During my career as an international teacher, I spent most of my time working in mining schools with limited school facilities. Looking at schools like Tanglin Trust School, I wish that I had had a few years teaching in one of these well-resourced schools. The Tanglin Trust School is a private, co-educational day school founded in 1925 that provides educational services for students from the ages of 3 to 18. Tanglin Trust School is an IB World School with authorization to use the IB Diploma Programme. There are over 2,650 students at Tanglin Trust School; about 70% of the student population have at least one parent with a British passport. Maximum class size is 24.
image: jeCCo
The school mission is to provide a British-based international education that values students as individuals and promotes responsibility, enthusiasm and integrity with the goal of developing in TTS students a love of learning and a desire to become responsible global citizens
Facilities
The school campus is centrally located in Singapore and has indivual buildings for the three divisions of students: Infant, Junior and Senior. TTS also has a newly-built Six Form Centre that is part of the Senior School. Among the many impressive facilities are: a six-storey Sports and Performing Arts Complex, 4 libraries, multi-purpose rooms, music rooms, drama studios, ICT suites, science labs, health centres, food service areas, a 25-meter pool, playgrounds, tennis courts, playing fields, playgrounds and much more.
Curriculum
Tanglin Trust School uses a curriculum based on the National Curriculum of England that is adapted for use in an international school. The curriculum is organized into Key Stages. Students at the end of Key Stage 4 get the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE); students at the end of Key Stage 5 end up with the A-Levels or the IB Diploma. The school seems to have a strong arts program based on the space it has on the school website. So, if you are a teacher in the arts, this may be a great school for you. I found it interesting to read that the school does random drug tests on students in the Senior School. This isn’t really related to curriculum, but it does give one something to think about.
Extracurricular Activities
Tanglin Trust School has a full range of what they call co-curricular activities (CCAs). These include chess, newsletter production, cooking, arts and crafts, rugby, basketball, rock climbing, gamelan, orchestra, netball, rock band, jazz band drama, community projects and much more. The school has a competitive athletic program for Junior and Senior students. Sports include football, T.Ball, swimming, badminton, basketball, tennis, cricket, netball, and more.
Technology
There is almost nothing on the generally excellent school website about their technology program.
Professional Development
The school’s PD program is called Continuous Professional Development. PD activities include job-a-like workshops, on-site activities, working with other schools, conferences, courses given by the IB and the Institute of Education, peer observation and online learning.
Employment
The school has 185 teachers. There is a staff reflections page which I always find interesting (on the rare websites that have them) because you get a chance to see what a few teachers will pick as the highlights of their teaching and living experience in a school. For instance, one of the teachers on the TTS site, mentions the excellent opportunities for professional development and for an outstanding lifestyle. That right there, makes me interested in working at this school. More schools should have teacher reflection sections.
That being said, there is no information on salaries and benefits, and the information on teaching candidate qualifications is extremely thin. These should be improved. What I did glean from the site is that teachers must have at least two years’ experience using the British curriculum. Specific requirements for individual positions are listed on the school website. Interested teachers should send the school a letter of application that rives evidence of recent experience along with a CV, a passport-sized photo and contact details for three professional referees. These can be send to the school at tanglin@kingpartnership.co.uk. Job openings are listed online.
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