Unity Sec Term 1 Newsletter (2022)

#OPPORTUNITY Unity Secondary School Newsletter

New Year, New Ways This year, the school embarks on a new structure where students are now grouped in form classes according to their Co-Curricular Activities (CCA) and they are taken care by Character Coaches whose roles are similar to that of a Form Teacher. The Character Coaches will not only monitor students' academic progress but also ensure their well-being and character development.

This is in preparation for Full Subject Based Banding (FSBB) in 2024, which is progressively being rolled out in secondary schools from this year. Additionally, students are groomed to become CCA leaders who cultivate the five practices of the Leadership Challenge Model.

Contents Principal's Address - 2 Secondary One Orientation Week - 5 Release of National Examination Results - 11 Chinese New Year Celebration - 13 Total Defence Day - 17 Unity Young Writers Festival - 18 Minister's Chan Chun Sing Visit - 19

From the Principal's desk - Term 1 Dear Parents/Guardian, The academic year 2022 started with Personal Leadership Learning Week (PLLW) which comprised a series of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) experiences. With awareness of SEL, students will be able to manage themselves better and perform well in school.

One of the key programmes is the Strengths Profiling Workshop for Secondary 1 and Strengths Applications workshops for Secondary 2, 3, 4 and 5 classes. These Strengths Finders workshops help students to discover their strengths. Students then learn how to make use of their strengths in their learning.

As part of the school’s efforts to prepare students for their learning, they were taught target-setting and crafting of action plans to achieve their goals. Education and Career Guidance lessons were also conducted to raise awareness about post-secondary courses and respective criteria for admission. For the Sec 2 students, such awareness helps them in deciding their Sec 3 subject combinations.

Students were also reminded of classroom and learning routines, learning strategies like note-taking and use of graphic organisers to consolidate their learning, ICT productivity tools and safe use of their personal learning devices. They were also reminded of the importance of developing a Growth Mindset, particularly the Effort-Belief cycle to achieve their goals.

Since it is the start of the Academic Year, Subject Teachers gave Lesson Overviews so that students are aware of the topics to be covered this year, as well as assessment objectives and assessment formats.

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This year, the school initiated CCA-centric form classes, whereby students are grouped according to their CCAs. This new CCA-centric form class structure aims to provide opportunities for students to interact with other students from different courses, different subject combinations as well as different levels.

They will attend CCA training sessions, as well as Character and Citizenship Education lessons together.

There will also be opportunities for the senior students to lead the juniors.

Form Teachers, now known as Character Coaches, will nurture and develop the character of students through CCA sessions as well as weekly CCE lessons. This will enable the students to have stronger teacher-student relationships with their Character Coaches. In fact, with this structure, the Character Coaches will be able to monitor closely the growth and development of their students.

For Sec 1 classes this year, students from the Express, NA and NT courses will learn together common curriculum subjects like Art, Design and Technology, Food and Consumer Education, and Physical Education. As for the remaining subjects like English, Mother Tongue, Science, Mathematics and Humanities, students will be grouped according to their respective levels.

For Secondary 2-5 academic learning, students are grouped based on the levels at which they take each subject. Generally, students with the same subject combinations will be together most of the time, throughout the week.

A unique feature of our school schedule is our Fridays, which we have dedicated to Character Development. All CCAs are conducted for two hours followed by Character and Citizenship Lessons. In the afternoons, some of the CCAs will continue with their training sessions.

We started this schedule in 2021 and received positive feedback from our students. According to them, it is a day they get to meet all their CCA members, train together and build bonds. For CCA leaders, they find that the Friday schedule gives them the opportunity to hone their leadership skills, in planning and organising their CCA sessions under the watchful guidance of their CCA teachers.

I am happy to see that our students are adjusting well to the new initiatives. Their excitement and lively chatters indicate that they have embraced these initiatives wholeheartedly. The school has been receiving positive feedback from students about various school experiences amidst the new initiatives.

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I am pleased to share with you our 2021 Sec 4 and 5 cohort’s performance in the national examinations.

For 2021 GCE N Level, 88.3% of our 4NA students were eligible for promotion to Sec 5N. This was above the national percentage of 79.2%. Close to 20% of our students were eligible for Polytechnic Foundation Programme and slightly above 70% were eligible for Direct Admission to Polytechnic through ITE. Our Sec 4NT students did us proud. 94.3% of our Sec 4NT students passed with at least 3 N levels.

In the 2021, GCE O Level examinations, 90.4% of our Sec 4 Express students passed at least 5 subjects.

62% of these students were eligible for JC, and 99.3% of students who passed with 5 subjects were eligible for polytechnic courses. 60% of our Sec 5N students had at least 5 O-level passes. Of these, 80% were eligible for courses in JCs or polytechnics.

Our teachers worked hard, despite the challenges posed by COVID-19, in preparing our students for national examinations. On this note, I would like to express my appreciation for the efforts of our teachers, and the support from the parents of the 2021 cohort of students.

Moving forward, we will continue to focus our efforts to develop our students to be resilient and futureready individuals through our Unity Total Curriculum.

In the words of Malcolm X, “Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today”. That is the essence of what we do in Unity Secondary School.

I would like to thank all parents and guardians for having trust in the school and for their relentless support for all school programmes. I look forward to your continued partnership in your child’s educational journey in Unity Secondary.

We look forward to your continued partnership and support in Term 2 2022. We hope you had the opportunity to strengthen your bond with your teens during the March holidays.

Wishing you and your family a good and meaningful term break, and I look forward to welcoming your child in Term 2.

Do take care, stay safe and healthy.

Mdm Aini Maarof Principal

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Welcome to the Unitian Family!

The school welcomed our new Secondary One students with an array of exciting activities from playing ice breaker games to getting them oriented to the learning spaces in school. The Secondary Ones were introduced to the different aspects of secondary school life such as involvement in Co-Curricular Activities and embracing our school values for character development.

As part of the Unitian family, they were also proudly presented with our school badge at the end of the Orientation Programme.

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Sec 1 Badge Presentation

Once a Unitian, Always a Unitian.

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Sec 1 CCA Orientation The Secondary 1s also had the opportunity to watch their seniors in action during the CCA orientation and test their abilities in CCA trials.

This enabled them to find out more about each CCA before deciding which CCA would suit them best.

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Release of National Examination Results The school would like to extend our heartfelt congratulations to our Secondary 4 and 5 students of Class 2021 for having done well in N-Level and O-level examinations. It was definitely the time when students celebrated their fruits of labour and reflected on their areas of growth. With continued hard work and perseverance, we believe that our students will continue to soar to greater heights in their future educational pursuits.

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what your can. (Arthur Ashe)

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Chinese New Year Celebration

Unity celebrated Chinese New Year (Year of the Tiger) by appreciating the festive cultures of three ethnic groups, the Chinese, Malays and Indians. Activities planned aimed to promote greater engagement and develop team spirit among students.

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Total Defence Day

Unitians commemorated Total Defence Day through a series of student engagement activities, to remind us that we need to stay resilient and do our part to safeguard our country.

Ex -Unitians sharing on their National Service experiences with our students.

Uniformed Group CCA Leaders facilitated the Guardians of the City card game during TDD commemoration.

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Unitians developed a deeper appreciation of Total Defence and its relevance in today’s context.

They understood the complexity of threats faced by Singapore by engaging in activities like the card game, Guardians of the City II and lessons on Food Shortage and Black Market Trading.

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Unity Young Writers Festival This year, our school opened its doors to budding student writers from 41 schools in a celebration of local poetry and flash fiction. Hosting eight writing workshops, Unity Secondary School is privileged to have renowned writers share their writing experiences and different writing styles. Even though the first session was held online, the enthusiasm from student participants could certainly be felt!

Stay tuned for the second part of our UWF on 20 May!

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Minister Chan Visits Unity On 11 March, we welcomed our Education Minister, Mr Chan Chun Sing to our school. After being greeted by our Student Leaders, Minister Chan was given a tour of the school. He had a chance to find out more about our ALP programme, Biotechnology in Food Sustainability and gained insight into one of our CCE lessons conducted by NPCC on Social Equity. Minister Chan also shared his experiences and exchanged viewpoints regarding Singapore's education system, in a lively and inspiring dialogue session with the school staff and students.

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Let's hear what our Unitians have to say about our Minister's visit...

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Healthy Lifestyle Week Healthy Lifestyle week was observed in Unity in the last week of Term 1. Unitians were encouraged to lead a Healthy Lifestyle with Unity Virtual Run and an online poster design activity.

On the last day of Term 1, the Sports CCA groups were in the Parade Square doing a kickboxing workout, led by our new Unity Council Excos. For the non-sports groups, respective Character Coaches joined their CCAs in a Chairobics activity choregraphed to the song of “Gangnam Style”.

Our CCA leaders facilitated the whole programme with the guidance of teachers from the P.E. Department.

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See you in Term 2!

Visit our school website: http://unitysec.moe.edu.sg/ Follow our Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/unitysec/