Kindness From The Heart
Kindness comes in many forms but always from the heart - unknownParents and children were asked to fold 200 hearts together in exchange for 50 bags of household food ...
A centre that does not settle for the ordinary
PCF MacPherson Blk 54 has introduced many innovative programmes for the children, enhancing their development, stretching their potential and getting them to do beyond what we think children of this age are capable of.
They cleverly tap on all the resources they can get from the community from their alumni, ITE students, CIP students, Social Service Centre to common residents and even the man who sells paint! With all these additional resources, they could do so much more to benefit their children.
Innovation begins….
In 2009, they got the K2 children to interview elderly residents in a nearby park about the history of MacPherson. They also took photographs of the amenities in the community. The teachers and children collated their findings together and then approach the then MP of MacPherson, Mr Matthias Yao for confirmation. The children visited Mr Yao at his office, interviewed him for more information and sought confirmation for their finidings. Mr Yao, in turn, shared with the children more about MacPherson, eg, that many roads in MacPherson were named after birds, etc.
This programme won the MOE Innovation Award and presented a great opportunity for the children to learn about their community, learn in a real life environment, acquire public relation skills and develop confidence in handling technological tools such as computer, camera and video camera and recorder.
In 2011, returning alumni (former students of this PCF centre) came back to work with the K2 children on a project, “Fairy Tales Come Alive”. These alumni told fairy tales to the children using tools like the visualiser and interactive whiteboard and expanded the stories by editing the storyline to make them their own. The children then engaged in activities such as making personalised story booklets and dramatizing the stories on stage.
Through this programme, the children picked up moral values from the stories read to them and develop their oral, social and cognitive skills through the various related activities.
In 2012, the centre worked with two other PCF centres to launch the Pen Pal programmes. K2 children from the three centres exchanged “biodata” and children choose their own pen pals. They were taught to write letters (in proper letter format) and post cards to their pen pals. An outing was then arranged for the children to meet their pen pals at the Botanic Gardens. The children had a great time introducing themselves to their friends from the other centres and interacting with them.
This is a great way for children to meet their peers in a fun way, at the same time, picking up social, language and cognitive skills while doing so.
In 2012, K2 children were invited to join in the South East CDC’s “Skip for Food” programme. Together with students from other schools and members of community organisations, these K2 children accumulated enough skips to have Charoen Pokphand (CP) donate food hampers to 2,000 elderly residents.
The centre, then decided to extend this programme to benefit the needy in their community. They got the whole school to skip for 15 minutes a day for 10 days, accumulating 105,000 skips. In exchange, CP donated food hampers to benefit 70 needy seniors. The K2 children helped to pack the food stuff, with help from parent-volunteers and teachers and delivered them to the beneficiary. They also did a performance for the senior citizens.
As many of the children are too young to know how to skip, the Principal proposed an innovative method where the skipping ropes are laid on the floor and the children would skip across the ropes in succession.
Children learn to care for the needy in their community through this programme and it was a joy to them when they see how their hard work brought smiles and joy to the elderly.
Through these programmes, the centre hopes to make learning fun and real for the children and to instil in them good moral values and care and concern for their community.
