VS-SOAS School Twinning Program 2008-Welcome!

In June 2007, Victoria School visited the Sultan Omar Ali Saiffudien (SOAS) College in Brunei for our first school twinning program.

Our friends from Brunei have come over this year for their return visit. On Mon, during morning assembly, they were greeted by Mr Low and the entire Victorian family.


The SOAS delegation was comprised of 10 students and 2 teachers. The students are:
Muhd Amirul Syafiq bin Noorazmi
Hj Abd Azeez bin Hj Abd Salam
Abdul Mu'izz bin Junaidi
Nadzuan bin Narawi
Muhd Nadhim bin Hj Othman
Hj Abd Khaliq Ghaffari bin Hj Alias
Bryan Boon Wu Chieh
Andrew Lau Ming Sheng
Geoffrey Vun Yong An
Ahmadi bin Yusmin

They were led by the following teachers:
Miss Jenny Tan Feng Ling
Mr Muhd Azri bin Hj Sulaiman

Here we have Cikgu Muhd Azri giving addressing the school on behalf of SOAS College:


Our Bruneian friends came prepared to share their culture and heritage with us. Immediately after Cikgu Azri's opening address, the boys from Brunei entertained us with 2 dances.

The first dance was the 'Adai-Adai' dance. The 'Adai- Adai' dance has its origins amongst the fishing community. Dancers dressed in traditional fishermen garb dance to the beat of the rabana (drum) and show us a celebration of life amongst simpler times as people work together to make ends meet and join in song and dance to forget about their labours.


The next dance that was presented to us was the 'Alai Sikap'. This is a dance traditionally performed by the 'Puak' of Belait. With a pair of bamboo sticks in hand, the performers hit the sticks against the ground and each other to generate a percussive rhythm while the dancers skip, jump themselves over the opening and closing of the bamboo poles.


It is rare to see boys dancing and our friends from SOAS showed us that even all-boys schools like VS and SOAS can show a strong love for performance and the arts. Through this twinning program, I am sure that the boys from both schools will be able to inspire each other to be as comfortable battling on the field of sporting competition as well as performing on the gentle stage of artistic discovery.

Nil Sine Labore