars) that the teachers run that include everything from art lessons (Lisa offered this) to golf (which I offered at a nearby driving range) to knitting to dance (which Haylee participated in).

Just like any other school, there were all kinds of different themed days that we participated in, the biggest of which were the United Nations Day and Carnival.  Carnival gave students a chance to participate in a lot of fun games, like soak the teacher.  On UN Day, there was a parade of nations where students wore clothing that was representative of their culture/nationality.   It was a  pretty incredible experience as the student body is made up of students from all over the world.   There are students from Canada, the United States, Korea, China, France, Germany, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Japan, Indonesia and Australia, to name but a few.

Haylee participated in a lot of different extra-curriculars including being a member of the school swim team and participating in track and field.  She won medals in swimming and was very successful in track and field as well.  Her relay team finished in 3rd place, she finished 2nd in shot put and discuss and she finished 1st in javelin.  Well done, Haylee!

And as nice as our campus was this year, next year we will be moving into a new campus that is only 10  minutes from our condo.  We'll be able to walk to school next year and are quite excited about everything that the new campus will have to offer.  So here's to a great year and looking forward to next year in the new digs.