Among thousands of submissions from international schools all over the world, Sri KDU International School (SKIS) was the only international school in Malaysia to be shortlisted for the International School Award 2020 – Community Initiative Award.
The International School Awards are opened to international schools around the world to celebrate learning, teaching, community, pastoral care, leadership and strategic initiatives at international schools. They provide the opportunity for international schools to share best practice, creative endeavours, community participation, and innovation.
The project submitted – Elements of English (EoE) is a simple and worthy project that is entirely the brainchild of three SKISS students – Annabelle, Chantelle & Nadia which they started back in 2014.
In January this year, our Year 10 student Annabelle Chin, who is one of the co-founders of EOE and our Principal Mrs Margaret Rafee represented the school at the International School Awards Grand Finale held in London!
We managed to catch Annabelle to share more about the project.
Tell us more about the initiative.
Elements of English (EoE) offers English lessons to the indigenous community as a support for the socio-economic challenges of these students. Their school (Sekolah Bukit Lanjan) was the worst-performing school in 2013 in the state, with low attendance and no child ever progressing to Secondary 1.
We decided to teach English as we were taught according to British international school standards that were thematic-based, fun and relevant. Improving the proficiency of English also instils better confidence, creates hope and opens the world to the children through the wealth of knowledge available in print.
Five years on, this is now an established project passed on to a new generation of students having taught over 200 students, many of whom have progressed beyond Secondary 1. We have galvanised the wider community in stepping up to help the local school children.
Finally, we have seen our students who participated become more socially responsible, disciplined and mature. They have now developed formal coursework, a syllabus and a handbook to facilitate any other groups of students intending to do the same.
What inspired you to start this initiative?
My two co-founders, Chantelle and Nadia and I had found out about these students and their lack of regard towards education. This included 80% attendance, a perception of UPSR as optional, etc. We started with the simple idea of teaching them English in hopes that it would open more job opportunities in the future, but the programme grew to have much more of an impact than we expected.
What were the main challenges?
These kids were sweet, but especially when we started, we constantly had to chase them back into the classroom. The older ones sometimes threw things like chairs at us, those were some of the ‘drama’ that we needed to face.
We first started with older kids and gradually moved to younger kids as their habits and attitudes were cultivated from a younger age. This has made the current batch much better in terms of behaviour and have comparatively become less violent. Communications had with them is also another challenge that we needed to face. This is as we were having a language barrier since most of us are having English as our first language, while their native language is Malay. However, we insist to speak in English with them as this will also train them to speak in English.
We visited numerous international schools in Klang-Valley and Sri KDU Subang Jaya was not even on our list. Reason being it is way out of our travelling radius. However, we are glad we made the visit to the school before our final call, and it was the best decision ever! It was a huge transition period for us during the first 2 weeks into school, but the school’s team (Teachers, Administrative and Parent’s Teacher Association) made us feel right at home. We were given clear guidance and was kept well informed on the happenings in the school. My daughter blended into the community quite well with the care provided by the Homeroom teacher. All the teachers here are the kindest, as she told me. She looks forward to going to school and has become more disciplined in terms on knowing what tasks she needs to complete daily. She has gained so much confidence during this short period of time and was given the encouragement to explore and develop her abilities here. She was just selected as the new Primary House Captain for Year 6 AY2022/2023.
Every parent want to find the ‘perfect’ school for their child and are afraid of making the wrong decision. For us, as long she is safe and happy, we believe, she will eventually find the way to her own success.