NPS International School-Location and facilities

Home About The School Messages Admissions Curriculum Location & Facilities Careers FAQ Press Contact Us

Dear Reader,

Welcome to School Track, a monthly newsletter of NPS International School (NPSI).This newsletter is aimed to give you an impression of the various activities and events in our school.

24th January, 2008…. A momentous day for NPSI. This is the day we welcomed our first cohort of students from Grades Kindergarten to 5. The voyage of establishing NPSI that began in mid 2007, has culminated in an on-time start. With the “future in their hands”, our students have embarked on an interesting journey on the road of excellence, doing a myriad of things: hands-on activities, class discussions, creative writing, information collection on field trips, conducting assemblies, celebrating events, to name a few.

Students interacting with the Principal, Ms Nithya Sundaram during their first assembly

Events

Republic Day Celebrations :

Excitement began on day 2 of school, when we celebrated India’s 59th Republic Day. Ms. Lekha gave an interesting talk about the history and grandeur of the celebrations in India. Our own celebrations kicked off with the little children from the kindergarten sections introducing themselves and declaring themselves as proud INDIANS of Singapore. Students of Group 1 then tested our knowledge with quizzes about the regions they came from, while students of Group 2 staged an interesting play about the Indian tricolour. To reaffirm the indomitable spirit of the day, the teachers sang “ Ham Honge Kaamyaab”,

Chinese New Year

The Year of the Rat was ushered in with zest and fanfare on the 5th of February. Red and Gold were the colours of the day. The corridors of the school wore a festive look, dazzling with handwork of the students in…. red and gold. The staff and students were also dressed accordingly. Mrs. Ong, Principal, Ms. Lim, Vice Principal and Mr. Teo of the neighbouring East Coast Primary School were our honoured guests.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

In keeping with their tradition, they brought a big box of oranges to our school. Ms. Chandrika gave us detailed information about the customs and traditions of the new Lunar Year. A skit based on a Chinese folklore and distribution of the much-awaited Hong Baos ended the celebrations

International Mother Language Day
The students gave a short speech on the origin of the International Mother Language day. Young toddlers from the kindergarten sections did an interesting medley of songs in five languages, while older children performed a play, which demonstrated the need for a common lingua franca. Songs and poetry in different languages, a highly entertaining fusion dance and riddles in Hindi and Tamil completed the info-entertainment. Our students were thrilled to be able to sing songs in languages they have only heard but have never spoken !!
Mathematics
In keeping with our philosophy of activity based learning, the Math activities for Groups 3 and 4 was structured using practical examples.
A visit to a near-by wet market and super-market was organized. With a small budget of under $5, the children were asked to buy fruits and vegetables for a family dinner. This helped in reinforcing skills of estimation and comparison. The next day, the children organized a mock-shop in one of the classrooms and sold eats and second-hand books and toys. Our young entrepreneurs designed the shop layout, pricing, packaging and billing strategies on their own and made some well-earned profits at the end of the day!!
In our unique Math Lab, the children experimented with the Abacus and Odd and Even Number Strips.
English:
Fiction novels are entertaining and enjoyable, and hence reading habits of children revolve round these. However, we at NPSI realize the importance of non-fiction books as well and we would like our students to be comfortable with this kind of reading as well.
We chose “Diary of Anne Frank” which gives a vivid description of war torn Germany and the anxieties and sufferings of Jews. It is an excellent autobiography that effectively demonstrates the impact that writing in first person can have on the reader. The students had extended writing focusing on descriptions and third person narratives, vocabulary exercises, loud reading and group debates on related topics.Following their trip to the wet market, they also wrote an essay on multi-sensory experiences and observations at the market.
A sample ….
On Friday, we went to Bedok North Market on a field trip. The market was known as Sheng Shiong Super Market and the wet market was Bedok North wet market. Our first stop was the wet market and then we headed for the super market. The people at the wet market spoke in Malay or in Chinese and some of them had toothless grins while others only frowned but in the super market, people were kind hearted and always had a smile on their faces. The shopkeepers in the wet market were casually dressed in vests, shorts, aprons and rubber shoes, while the shop keepers in the supermarket wore long pants, shirts and shoes. The super market was tidy while the wet market was not so clean. But the items in the wet market were fresher than those in the super market. Flowers, spices, clothes– all were found on a large scale. All kind of smells tickled our noses– the stench of dry fish, aroma of freshly baked bread and many more!! The foodstuffs had attractive colours and when we looked at them all neatly stacked, we went crazy. There were mouth watering dishes. The place looked beautiful, decked up with Chinese New Year decorations and green plants. From this field trip, we learnt a lot of new things, from descriptive writing to billing in maths. It was very enjoyable and the best thing was that we could spend $5 on anything we wished to.
Languages
Tamil:
It was a great start. In the tamil language class, the children learnt moral stories with the help of role play and teaching aids. Creative writing such as description of nature and sentence making were done by the children with great interest.
Hindi:
Students were given Hindi novels to read and narrate the stories in their own words. Alongside, vocabulary and grammar exercises which help develop language skills were given. There was enthusiastic participation by children in poetry recitation.
Unit of study:
Students were introduced to different forms of governance and political systems across the world. With special focus on India, the geographical map at the time of Independence as well as the organization of states on linguistic grounds was studied.
Science:
Students conducted experiments to verify the impact of air pressure and tried out many gadgets used at home, to demonstrate the properties of air around us. Research work on Pollution and Tropical storms was compiled and presented as charts and booklets
Sports:
Get the Flash Player to see this player.	At NPSI, our goal is to give each student the chance to learn new activities to start, maintain or enhance a proper life style. We introduce sports in a non-competitive setting for the younger children, while team building skills are emphasised in the older children. New and varied activities are introduced to the children so as to retain interest in physical sports and help them acquire appropriate skills to become proficient.
Arts:
Dance, drama and music form an integral part of the curriculum. Children imbibe an appreciation for, and a confidence in the arts as a result of early exposure. Right now they are tapping their feet to Indian classical dance. In Drama, students learnt to modulate their voices by understanding about factors such as pitch and volume. They are now able to incorporate these during performances. Vedant narrates his marketing experience … It was Thursday morning. I was sound asleep and did not wake up until my mother mentioned “sale sale”. I was eagerly waiting for my math class when we would be doing a sale activity. After the recess, I went to Math Lab where I set out to display my wares which were seven chocolates, four cars, two packets of stickers and a balloon. At the sale, the teachers came first to my stall, followed by the principal. The kindergarten children visited my shop with excited looks on their faces. In just a matter of minutes, my wares were sold out. I gave the customers a receipt for the things they bought. I had a lot of fun. I made a profit of $10.10 which I put in my piggy bank. I look forward to another great selling experience.		Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Bunnies: K1
Our little toddlers have settled down remarkably well in their new school. There has been a lot of learning and fun happening over the past 1 month. Academics, craft, playtime and lots of interesting activities have been a part of their school day. As a part of practical learning, they accompanied the older children to the wet market and learnt to identify different fruits, vegetables and groceries.
Parrots K2
You know..we made the megaphone! We crossed the maze blindfolded! We taste different kinds of foods.We sniffed many things to find out different smells. You know, we learnt about the function of our internal organs! This was a part of about "Knowing Myself" .
We can recognize the names of planets, we even know about the various phases of the moon. We got our creative sparks together and constructed a solar system for the class!! Look at the picture..We wrote about our school, our families and ofcourse about ourselves and illustrated our writing with creative art work.