IdEas@Work in Nanyang

Contributed by GOH HAN PIN Current Situation: Teachers and students underweight the importance of EAS and their contributions. This could have partially contributed to the lower staff engagement among EAS in NYGH, lower than EOs in NYGH and lower than EAS in other schools. Improvement: Revert to the correct name. Executive and Administrative Staff. For recognition to be genuine and sincere, the correct name ought to be used.

Contributed by GOH HAN PIN Current Situation: Teacher do not receive adequate feedback from students about their learning mastery until the end of chapter assignment. Improvement: Incorporate formative assessment tasks within the school notes itself e.g. short questions, annotated diagrams. Examples showcased at 2021 Staff Learning Festival.

Contributed by LIM XUE MEI MICHELLE. Current Situation: Glue guns being hung on a rack with hooks, but when withdrawn for use, the glue guns would drip hot melted glue on surfaces, and it is not stable when being placed on the attached metal slotted stand. We have seen students using the glue gun and placing it on the floor in between sticking and holding objects together. Improvement: Used the 3D printed to create glue gun holders, which has a part that is able to collect melting and dripping glue coming from the tips of the glue gun while being used. These stands are more solid and stable and allows the glue gun to rest safely while the student continues to work without any hazards.

Contributed by LIM XUE MEI MICHELLE Current Situation: Due to having one round of wood working sessions done during maker lesson in Semester 1, we have observed wood dust collecting on all exposed surfaces. It makes it difficult to clean and may shorten the lifespan of certain equipment. Improvement: Plastic covers were sewn to the customised dimensions to the equipment. The equipment are as follows : 3D Printers , iMac computers , Printer, Sewing Machine, Die cut machine. As this was done in house with existing plastic pieces and thread, and making use of the sewing machine, we saved some cost as to hiring a tailor to do that. This has allowed the maker team to be able to maintain and keep such items dust free and ensure cleaner work spaces. Making use of see through plastic also allows the item covered to be still. visible to the users of the makerspace, and also provides a sense of aesthetic quality with the use of neon orange thread for the hemming.

Contributed by LIM XUE MEI MICHELLE Current Situation: There is no template for efficient input of information for exhibition labels, to streamline texts displayed in the art gallery. Improvement: Created a template with standard format with font, font size and layout in the order of museum labels to make it more efficient to key in information (student's name, class, artwork title, artwork description) for all art teachers and technician. This template also includes a sample text, such that if a teacher needs information quickly, he/she could download and sent this template out for students to put in data on their own. This saves a lot of time re-doing a new layout each time an artwork is displayed.

Contributed by LIM XUE MEI MICHELLE Current Situation: Maker Lessons have evolved over time and this year, students from Sec 2 (Sem 1) and Sec 1 (Sem 2) are now equipped with basic woodworking skills, stemming from manually sawing pieces of plywood and rods to build their very own wooden laptop stand. With such activities that generate a lot of wood dust, on top of wiping down and sweeping the dust after each lesson by each student, the frequency of cleaners coming in to do the regular cleaning was not sufficient and could lead to skin irritation and eyes, throat and nose irritation as well. A teacher developed hives as a result of the environment with the wood dust in the air. Improvement: Worked out a cleaning schedule aligned to the maker lessons timetable as well as team meeting timings, and counter checked with cleaning supervisor to make adjustment to increase the frequency of cleaners coming in immediately after each lesson ends as much as they can. This has created a cleaner en

Contributed by WANG MO, TONG SOI MUI, CHANG MICHAEL HSIN-JU Current Situation: Sculpture room has many old wooden furnitures that attract pest and also take up space. Much of the wall space were not utilised. Improvement: To utilise the wall space and build storage shelves to store art materials and student artworks, considering the use of metal shelves to replace wood ones so to avoid wood burrows and other pest infestation.

Contributed by YEO LAY PENG, SERENE SNG MIN TZE, TANG YAJING Current Situation: Past A face to face briefing of boarding school's emergency, expectations required of resident staying here is conducted upon resident check-in despite of COVID-19 situation. The new resident finds quite a bit of info to absorb upon check in beside the orientation of the premise Present Emailing of resident info, allows the resident to take time to read through it. This emailing of resident info resulted in the reduction of time taken for checkin. Less face to face interaction with resident in time of COVID-19. Moreover, resident does not feel grappling with overloaded information upon checkin. The checkin becomes easier to handle and mentor is able to chip in to help if resident checks in outside office hour. Improvement: During this COVID-19 situation - Safer for staff handling checkin with less interaction time with resident Emailed info can be read at resident own timing Checkin becomes a simply pro

Contributed by SERENE SNG MIN TZE, TANG YAJING, YEO LAY PENG Current Situation: The boarding school has mixed gender occupants. This required a solution to create a small enclave for our young female boarders despite not having physical barriers added to our building infrastructure. Improvement: 2 levels of rooms are designated as female zones for our boarders and female residents. Just to give them some added privacy. Clear and simple STOP signages are pasted at the staircases leading up to the designated Female Zone. Residents are also required to sign agreements where they acknowledge to respect such delineated zones.

Contributed by SERENE SNG MIN TZE, JOHN TNG MEE LENG, GOH SOCK HUANG LYDIA Current Situation: The locker rooms are not fully utilized due to low boarder numbers. On the other hand, demand for washing machines and dryers are high. Improvement: The locker room space in Block C was repurposed with suitable electrical and ventilation for additional laundry machines. Clearly important for residents who kept asking when this would be ready. If this works and demand is higher, it will be repeated for the remaining Block B locker room.

Contributed by GAN YUET LING Current Situation: In the past, school staff and external parties who wished to request/ purchase our school's corporate gifts would need to go to the General Office to make enquiries, browse the gift items and fill up the hard copy Request Form. Improvement: In concurrence with the school's digitalisation initiative, the hard copy Corporate Gift Request Form needs to be transformed into an electronic form. The initial given instructions of using Google Form is not workable as the Corporate Gift Request Form consists many fields. All fields need to be preserved and presented in the current existing layout as this is a document to be submitted to the Auditor during the annual inventory audit. After conducting research and some tests, I concluded that the most viable way is to create a fillable PDF form. The fillable PDF form enables all fields to be preserved in its existing layout. It enables users to fill up the form remotely and submit it via emai

Contributed by GAN YUET LING Current Situation: Students go to the General Office to borrow school blazers & skirt if they are required to don the garments for events held within school/ outside school/ online meeting. The teacher-in-charge is required to submit the Blazer Loan Request Form in advance to the General Office. Some teachers do not submit the Request Form in advance. And there is no coordinated timing for the students to turn up at the General Office to collect/ try on the blazers. Whenever one arrives, the General Office staff will have to bring the student to the Blazer Room, resulting in multiple trips a day if the event involves a big group of students (>10, >20, >50). This is very disorganized and inefficient in terms of time management and deployment of manpower. Improvement: I have implemented some changes to the process since January 2021 to improve efficiency. Upon receiving a Blazer Loan Request Form, I check my digitised loan record to see whether t

Contributed by Wen Di, JEAN WOO KUAN SHING, LIU SHIUEH LING Current Situation: There is a vast collection available at MOE Read@Academy library, focusing on the teaching resources, in both physical and electronic format. We are going to build up our own e-book collection next year, to offer an alternative platform for our staff and students to access library resources 24/7. With the limit budget, we need to think carefully how to allocate the fund for purchasing ebooks for different sections. Improvement: I checked in with Read@Academy librarian on the possibility to register library membership for our direct staff (MOE staff are given membership by default), such that NYGHs direct staff can tap on the Read@Academy teaching resources, for their teaching and learning needs. By doing that, we can save the acquisition fund on electronic teaching resources, and allocate more funds in ebooks for our students. Form SG was created and sent out to staff to register interest to sign up Read@Aca

Contributed by LEE KIM TING Current Situation:  每年学校新学年的中一新生，需要填写一些申请表格，比如 GIRO 财路户口, EduSAVE授权信 并呈交给校方存档。积累了很多文件档夹，收藏占据位子，日子久了，纸张泛黄，生蠹鱼，蛀书虫。需要跟进寻找旧文件费时费力。 Improvement: 数码化转型改变工作完成方式：减少硬件/文件存档，将2021年中一新生的GIRO 申请表格扫描存档，转化成 PDF 形式并加上密码，储存在 学校档案系统里，可以和同部门的同事共享资讯。 好处： 减少大量纸张的使用；节省橱柜空间；搜寻跟进旧资料便捷省时。 增值：其他部门里的存档文件，也可作同样处理。

Contributed by CHEW MUI FONG Current Situation: Many teachers use the paper towel to dry their hand after they wash their hands, then they throw them away after one use. It is a waste of resources. Improvement: I bought small hand towels to be shared with some department colleagues, to encourage them to switch from using the paper towel. Perhaps the school can consider giving out hand towel to teachers to encourage them to reduce the use of paper towel.

Contributed by CHEW MUI FONG Current Situation: From end term 3 to term 4, there have been calls for teachers to nominate students for certain awards, eg. CCA Awards, Eagles Awards, ECHA, Student Development Award, NYGH Pinnacle Award. Some of the nominees are the same, so the teachers have to keep submitting the same names and write-up to different program owners. Sometimes, we may miss out the deadlines as there may be confusion over different awards, thinking we have already submitted. Improvement: Consolidate a list of awards to allow single (or minimum) nomination of students for suitable awards, esp for Sec 4. There could be an option of "Potential nomination" in case we are not sure if the students can meet the criteria (eg Pinnacle award that is dependable on results). And if possible, try to time the nomination within similar time frame, so that the teachers do not have to deal with different nomination deadlines.

Contributed by LEE SIEW HON CALVIN, LEE XIAO-EN TABITHA, ELIZABETH NICOLE CUTTER Current Situation: There are two set texts for Literature - a play for S3 and a novel for S4. Poetry will be introduced as it is part of the year-end exams. However, short stories, as a genre, are not explored except in LA. In LA, we explore short stories only via themes and subject matter. Improvement: We have introduced The Interpreter of Maladies as a bridging text to be explored in both S3 and S4. It also fits well with the curriculum, where our focus is based on the question of what Asian Literature is. We have questioned the girls about the text and they have enjoyed read and discussing them.

Contributed by ELIZABETH NICOLE CUTTER Current Situation: Currently we have the Promotion Meeting organised by levels: S1 -> S2 -> S3 -> S4 The meeting usually drags for the S2 and S3 and so the S4 will have to take a long time. Improvement:  Instead of always organising it by S1-4, could we either: a) go from the level with the fewest students -> most students? b) do S1 and S4, and then S3 and S2 (or from experience the level which usually takes the most time to be put at the end).

Contributed by Yao Ling Yun Current Situation: The Nescafe machine needs to be topped up with Milo/coffee/tea/creamer daily. Depending on which beverage is popular that day, the machine may run out of certain powders leading to beverages that cannot be consumed. The dispensed drink then has to be discarded, leading to waste. e.g. Creamer + water without coffee. Improvement: To put a suction hook and a laminated tags that says "Temporarily out of milo" / coffee / creamer at the machine. When a colleague dispenses a drink that is missing an ingredient, he/she can hang up the tag to prevent further wastage until the machine is filled up again. A suction hook will also not cause any long term damage to the machine as it is rented from Nescafe. Each beverage is $0.30 (estimated)

Contributed by LEONG CHONG GHIT Current Situation: Storage disc batteries put together . It may pose as a fire hazard. Improvement: To compartmentalized storage will be introduced. It will reduce fire hazard.

Contributed by CHEW MUI FONG, TAN GEK HOON, LIM AI WAH Current Situation: Each staff has some stationery that are still in good condition / new but are not needed. Some choose to keep but some may throw them away. Improvement: The Mathematics department has a mini "pasar malam" where we display items that we don't need anymore and invite colleagues to collect any items that they can use. This started when we had a colleague who had left the school and gave us the stationery that she would not use anymore. After 1/2 weeks, those uncollected items are kept and will be on displayed again (if needed) or donate away.

Contributed by CHEW MUI FONG, LIOW YINXIA ELIZABETH, ONG LAY HONG Current Situation: There is no dish rack in the staff lounge to dry the food containers. Though some teachers don't mind drying their containers at their own table, some may not have the space nor like to have wet container at their table. Hence, they have choose not to bring own container to pack food from the canteen and resort to using disposable container. Improvement: We put a dish rack at an empty work station within the department to allow us to dry our food containers. And we invited other teachers to join in, including Linda Chang (4th member). This allows us to pack food from the canteen with own container and have an extra storage place to dry and keep our container, and in turns save on the disposable container.

Contributed by ANG JOO LIAK, ANG WEE LING, HOE WEI QI Current Situation: HOD asks teachers to key in types of training done and PD done during each quarter of the year. SSD asks teachers to key in training details end of the year in a Google form. Improvement: To avoid duplication of work and spending unnecessary time keying details of each training / PD again, teachers should be given a common platform, e.g. Google spreadsheet to key in these training details each quarter, and no end of year entering of data is required again.

Contributed by ANG PECK HAI, THNG CHYE HOCK Current Situation: At Admin, Account, Art gallery and Auditorium corridor walkway, when weather is cloudy or start to rain during normal working hours, the office outside corridor walkway area is become dark, especially early in the morning, the traffic flow and demand for student and staff is high, this will cause some safety issue especially the slippery floor. The existing timer control for light is already fixed from 7pm to next following day 7am, so after the specific time is over then the light will start to turn off, the maintenance team will need standby or sometime have received call from user to turn on the timer switch again and is very troublesome. The maintenance team somehow busy somewhere and cannot turn up on time to attend user requested. Improvement: The ideally propose is to install the Light Photo sensor for the specific area, the advantage is that the Photo Sensor will detect the ambient lux condition, whenever the Lux re

Contributed by KUNALAN GINA Current Situation: The pigeonholes look like they are being eaten by termites because they are often covered with the sand like particles that termites leave behind. Improvement: They need to be checked for termites. Also, can the cleaners clean the pigeonholes once a week?

Contributed by TAN SU-LING DELPHINE Current Situation: Teachers have to pay for purchases for school events (e.g. Founders Day) out of their own pockets and go through a time-consuming and troublesome process to make claims for the amount spent. These amounts can be in the hundreds and even thousands of dollars. They even have to answer questions such as why the billing address on the receipt states their home address instead of the school's address. Improvement: Have a slush fund/ petty cash/ school credit card account that can be used for these purchases. The amount of time it takes for teachers to make claims and the personal information that has to be revealed is not acceptable.

Contributed by ANG JOO LIAK Current Situation: All classrooms and other venues have analogue clocks. 1. During graded assessments like WAs and Exams, the clock is placed on the teacher's desk and projected on the screen with LCD project for 1 to 2 hours for each paper, using up unnecessary power and lifespan of projector lamp. 2. The clocks are not precisely synchronized across all classrooms. 3. The analogues clocks are not precise due to parallax error in the alignment of the minute and second hands - teachers need to check carefully. 4. Clock batteries (AA) have to be replaced maybe every semester. Students/staff have to remove the clock from high up the wall, exchange AA battery at Infrastructure department to replace the battery and put back the clock. Improvement: Align with the school's direction of digitalization by implementing a digital school-wide timing system. Advantages: 1. Timing is shown clearly at centre of classroom during assessments. No wastage of LCD projec

Contributed by LIM GUAT HA Current Situation: The Editing Section (Section A) of LA Paper 1 is on page 2 of a set of 3 printed pages. Markers have to flip to page 2 to mark each script. They then have to flip back to page 1 to match name/index number to record marks. Improvement: Either have the Editing Paper printed separately as an insert from the Section B questions, or have students write their index number at the top of the page for Section A (editing). This will take perhaps 1 second.

Contributed by LIM GUAT HA Current Situation: Currently, students apply to be a Leaper. They select teachers to fill out the recommendation forms. They go for some interviews for selection. Students who are not selected as Leapers do not stand a chance of becoming a Student Councillor. Improvement: A different selection process involving classmates voting them via a form. The actual details need to be worked out but currently, it is a group of SL teachers who select the students, many of whom they do not teach so a lot hinges on the interview. We let the girls vote their own NY stars for class, and the things written to explain their nominations are very telling; students interact with each other all the time and after one year together, they know each other well enough to be able to do an informed voting.

Contributed by TAN KAH KEOW, TAN YIN PHENG CHERYL, LIU SHIUEH LING Current Situation: Hardcopy album of each year's class contact sheets is issued to P & VPs and Student Support team. Improvement: As the class contact sheets are also available in e-copy, some may not want to keep a hardcopy album. Wef 2022, issue of class contact sheets in hardcopy album will be based on request. This will cut down on cost.

Contributed by ZHANG BO Current Situation: Staff have to copy and paste the "tick" symbol. On a mobile device, one has to tap 4 times accurately to get it done. 1. Tap the cell with an existing tick; 2. Tap copy; 3. Tap one's own cell 4. Tap paste. Improvement: Change the column to checkbox, so that it's easier to fill in, only need to tap once. This will save time and improve user experience.

Contributed by NEO SHU MEI, ONG BENG KOOI JAMES, YEE JIN KETT Current Situation: As part of the PE syllabus, Sec 1 students learn Track and Field events such as Sprints, Javelin, Shot Put and High Jump. In the past, students get to take part in Combined Sports Meet (CSM) where some of them have the opportunity to take part in the Track and Field events in a competitive setting. However, not all students have the opportunity to compete during CSM. Due to the pandemic, CSM did not take place last year. As a result, last year’s Sec 1 students did not have the opportunity to take part in any Track & Field events competitively. Improvement: To create a platform for students to compete in the Track & Field events which they learnt during PE in Term 1 and 2, we decided to carry out an “in-class” Track & Field ICG in April. There were 6 events (50m, 400m, Long Jump, High Jump, Javelin, Shot Put) and each student have the opportunity to take part in 2 Track & Field events of the

Contributed by NEO SHU MEI, ONG BENG KOOI JAMES, TEO CHIN IT Current Situation: Orienteering is taught in the Sec 2 Outdoor Education (OE) Curriculum where students are taught how to read a map and use the compass using a map of Pulau Ubin. Orienteering teaches students to assess, understand and “read” the map and develops their mental alertness and decision-making (route choice). Map Scale is one of the topics taught in the Sec 1 Mathematics syllabus. It involves teaching students how to use the map scale to find the actual distance when given the distance on the map and vice versa. Students are also required to find the actual area when given the area on the map and vice versa. Improvement: To introduce orienteering to Sec 1s by incorporating a “Nanyang Map Challenge” in the Sec 1 PE syllabus where students learn and practise basic map reading skills using the Nanyang school map. This can help students to become confident in their ability to use maps to find places by practising in a

Contributed by YAO LING YUN Current Situation: Some NYGH staff have a linked account connect to their school email that was created a few years back. But as a school, we do not have an account. Other schools like Hwa Chong Institution and Raffles Institution have school/organisational accounts. Improvement: To create an NYGH account. This serves two purposes: a) Recruitment of staff - EAS and even teachers can be hired via this platform easily as most professionals are on Linkedin b) Alumni relationships When alumnae of NYGH request to connect with us on the platform, we will be able to see which industries they are in and their resumes. The platform then naturally becomes a database of potential contacts when school programmes need to look for experts in specific fields. It also allows our alumnae to express their identity as alumnae publicly and strengthen our branding. c) Publicity Next year is our 105th Founder's Day and with a stronger front facing professional social media pl

Contributed by TOH LIN SIN Current Situation: MOE-related awards like EAGLES and ECHA often require either form or CCA teachers' nomination towards the end of the year. As they currently come under different owners, the timing of submission can sometimes result in teachers surfacing the same student for 2 awards. Teachers also may not remember or are unaware of the type of awards and recognition for the students. This knowledge can actually help teachers to decide how they want to nominate their students, based on their understanding of the students' strengths and financial background. Improvement: MOE-related awards can be rolled out together for both FT, CCA or even subject teachers' recommendations. The criteria and also type of awards and recognition given can also be summarised together (eg. descriptors or infographics) so that teachers can spread the awards out to recognise more deserving students.

Contributed by ONG BENG KOOI JAMES, POON KAH YOKE CLARA Current Situation: CPE and EPE deployed for O level exam may not have prior experience as O level invigilator or PE or internal school Exam Comm work. Deployment is only announced in Sem 2. Improvement: Deployment for CPE and EPE to be planned in the early part of the year and the officers be informed thereafter. Prior experience should be considered during deployment. Necessary exposure or guidance be provided for new CPE/EPE.

Contributed by LIM WEE CHIN, MATTHEW Current Situation: Every year HMP students have a bonding activity at the end of the year for closure. Due to Covid SMM measures, we had to do it online through Zoom this year. Improvement:  To make the bonding activity more meaningful, I invited HMP alumni who have continued to study music in higher education and those who chose a different path to share how they decided which path they took. This allowed current students to envision the choices they may have to make in the future and benefit from the experiences and considerations their seniors made before them.