National Day Celebrations
Similar to 2020, the college held its National Day Celebration this year against the backdrop of continued restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fittingly, this year’s National Day theme ‘Together, Our Singapore Spirit’ evokes a common Singaporean identity and calls on Singaporeans to unite as one and to draw strength from our can-do spirit amid challenging circumstances.
With Safe Management Measures (SMM) being a necessary reality, the student leaders of the Community Engagement Council (CEC) worked together with the National Education and Service Learning Committee teachers to work around these restrictions and adopt a classroom-based approach to the SG56 celebrations. Selected student hosts from each class were trained by the CEC to ensure the smooth conduct of the programme. This allowed for a strict adherence to SMM while retaining the spontaneity of an event that was facilitated by student hosts.
The celebration began with the screening of the National Day Observance Ceremony and reading of the National Day message 2021 by our Education Minister, Mr Chan Chun Sing via Zoom. The student hosts from each class then took the lead in conducting an exciting gameshow conceptualised by the CEC, aimed at reminding Singaporeans why we love our unique city-state, and celebrating the multitude of Singapore’s achievements in areas ranging from diplomacy and the economy, to sports. The highlight of the programme was the CEC’s original Choa Chu Kang (CCK) Community Trail e-Amazing Race, which brought the students on an immersive adventure using a variety of online gaming tools to explore the CCK, Teck Whye, Bukit Panjang and Yew Tee neighbourhoods. In the process, students learnt to appreciate the importance of common spaces in our housing estates as the fundamental building blocks for Singapore’s ethnic-religious harmony.
Finally, students in each class were also tasked with designing creative Singapore-themed badges. Demonstrating their artistic creativity, students’ hand-drawn products depicted familiar Singapore icons such as the Singapore Chili Crab, ‘rojak’, the National Museum, MRT trains and even local traditional games such as five stones. These badges were later used by the CEC students to create a lovely collage of the Singapore map as a tribute to the Singapore Spirit by both staff and students.
The celebration concluded with the perennial favourite – a mass sing-along session using original Zoom music videos of popular National Day songs created by our students and featuring talented performers from the Choir, NESL Committee teachers and JP Spotlight students. The singing of ‘Home’ served as a rousing finale to our SG56 celebrations and brought much needed cheer to our college in 2021!
