The traditional Chinese Holistic Education concept comprises the following domains:
Moral development 德
Intellectual development 智
Physical development 体
Social development 群
Aesthetics development 美
SCA’s Holistic Education framework is a combination of the traditional Chinese Holistic Education and Gardner’s Five Minds for the Future, as well as the student-centric pedagogies practiced in Hwa Chong Institution (HCI).
The uniquely SCA Holistic Education Model can be illustrated in the following diagram:
SCA is planning to develop students’ Disciplined Mind and Synthesizing Mind via a combination of fundamental subjects and electives, as well as global problem solving and research programme. The students will also develop their Respectful Mind and Ethical Mind through student leadership programmes such as the Student Council and CCA. They will also have many opportunities to participate in cross-cultural collaborative projects with students from other countries. Students’ Creating Mind will be nurtured through the school’s aesthetic programmes like music and visual art. In the long run, the school will also design an Entrepreneurship Programme for students to exercise their creative thinking.
Besides learning all the necessary knowledge and skills, SCA also emphasizes the importance of “how students learn”. The school strongly advocates student-centric pedagogies such as collaborative learning and inquiry-based learning. Such learning pedagogies enable students to be active and effective learners who can embark on deep learning of subjects which interest them. This is an important step towards enabling students to become Self-directed and Passionate Learners. To encourage teachers to use student-centric pedagogy in their classroom teaching, the school’s staff meetings are also conducted in the form of Socratic Seminars.
