IdEas@Work in Nanyang

Contributed by CHANTELL KOH YI LIAN Present Situation: The workspace within the accounts office is outdated and poorly-designed which lead to higher stress levels, mental health issues, anxiety, and even physical problems such as back aches and reduced eye vision. Take a look around our accounts office. Watch how people walk and how they move from one space to the next. Physical bottleneck in spaces. Our current office design literally deteriorate the employee wellness, productivity, daily interactions, overall morale, and especially guest perceptions (i.e. students, parents, other visitors). Improvement: To modernize and improve the aesthetics and layout of the workplace within the accounts office. This will reduce distracting clutter, improved staff motivation, better usage of technology, facilitate greater collaboration among the team, and make a good first impression for students, parents, visitors, and school staff members. Creating a positive environment plays a greater role in i

Contributed by KHOO LIAN NEO RACHEL Present Situation: There is no standard corporate email signature presently. Improvement: It would be good for our corporate identity to have a standardised email signature for all staff.

Contributed by LIM ZHONG JUINN Present Situation: During COVID-19, all teachers have to key into the Google Sheets daily before the online lessons, but subjected if the worksheets have been created. Very hard to keep track of the progress of that particular subject because details are across various worksheets and documents of shared Google sheets. Information could also be overwritten by mistake. Improvement: Teacher has an online Google Class Schedule - where records of all lesson details (theory and practical), absentees and further remarks could also be made. In addition, announcements or deadlines required can be made in advanced to inform the students. All the class schedule can be archived into personal Google Drive or downloaded to refer to the learning progress of a particular level of a particular subject anytime anywhere.

Contributed by LIM ZHONG JUINN Present Situation: Students in Judo organised additional physical trainings on Wednesdays from 7:30am to 8:05am. Improvement: Games are included to bond the juniors and seniors, because the juniors and seniors might be training on the same days together. Teacher-in-charge of Judo are encouraged to join in - which the teachers all did!

Contributed by WONG WAN LING, YEO BIN CHONG CLARENCE, TAN SU-LING DELPHINE  Present Situation: The challenge here was how to have meaningful activities that engages students in National Day festivities, while still influencing the affective domain and maintaining safe distancing. Improvement: One classroom activity proposed was to have students sing along – with their masks on – to a National Day song, while doing a self-choreographed dance from their allocated places in the classroom. This was then recorded and posted on Instagram so that collectively, the whole school could be seen and see how others are involved in National Day celebrations. This activity sought to engage the students in areas of their interest, including song, dance, and posting fun activities on Instagram. The response from the students was overwhelming. This was a team effort by the National Education Team: Clarence Yeo, Delphine Tan, Kuan Ju-Lin, Corliss Phua & Wong Wan Ling.

Contributed by SAW PEI LIN Present Situation: Most Google Form will face a problem of over sign up when there is limited vacancy. Improvement: Create a Google Form by formulating the Excel Responses to limit the number of signup. Once the limited places if taken up, viewer will see a notice informing the vacancies are filled up.

Contributed by SAW PEI LIN, TYE SECK MOY Present Situation: There is no copyright or school identity on some documents teachers prepared and share to their students or third party. When it is reprint, the ownership of the document will be unknown. Improvement: Create documents template with our school crest watermark.

Contributed by SAW PEI LIN Present Situation: Teachers are exploring sending e-certs instead of printing them out. Saving the certs in Jpeg will affect the printouts, and PDF version will enable people a way to manipulate the text or extract the signature or logo from the cert. Improvement: PDF is a vector format which enable the best quality print outs. Encrypt the PDF certs to restrict editing function.

Contributed by SERENE SNG MIN TZE, JOHN TNG MEE LENG, GOH SOCK HUANG LYDIA Present Situation: Corridors within the boarding block are very dark in the daytime (worse during rain), due to the awning and the lights are timed to be switched on only for evenings when the bulk to people are home (to save electricity). This has resulted in many residents struggling to see in the dark corridors in the daytime, especially when they are looking for something / trying to open the door to their room. Guests who visit for tours also wander along in darkness as there are no other light switches. Improvement: Keeping budget in mind, staff decided just lighting up the lowest (darkest) level corridor would suffice (instead of the whole block.) The solution used was sensor / motion lights which only light up when someone walks across and only for that section of the corridor. It has a wonderfully theatrical effect when you walk along the whole corridor and it lights up for you like a little spotlight.

Contributed by SERENE SNG MIN TZE, TANG YAJING, TAN PUAY SANG Present Situation: All mail and parcel deliveries must go be registered with, and collected from office staff. This requires added interaction with all post & deliverymen, and boarders / residents. Improvement: During Circuit Breaker, all interactions had to immediately be reduced to minimum. Staff discussed how to quickly centralise a CCTV-monitored space for all mail and parcels to be dropped off and collected with minimal interaction and also emphasise the required integrity amongst the community in order for this to work effectively. The whole boarding community has been respectful of one another's deliveries / mail and has made this a long term workable solution for all.

Contributed by SERENE SNG MIN TZE, YEO LAY PENG, GAN LAY HIONG Present Situation: Office opens daily from morning till night. Staff are required to be on standby for any matters, including weekends. We have an Infra staff on duty on Saturday mornings in case of urgent weekend repairs that spillover from weekday slots. Improvement: During Circuit Breaker period, half the staff strength were either on work from home or Msian Movement Control (MCO). This created a manpower crunch. Discussion on how to effectively space out the long operating hours led to Infra officer (Kenny) covering Saturday morning office standby, with work-from-home staff (Serene / LayPeng) on standby in case require Admin instructions. Operating hours were adjusted to timeslots that require staff attention. All stay-in staff were also on 24/7 alert due to more occupants stay-in at boarding during CB. Boarding School worked within given manpower to fulfill the full operational hours required. No additional costs were

Contributed by LIM WEE CHIN, MATTHEW Present Situation: Many students apply for university after JC2 to study music but have to navigate a complicated process for different universities. It is difficult to make decisions in the process. Improvement: I have organised a group of Alumni who have studied or are studying music overseas to meet potential applicants through Zoom to give advice and explain the process of auditions and application to help them make better decisions, including those regarding the MOE scholarship.

Contributed by ROZELLS MARK GREGORY, TAN LIANG PING JAMES, SHANNI GURCHARAN KAUR Present Situation: Students in the Sec 4 LA have limited general knowledge. Although students have access to the Straits Times and The New York Times through school subscriptions, the level of general knowledge is poor, as seen in the examples brought up in their essays at the end of Sec 3. Improvement: Teachers in the level curated articles for students to read and to push these out periodically through a level-wide Google Classroom, as additional reading. This enabled a level-wide sustained reading programme and students were prompted through notifications sent via Google Classroom to read regularly. It also made reading accessible at any time and also reduced the need to print articles, thus saving money and the environment. Cost savings are estimated on 30 articles x 3 pages x 380 students x $0.014 per page In a survey of Sec 4 LA students, in response to the statement "The additional readings pos

Contributed by TAN LU HOON @ IRENE TAN, TOH LIN SIN Present Situation: Due to the seating plan necessitated by SMM, students seated at the extreme front corners of classrooms during exams could not see the clock. Initially, the clocks were too big to project on the visualiser. Even if we could project the clock on the visualiser it would be a waste of electricity. Improvement: We hung the clock on a magnet with a hook, and supported the hook with three strip magnets. This way, the clock stayed on the white board in the middle of the room, visible to all student during the exam.

Contributed by TAN LU HOON @ IRENE TAN Present Situation: Class seating plans were submitted to the GO staff. If there is a need for contact tracing within 2 hours, the GO may be closed and the plans not accessible. I raised this issue during a meeting. Improvement: Submit class seating plans to a folder in google drive. This idea was finally implemented. I reminded FTs of various levels when I saw that their plans were not in the folder.