Dear Parents,

Thank you to all parents who wrote to the College directly with your ideas on how we could respond to Prime Minister Lee’s announcement that the circuit breaker is now extended until 1 June. As you can imagine, there were many different perspectives, from suggestions that we radically alter the school calendar, to requests to keep it exactly the same in order to provide continuity for families and fit in with their current planning.

We really appreciate your creative suggestions, and leadership teams met at intervals through the day yesterday to talk about the implications of the various options, while simultaneously speaking to key people across the community to gather input. As well as the two general guiding principles we have been using for all our decision-making, we added the following key drivers:

• The need to ensure minimum disruption for students in terms of their learning. This meant any response that required a series of changes in routine for students was not seen as optimal.
• The desire to maximise face-to-face learning and social opportunities for students, not just during Term 3, but all the way to the start of the 2020/2021 term in August, recognising that many families will potentially be unable to travel over the July/August break.

The summary of our decisions for Term 3 is as follows:

• We will continue with Home-based Learning throughout the extended circuit breaker period. This ensures that students are occupied and engaged with learning during the period when they cannot leave their homes. It also avoids any disruption of the good habits and routines that students are forming. We have had extensive feedback from parents, students and teachers on what is working well and where we can work towards improvements with Home-based Learning, and we will be making changes accordingly. Our aim will be to ensure the right balance of synchronous learning (where a teacher is working directly with students) and asynchronous learning (where students are working alone or in separate groups), according to the needs of each age group. Further information will come from school Principals and the Directors of Teaching and Learning.
• We will end the 2019/2020 school year on 19 June, as planned. The team did consider extending or shortening the term, but there was a risk that none of the solutions brought any definitive benefit that would be welcomed by a significant majority in our community. Introducing more change might simply add to uncertainty and damage existing plans. In addition, some social distancing measures are likely to still be in place on 1 June: three weeks of face-to-face term time with restrictions on activity is sustainable, while still giving students time together and a positive end to the school year.
• We will develop a Summer Activities offer for students who are resident and staying in Singapore, to begin on 22 June. This will allow them to come back together in smaller groups around areas of interest. Naturally, we will be constrained by any social distancing regulations still in place but the intention is to provide a programme significantly broader than in a 'normal' summer break. The details of this require extensive conversations with providers, and it may have some additional cost attached, so please do give us time to put it together. We will come back to you as soon as we know more. 

Our conversations further focused on the current reality for our parents, most particularly the economic challenges many are facing. Therefore, in addition to the ‘fee freeze’ and creation of a Financial Assistance Programme (FAP) for our families communicated in our previous ‘first response’ email, we are giving a $1,000 credit per student to all families. Families who are leaving the College will have the amount refunded to them directly. 

Any parent who wants to donate their credit to the FAP should email us. This new programme will be launched and communicated to all families in early June.

COVID-19 is a global humanitarian crisis. Now, as the impact on developing countries begins to emerge, we acknowledge once more how fortunate we are to be where we are, however challenging it may be. In the last few months, our community has responded to problems with creativity, purpose and resilience. We are very grateful for your support and commitment, and look forward to the opportunity to thank you all in person when our community comes back together again.

Yours sincerely,

Sajjad Akhtar, Interim Chair, Board of Governors
Carma Elliot, College President