Our Curriculum

Curricular Planning Philosophy - Learning by Doing

The school’s curricular planning philosophy takes reference from John Dewey, an American philosopher and educational reformer. According to Dewey, when we “give the students something to do, not something to learn, and the doing is of such nature as to demand thinking, learning naturally results.” As students learn from the experience, they reflect on what happened, develop their problem-solving skills and apply this learning in their future lives.

The school believes that effective learning takes place when learner needs drive lesson designs. We believe that each child is active and inquisitive and wants to explore. As our children make the transition from kindergarten, we would like to keep their innate curiosity alive and nurture them into well-rounded, passionate, and curious lifelong learners, eager to embark on the next stage of their learning adventure as they progress from primary to secondary school.

Programmatic Approach

Underpinning the design of Fern Green’s academic curriculum and co-curriculum is our school values of Respect, Responsibility, Resilience, Integrity, Care and Harmony (R3ICH). Our Character and Citizenship Education (CCE) and Student Leadership Programmes aim to instil these values and develop leadership attributes and competencies in our students so that they are able to take good care of themselves, their families and the less-privileged, and contribute back to society

Our instructional approaches begin with inquiry. Through the use of thought-provoking questions, we would like to spark our students’ curiosity and inspire in them a genuine need to learn so that they care about the outcome of their investigations.

Inquiry is not unique to education. The real world outside the classrooms is filled with experts in diverse disciplines who are themselves thoughtful inquirers. These scientists, artists, writers, entrepreneurs and social-preneurs all investigate questions, issues, problems or ideas. Within the school setting, our students engage in inquiry through participating in problem-based learning during Math lessons, carrying out science research projects or tackling a writing assignment that requires them to think the way an event planner does and put forth a proposal.

As facilitators of learning, our teachers will help our students by structuring and guiding the learning experience. They will engage our students to think about and understand the relevance and context of what they learn through skilful and intentional use of face time with students and convert most classroom experiences into collaborative problem solving. In order to carry out this role, all our teachers will be trained in inquiry-based and problem-based learning.