Character and Citizenship Education

Vision

A critical thinker & compassionate leader with a heart to serve the nation.

We aim to develop in our students:

Good character
Resilience and social-emotional well-being
Future readiness
Active citizenship

Some key principles for teaching and learning of CCE in KCS:

Every teacher a CCE teacher.
Values are both taught and caught.
Engaging students through varied modes of delivery.
Parents as key partners.

Approach

“Education has had two great goals: to help young people become smart and to help them become good.” ~ Thomas Lickona.

Kheng Cheng School uses a whole school approach in the teaching of Character and Citizenship Education. It aims to develop the mind (Head – Competencies teaching), the heart ( Heart – Guiding values) and the hands (Hands – Practice) of our students.

The goal of CCE is to inculcate values and build competencies in our students to develop them to be exemplary individuals and useful citizens. CCE lessons in KCS are aligned to the components of MOE.

CCE Awards 2024

Key Programmes

CCE (MTL)

CCE lessons in KCS are taught in Mother Tongue Languages. Lessons in CCE(MTL) use stories, scenarios, songs and games to reinforce teaching and learning of values, develop social emotional competencies and nurture citizenship dispositions. Lessons are designed to provide students with more opportunities to discuss and internalize the values.

CCE (FTGP)

Form Teacher Guidance Period (FTGP) provides time within the curriculum for form teachers to engage in quality interactions with their students and for them to strengthen their social and emotional competencies. Skills learnt during FTGP lessons include recognizing and managing emotions, developing care and concern for others, establishing positive relationships, making responsible decisions, and handling challenging situations constructively and ethically.

Topics related to developing citizenship dispositions are also taught to foster inter-ethnic understanding and appreciation for one another’s culture in a multicultural classroom setting. The inclusion of “Family Time” in CCE(FTGP) encourages active partnership between school and home so that what is taught and learnt in school is reinforced at home. Activities suggested allow parents to bond with their children and support their child’s development.

Form Teacher Interaction (FTI)

FTI provides support for improving the quality of teacher-student interactions and, ultimately, student learning. Teachers help students develop warm, supportive relationships, foster the joy of learning, feel comfortable in class, and experience appropriate levels of autonomy or independence.

The Growing Years (GY) Programme

The upper primary years mark the onset of puberty. Students at this age grapple with physical, emotional, and psychological changes in themselves. The Primary 5 & 6 Growing Years package Sexuality Education - SEd, aims to meet students’ developmental needs, emphasize the teaching of skills and values, and focus on helping students navigate changes, build healthy relationships, especially online relationships and cyber wellness.

At KCS, only specially selected and trained teachers are deployed to teach SEd.

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Education and Career Guidance (ECG) Experiences

ECG@KCS is a school-wide programme which focuses on developing and grooming our students to succeed in the 21st century. All KCS students will complete an ECG module each semester during school based CCE lessons. This is to prepare our students for a future of uncertainty. The lessons bring about awareness of new and emerging occupations and the skills and dispositions they need to be equipped with. The key components for our approach are:

Educate: Learn about the wide array of occupations in Singapore.
Cultivate: Identify and cultivate personal characteristics such as interests, skills/aptitudes and values.
Guide: Be guided in understanding the different skills set required in the field of work.
ECG experiences in KCS are opportunities to build students’ self-awareness and knowledge of the different education and career pathways. Such experiences would be especially valuable for students in their primary school years, which are a time for growth and discovery.

RMU/VIP

“Raise Me Up” (RMU) and “Very Inspiring Pupils” (VIP) are school-wide character development programmes. Both RMU and VIP are channels for students (RMU) and teachers (VIP) to nominate students who exemplify good values each term. RMU and VIP provide students with the understanding to do the right thing (Head), work on building the will to want to act right (Heart) and cultivate the habit to do so (Hands). It fosters an environment that promotes active involvement by all students to be well behaved.

Student Voice & Advocacy (SVA) @ KCS

A distinctive programme in Kheng Cheng School is its Learning for Life Programme; Student Voice and Advocacy @ KCS. In SVA@ KCS, students act as advocates and agents of change. They design and implement community service acts to give back to the community (school, external agencies). Some of the key features of SVA@KCS include:

1) Progressive student outcomes.

The school identifies the stages of the student voice continuum to be taught in various levels (lower, middle and upper primary) in a cumulative approach, beginning from ‘decoration’ stage at Primary 1, to a completely student led stage at Primary 6 where they are expected to plan, negotiate and implement a VIA class activity for the community together. 2) Learning experiences are differentiated across the levels.
SVA Themes are aligned to the MOE CCE syllabus and students work on projects they want to do.

3) Student Voice is valued & issues pertaining active citizenry are explored.

Teachers use Student Voice to imbue in the students their larger social role as advocates and agents of change, in the design and implementation of a grounds up community service project in VIA, to strengthen the Singapore spirit of an active citizen in them.

4) Teachers act as facilitators in SVA.

As facilitators, teachers ensure the students are aware of the goals of SVA@KCS. We consciously involve students in adapting goals and we try to link the content to the world beyond their classroom.

There are two aspects of SVA@KCS – school improvement and community service.

SVA@KCS - School Improvement Consists of:

School wide programmes put in place through the year:

To empower students with a voice to step forward to become active agents of change; and To practise advocacy and active citizenry in their immediate community. The infusion of student voice into school activities allow for cross fertilisation of ideas beyond the class and age groups thus enriching the learning experiences of all.

SVA@KCS – Community Service

It is essentially a tiered programme offered to all students from Primary 1 to Primary 6. Students are purposefully guided in using Visible Thinking routines [from the Harvard Ground Zero Project,] to plan a social service project targeted at the serving the community. Students learn to make thoughtful decisions and exercise reasoned judgement as the Visible Thinking routines provide the cognitive task support and scaffold needed. A grounds-up approach, all Kheng Cheng School’s students would have done their part to strengthen the Singapore Spirit to support a recipient of their choice as part of service to their community by year end. Because we allow the students to have to say, each class would be doing something unique and close to their hearts.

The impact of SVA@KCS can be seen in the manner in which the LLP was carried out in the different classes.

Joy of Learning

Students are motivated intrinsically to develop their passions and strengths as they explore the landscape around them and work on a project to serve the community.

Develop the Entrepreneurial Dare

Students apply skills learnt in class to the real world as they delve in their passions to serve the community based on an issue close to their hearts. Students realise that not all projects might be a resounding success but they have in them the resilience to try and learn from failure as they do it another time.

Strengthen the Singapore Spirit

Active citizenry is well and alive in SVA@KCS. Students are committed to action in building and deepening the Singapore spirit as they serve the community beyond what they do in the classroom. Recipients of the Be the Change Award