In a world of uncertainties, 2020 has been typical in the way that it continues to be unprecedented. There has been no other year like this in history; politics, the economy, travel and business have been drastically affected. But as I continue to look at the structure followed at TIS Puchong, although education as a whole has been hit hard, there is one major consistency that continues to thrive within our school, ‘a passion for learning’. If there is a heartbeat that needs to be nurtured it is indeed this. Throughout this year I trust that the learning opportunities have been maximised by all, not just in the education environment, but throughout the levels of government administration.

Specifically this week, I am pleased to say that all the IGCSEs so far have gone well, with 100% attendance to each examination. With a couple of more weeks to go, it seems that the worry and concerns for attending the examinations has been pacified and brought a lot of relief to candidates and parents alike.

As we have moved back to online home based learning for the rest of the Secondary school, I am delighted to share that the transition from school campus based learning to home based learning was extremely effective. Due to the concerns expressed over possible school closures, the school administration held planning meetings for this scenario in advance so it was just a simple matter of putting into place the plans that were made.

We did add a couple of slight changes to the procedures following feedback from the previous home based learning experiences,that being; wearing a school uniform and keeping the computer camera on where possible. These decisions were made partly due to helping parents with home based oversight of the learning environment, but mostly because of the continuing importance of ensuring the correct mindset in our learners. As we reflect on the learning that has taken place this week, these approaches seem to have had an excellent positive impact for the learning environment.

Finally some of the other decisions that have been made include the decision to postpone the Key stage 3 examinations, we were able to run the Year 10 examinations early in advance of the school closures, but unfortunately we were not able to run the key stage 3 exams. We would like to run these when we are back in school, although the likelihood is that these will run in the new year in 2021.