MLS Jan 2018 Local Attachment MLS local report final | Page 31

4. Personal Reflections (Overall Experience)
4.1 Steven Aw Kian Chang
The visit to Fernvale Gardens School (MINDS) was quite an eye opener. What
I constantly look out for is how the school’s vision is being met.
The vision for these special needs students is to be equip the students with
the knowledge, skills, and attributes to lead meaningful and dignified lives in
the community and allowing them to become independent, contributing
citizens who are valued by society.
Hence, I leverage their teaching and learning framework (HEART) and their
guiding principles are H – Holistic development, E – Engagement of
stakeholders, A – Assessment for and of learning, R – Reflective practice, T –
Technology.
What was interesting to me was the Assessment domain. Since there are no
examinations, the true spirit and assessment is more evident. Assessment
here plays a crucial role in informing instruction, guiding teachers to make
reliable and consistent judgement about performance of students,
monitoring and achievement. A lot of formative assessment were done by
teachers, but due to the profile of the students here, they may not be able to
use these assessments to improve. The assessment is largely used by
teachers to record the students’ readiness for subsequent levels.
Reflective practice is a mindful and systematic process used by the teachers
but it remains a big challenge as the culture in the school is not ready. Some
teachers do resist and the buy-in is slow. Some would want to stick to their
tried and tested lessons and do not find the need to change. This attitude and
mindset is quite similar in our mainstream schools.
One of the greatest takeaway was the opportunity to observe, participate
and interact with a higher function class in a domestic Science (home
economics) lesson. Many seemed very positive in class, but I wonder how
they can manage the real conditions when they graduate from MINDS. Some
are already working in Minisol and Starbucks but I am not sure if their
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