华文名：海格女校

History

Haig Girls’ School (HGS) was established on 10 September 1951 at Jalan Tembusu, in a double-storey building with 200 pupils in nine classes. In 1955, seven additional classes were opened in the afternoon session to meet the increase in the student population, which had swelled to over 500 pupils. On 29 November 1999, the school relocated to its current site on Koon Seng Road, and has functioned as a single-session school since January 2000.

The school is one of only two government girls’ primary schools in Singapore with an enrolment of more than 1,000 pupils in 32 classes. The school’s emphasis on nurturing character, leadership and creativity is a hallmark of an education at HGS that has endured over the decades. Over the years, the school’s alumni have distinguished themselves in diverse fields, and have continued to uphold the school’s motto of Ars Potens Est, or ‘Knowledge is Power in service to others, the school and the community’.

HGS has been recognised by the Ministry of Education and arts organisations for the quality of its whole-of-school approach to arts education. It was the first primary school to be accorded the National Arts Education Award’s (NAEA) Gold award by the National Arts Council in 2007, and one of two primary schools to receive the 2012 NAEA Blaze award, the highest award for arts education. The school’s strength in arts education, the vibrancy of its arts environment and strong partnerships with arts institutions were further recognised with the launch of the East Zone Centre of Excellence for Creative Arts @ Haig Girls’ School in 2012.

A prototype school for Holistic Assessment since 2010, HGS pioneered the Parent-Child-Teacher Conferencing, a distinctive platform in which the student takes the lead in communicating with her parents and teachers her learning, progress, areas of improvement and the support she would like from them.

The school’s Applied Learning Programme, ‘Service Learning and Innovation through Integrated Project Work@HGS’, was launched in 2011 to nurture creative thinking, civic literacy, collaboration and self-directed learning. The Learning for Life Programme, ‘Character and Leadership through the Performing and Visual Arts’, was also implemented to cultivate students’ appreciation of the performing and visual arts of different cultures, develop their creative expression and integrate the arts into the curriculum.

The school underwent PERI upgrading between 2015 to 2016, and returned to its upgraded campus in 2017. The school was also recognised by Ministry of Education’s Physical Education and Sports Teacher Academy as a physical education satellite school in 2017.