Future Ready Learners at Tanglin

Innovative Education

Future Ready Learners at Tanglin How does Tanglin nurture future-ready learners with the skills, mindsets, and values to thrive in an ever-changing world? Let’s take a closer look at what Infant, Junior, and Senior School are doing.

What defines a future-ready learner? The Tanglin Learner Profile highlights the key traits we nurture in our students as well as in our teachers, parents, and leaders: Risk takers, Resilient Inquirers, Knowledgeable, Thinkers, Communicators, Open minded, Balanced, Reflective, Principled, Caring.

solving from an early age. Emma explains, “With information now at our fingertips, memorising facts is no longer enough. What matters is knowing how to use that information by collaborating, developing ideas and solving problems. New environments push children to adapt, take appropriate risks and grow in confidence.”

These traits prepare individuals for the future, equipping them to adapt and thrive in an ever-changing global economy. In education, this means less about learning specific facts and more about building strong thinking and learning habits that prepare students not just for the next stage of school but for life beyond it. Here’s how Tanglin nurtures them across its schools.

Whether it’s staying warm outdoors in the UK, managing the tropical heat in Singapore or overcoming a fear of insects, these real experiences challenge children to adjust and persevere.

However, children don’t always have consistent opportunities to develop these skills. By immersing them in environments such as the Forest School, it provides the supportive yet challenging setting they need to build independence, adaptability and lasting resilience. As children gradually immerse themselves in the environment, their natural curiosity begins to spark and flourish, often replacing initial worries like getting dirty with a sense of exploration and discovery. Vanessa shared how this begins in Nursery, “One of the first things we do is encourage children to get their hands dirty. We show them that it’s okay, muddy hands can simply be washed clean. It helps to break down the barriers that can form when children grow up in a very clean,

INFANT SCHOOL Vanessa McCormack (Forest School Leader) and Emma Lambourne (Head of Science and STEAM) In the Infant School, children begin building the habits and skills that will prepare them for an ever-changing world. Learning spaces like the Forest School nurture curiosity, resilience and problem-

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Innovative Education controlled environment. Adults play a crucial role in this, especially in Nursery and Reception. When children see us fully participating, unconcerned about mud, wet hands or dirty shoes, it reassures them. By modelling confidence and enthusiasm, we help them feel safe enough to explore, take risks and step beyond their comfort zones.”

And who better to reinforce that message than parents themselves?

Throughout the year, Vanessa and her team host parent tours to share the philosophy behind embracing mess as part of learning.

They also contribute articles to the school’s newsletter and magazine, helping the wider Tanglin community understand the value of these experiences.

Even as the Infant children transition year groups, Forest School sessions remain purposeful and exploratory; they are not simply given a worksheet or a set of questions to complete. Emma elaborated, “All the activities that Vanessa and her team plan are

designed with the Science, Geography, and Life Skills curriculum as well as sustainability in mind. In Year 1 and 2, we focus on exploring specific concepts. For example, when learning about forces and motion, the classroom can feel limiting due to space constraints. Taking the learning outdoors offers far greater freedom. The children build ramps to investigate how objects move, experimenting with ways to make them travel faster or slower by changing different variables. This naturally led them to think about factors such as angle and slope. The questions emerge from their own observations. We provide prompts, but the direction of the learning is guided by their curiosity. Through this process, they engage in key elements of scientific inquiry: predicting, observing, classifying and explaining. It’s a rich, hands-on approach that enables them to discover concepts for themselves, rather than simply being told the answers.”

The newly installed pond in the Forest School offers another opportunity for meaningful learning. Vanessa shared how the Infant children worked together to look after the tadpoles, helping them understand the importance of caring for living things.

They also learn about sustainability in simple, practical ways. For example, the children recycle used coffee pods and use small hammers to flatten them before recycling. Through these handson activities, they begin to see how small actions can make a difference. Beyond the outdoor experiences of the Forest School, Infant children also benefit from dedicated STEAM spaces such as Griff’s Imaginarium. Here, they take on age-appropriate challenges in robotics and programming, applying problem-solving skills and learning to collaborate effectively as a team. In the long term, it is this ability to make meaningful connections that leaves a lasting impact. From a STEAM perspective, these experiences extend far beyond the early years, continuing to shape and enrich their learning well into Junior School and beyond.

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But what happens next? As children grow beyond being curious explorers, how does Junior School build on that foundation and help them refine their thinking, deepen their understanding, and apply their skills with greater independence and purpose?

Joseph Gale, who is the Future Ready Lead at Junior School, shares more with us.

Junior School Joseph Gale (Future Ready Lead) What does it really mean to prepare children for the future? In the Junior School, this question sits at the heart of my role as Future Ready Lead. Being “future ready” is not an extra subject or a oneoff initiative. It is a thread woven through learning, co-curricular life and pastoral development from Years 3 to 6, ensuring that students develop the skills, understanding and mindsets they will need in a rapidly changing world. Our approach brings together four key strands: Service, Sustainability, STEAM and Enterprise.

Through service, every year group is linked to meaningful causes and real experiences. Year 3 students take part in Chores for Change supporting Conservation International, Year 4 work with Food from the Heart, Year 5 build connections with residents at St John’s home for elderly persons, and Year 6 mentor younger students while supporting the Singapore Disability Council. Service becomes part of how students understand empathy, responsibility and leadership.

Through sustainability, students learn about their impact on the world around them. ECO Club initiatives, Eco Bricks, beach cleanups, the Ocean Ambassadors programme, and projects exploring deforestation, pollution and sustainable buildings help children see how their learning connects to real environmental challenges.

Our Legacy Leaders even work alongside Sixth Form students to promote sustainable change across the school. Through STEAM, students apply their knowledge creatively. They design bridges, build robot hands, create kinetic sculptures, model Ancient Greek architecture using CAD, code games, design rockets and construct 3D mountain models with integrated circuits. Technology is used purposefully to deepen understanding and inspire innovation.

Through enterprise, children begin to understand how ideas become reality. From budgeting and advertising to accounting,

market research and product design CCAs, students explore money, marketing and innovation in practical, age-appropriate ways. What makes Future Ready distinctive is that these experiences are not isolated events. They are mapped carefully across year groups and integrated into topics and lessons, outdoor education and cocurricular opportunities.

Ultimately, Future Ready is about more than preparing students for the next stage of school. It is about helping them become curious

Innovative Education thinkers, compassionate citizens, creative problem-solvers and confident learners—children who are ready to contribute positively to the world they will inherit.

With a strong foundation now in place, how do Junior School students continue to sharpen their skills by developing the confidence, adaptability and critical thinking needed to become truly future-ready individuals in an increasingly interconnected global world? Àlex Bosch, Senior School’s Assistant Head (Academic), tells us more.

Senior School Àlex Bosch | Assistant Head (Academic) In the Senior School, a student’s experience broadens considerably.

They experience more subjects, greater independence and increased agency. Students encounter a wide range of disciplines, some familiar and others entirely new. They discover interests, find inspiration and, over time, grow into young adults with opinions, perspective and a developing sense of self. Many achieve outstanding examination results that open doors to exciting tertiary institutions and beyond. Measured by these metrics, Tanglin is an extremely successful school. And yet, an important question remains: do examination results alone prepare students for their future?

world, academic results alone are not enough. The more pressing question is how we prepare students to think, adapt and thrive when the path ahead is not clearly mapped out. At Tanglin, we do this by placing ‘Future Ready’ at the centre of everything we do. It is the thread that binds together our core principles of ‘Personal Best’, ‘Inspired Learners’ and ‘Flourishing Individuals’. It is the point at which academic excellence and innovation, exceptional pastoral care and our long-held ambitions for our students converge.

Our understanding of the future is grounded not in predictions about specific jobs, but in a clear view of the skills, habits and dispositions that enable young people to succeed. We consider what universities, employers and wider society value, and we deliberately create opportunities for students to develop and demonstrate these qualities throughout their school experience.

This means valuing deep and secure knowledge, while ensuring students can apply what they know flexibly in new and unfamiliar contexts. It means equipping them to use AI thoughtfully and effectively, as a tool that enhances learning rather than replaces thinking. It involves supporting students to understand how learning happens, to sustain focus and to manage distraction in an increasingly noisy world. We ask them to accept uncertainty as an inherent part of learning, to embrace challenge and to recognise that growth rarely comes without difficulty. We encourage them to seek feedback relentlessly, to fail well, and to understand the formative value of mistakes. We also nurture curiosity, helping students pursue their interests with purpose and reflect honestly on what they know, and what they have yet to master.

The idea of ‘the future’ is often associated with particular disciplines. As students progress through the school, we want them to continue embedding technology meaningfully in their learning.

The phrase “we are preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist” is well-worn in education. The longer one has worked in this field, the more often one has heard it repeated. While there is some truth in the sentiment, it has also become a convenient refrain for many self-professed gurus, often followed by claims of innovation that do not always live up to their promise. The introduction of Excel, for example, was once framed as revolutionary. With hindsight, its impact to learning was perhaps not quite as earthshattering as originally suggested. What feels different now is pace.

Artificial intelligence is developing rapidly, and alongside ongoing global instability, it has made the notion of “the future” even harder to define. What is clear, however, is that AI and world events are very real concerns for parents. They are visible, immediate and unavoidable. Quite rightly, families expect the institutions they trust with what matters most to them to have a clear plan: not only to respond to these realities, but to prepare their children to navigate them confidently.

We know that success in external qualifications continues to matter and that it opens doors. But in a fast-changing and uncertain

We invest in STEAM pathways, explore robotics and environmental sciences, and teach students how AI can support efficiency, creativity and deeper understanding. However, we have no doubt that there is no such thing as being ‘future ready’ without history, without languages, or without the arts. A truly future-focused education is broad and balanced. It is one in which students learn to collaborate, to show resilience and integrity, and to act with kindness and humility. It is one that develops grit, nurtures a sense of community and helps young people understand their place in the world, as well as their responsibility to others. Preparing students for the future is not about predicting it. It is about giving them the confidence, skills and values to meet it, whatever shape it takes.

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