Full Subject Based Banding (Full SBB)

Clementi Town Secondary School is one of the 28 secondary schools selected by the Ministry of Education to start piloting aspects of Full Subject-Based Banding (Full SBB) from 2020 onwards.

PURPOSE OF FULL SBB

With Full SBB, we are moving towards one secondary education, with many subject bands, to better meet our students’ learning needs, without labels. This is part of the broader shift in our education system to recognise the strengths and interests of our children, to help them build their confidence and develop an intrinsic motivation to learn for life in them.

By 2021, the pilot schools will have fully implemented the following aspects of Full SBB:

Organising Secondary 1 form classes in new ways; or
Offering of Humanities subjects at a more demanding level from Secondary 2.

FULL SBB PILOT IN CLEMENTI TOWN SECONDARY SCHOOL – A UNIQUE CCA-HOUSE EXPERIENCE FOR STUDENTS

The following video illustrates our school’s implementation of Full SBB.

Our students belong to form classes based on their CCAs. Their CCA-Parents (i.e. CCA Teachers) oversee their attendance, total well-being and development, during both curriculum hours and CCA. This arrangement is intended to encourage students from the same CCA to mingle and build friendships during and after school, regardless of their academic stream, and to create more opportunities for seniors to lead their juniors.

In addition, students belong to one of four Houses depending on their CCAs. Each House comprises five CCAs, with at least one Performing Arts CCA, one Sports CCA, and one Uniformed Group CCA. Students attend lessons for common curriculum subjects in mixed-stream classes with peers from the same House. The common curriculum subjects are: Citizenship and Character Education, Physical Education, Design & Technology, Food & Consumer Education, Art, and Music. For the other subjects (such as English, Mathematics, Science, Mother Tongue Language, Humanities), students are allocated classes depending on whether they are offered the subject at Express, N(A) or N(T) level.

We term such a design of students’ experience in school the “CCA-House Experience”. The CCA-House experience has provided an authentic environment for the students to learn and work together, appreciating strengths and diversity. It has also helped reduce the inadvertent labelling associated with streaming.

In 2021, we will further pilot the offering of Humanities subjects at a more demanding level for Secondary 2 students.