MLS Jan 2018 Local Attachment MLS local report final | Page 46

4.7 Khoo Lee Yong, Sharon
In speaking with the Principal, Mrs Chan Kwai Foong, and Vice-
Principal, Mr Gerard Vaz, my visit to Fernvale Gardens School (FGS) helped
me to understand how to drive quality of teaching and learning through
reviewing standards for assessment for and of learning. Even in a school
landscape where a high-stakes national examination does not exist for the
students to showcase their academic ability, documentation of student
outcomes is necessary, and, perhaps, even more so, given that there are no
other form of measurement of students’ progress. Mrs Chan shared about
how she set up the curricular structures to assess student learning, before
moving on to the co-curricular structures. That is, to focus on the core,
integral aspect of a student’s experience, before looking at how to make it
more encompassing.
The journey that Mrs Chan had shared about her driving the review
of assessment within FGS highlighted three points that are salient to my
role as a middle leader of my school. Firstly, that the mode of assessment in
FGS had moved away from e-assessment to pen-and-paper, simply because
their students were not able to navigate through the e-platform. This is
something pertinent that leaders keep in mind while managing and leading
change – as we seek to try new things, it is not wise to merely implement
what is ‘trendy’ at that point in time. This is an example where, as alluring
as the advent of technology is, going back down to the basics of
understanding the situation that our students are in, in terms of their
capabilities and background, is crucial to us assessing the extent to which
we adopt the ‘new trend’. In this case, the more traditional mode of pen-
and-paper assessment, coupled with teacher-student interaction and
guidance, real-time visualization of content, and each student’s
demonstration of understanding through their response (even if it requires
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