GCE PE CourseWork (Soccer/Hockey- Week 6)

Soccer:
The boys have moved on to heading in Soccer.
Some interesting expressions on all their faces :)

Camp Emerge 2008

Updated

For those of you who enjoyed the video, here it is.


Today marked the culmination of CAMP EMERGE, a 2-day workshop on life-skills and career planning.

We started with an opening address by Mr Low:


Mr Low shared with us the importance of of being something more by injecting passion into what we do. He shared with us the following clip of violin virtuso, Isaac Stern:
Stern believed that the instrument is not that important, it is only a means to an end i.e."you don't use music the play the violin, you use the violin to play music""


Next our keynote speaker, Mr Liak Teng Lit, CEO Alexander Hospital and an Old Victorian gave us some very interesting insights into life and success.



He highlighted the importance finding out where our strengths are and to captilise on them; as well as to discover our weaknesses and to work on them. The keypoint that struck me most in his presentation was when he talked about finding the 'sweetspot' in life where your talent, passion and usefulness to others intersect. That is the recipe for success

The boys end up the day with a formal dine-in lunch in the school hall:

It was a great priviledge to be able to take some pictures with these boys who have now grown into great young men:

Sec 4 Black Shirts

Sec 4 Wushu Team
This is my first batch of graduating VS Wushu students since we first formalised the team in 2006. I am proud to see them emerge as fine gentlemen.


Me and Ng Pei Xiang
Our star in the Camp Emerge video, 'Choice'
Well done, Peixiang as student leader and T&F Captain, you deserve the recognition for being a good role-model for your juniors.
Well done.

The Passing of a Giant

Some time back I posted the 'last' lecture of Randy Pausch, an dying computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

His last lecture can be seen on youtube or google video.
Here is the link for those who missed it the last time.


Today, we've received news that Randy Pausch has just passed on from pancreatic cancer.
The New Paper carried an article in it. (Click here for link)

Thank you Randy for being an inspiration to me, my family and my students.
Keep your flame burning, wherever you are.

Compulsory Study Time! 23rd Jul 2008

Today during CST, our Sec 3 scholars continued to work on their argumentative essays.
We went through Kai's essay on 'Young people have more problems than adults'
This session was conducted slightly differently than the last session. The first session, I did more presenting and highlighted the mistakes by using my laptop to correct the sentences directly on the projected image.
Today, I got them to correct the sentences themselves and practice re-writing.
The boys soon got the hang of it and were able to condense their long meandering sentences into more concise prose.

The group also spent sometime working to help brain storm for ideas for the boys who were involved in their class debates tomorrow. Kai's topic was "The World is Getting Smaller" with his group as proposition; Billy and Akshat were on opposing sides for the motion,"Sportsmen should be paid less"
We spent some time talking about how to properly define the motions such that both proposition and opposition teams can engage in good debate. Then we contributed strategies to help the various speakers with their points for the debate.
We had a fruitful 2 hour CST today and I'm glad that all of you participated actively and attentively

GCE PE CourseWork (Soccer/Hockey- Week 5)

This is Week 5 of our Coursework for Soccer/Hockey.

The boys doing hockey have gone on to work on their passing and dribbling in pairs


Here we see Mr Sng giving the boys some shooting practice.
Check out the fantastic curl in by Haaziq.

We saw some fantastic goal keeping as well-- JJ's ability to stop a ball with his face was awe-inspiring. Now the whole class want to take up wushu and learn to develop iron-hard muscles in the face.

Rock-never-die, JJ
Rock-never-die
:)

Ochre Films "SportsSwap" Audition

Today, the film crew from Ochre Films came down to audition some of our boys for some interstitials for Disney channel.

The idea is to have athletes from different sports pair up and challenge each other at the other person's sports.

So since they were casting for camera friendly, handsome looking, articulate guys, who else but the dashing fellas from Sec 3B would step up to the challenge right?

I had a good giggle watching you fellas go through the audition. Usually, you yak non-stop in class- in front of the camera, you all 'kalang kabut'

Here we see Chong Chieh telling the whole world that Mr Siow teaches 'atanomy'


And then we have Desmond telling the camera that, he enjoys playing basketball and volleyball cos they are very similar---'both use hands'


You all ah!-- In class, can ask me all your 'technical' questions about how hormonal changes affect bone growth; in front of the camera, you all shy until liddat :)

Next time we get people auditioning us, I'm going to send Ali Thomas oredi.
Please tell him to stand by :)

Racial Harmony Day 2008

Today was Racial Harmony Day in Victoria School, the entire Sec 3B was colorfully togged out in various costumes to celebrate this occasaion.

The highlight of todays celebration was the Ethnic Pageant where teachers and students were brought on stage to show off their colorful costumes.
Here we see the students in their cultural best:


Not to be outdone, we see the teachers strutting their stuff on stage here!


All hail the king of the dance floor, Mr David Lee!

B-Div Soccer Finals (VS vs SSS)

[[Updates!]]
Match Video Uploaded!
View it here!



After over 30 years, Victoria School has finally made it back into the B-Div Soccer Finals.

It was a hard fought match with the team from Sports School. The last time VS B-Div Soccer team reached the finals was in 1973. In that year, our current B-Div Coach Mr Teo Yang Song, Captained the A-Div Soccer team to win 2-1 vs SJI. Our B-Div team played RI that year and lost. It has been a 35 year wait for us to get into the finals again since then.

Mr Teo's relentless effort was featured in an article carried by The New Paper

(click here for link to article)

But unfortunately, luck was not on our side and despite a hard fought match between both teams. Sports School won VS 4-0.

However, the strong fighting spirits of our boys made us all proud of them and allowed them to carry their heads high and hold thier well-earned 1st Runners-up medals with pride.

Meanwhile, after the boys have fought it out on the field, our teachers are hard at work battling it out on the soccer table!

I'm sure with this fighting spirit burning inside us, we will fight to make a stronger comeback next year!

Compuslory Study Time!

Yesterday, was my turn to be the Duty Teacher Mentor for the Hostel.
In Victoria Hall, 8-10pm is scheduled as compulsory night study time for all Secondary boarders.

Yesterday, I took the opportunity to go through some fundamentals of essay writing with the ASEAN/A*star Scholars. It was a good session as 2 of the scholars (Kai and Brian) volunteered to let me used their essays for teaching.

The topic we covered yesterday was
"Young people have more problems than adults. Do you agree?"

This was a challenging topic to write about.
In the blogs that both Brian and Kai originally posted their essays, we can see that a common mistake is that students make the logically fallacy of assuming that if I have MANY problems, then I MUST HAVE MORE problems than you. MANY does not equal MORE.

What students need to do in this essay is to:
1) identify the key areas of life in which young people and adults have problems.(i.e. relationship, finance, stress, etc)
2) In this areas of life, what are the different problems that affect young people and adults; and how severe is this effect (i.e. the 'quantity' and 'quality' of the problems)
3) From then you can state your stand and provide evidence to support it; as well as presenting other considerations.

Here are the links to Kai's and Brian's Blog. (Thanks to both of them for sharing)
You will also see my corrections listed under the comments section

Kai's Blog: http://returnofkai.blogspot.com/
Brian's Blog: http://roneworube.wordpress.com/

National Inter-school Track & Field Championships 2008

(Ignatius Tan from 2I- Photo taken by Lim Muyao, VJC)
(Visit Muyao's Photo Stream here)
This was a difficult year for our boys in Track and Field, despite our best efforts, for once VS B & C Division boys have fallen from the top 4 placings in their respective divisions.

Sometimes we lose- That is the undeniable fact of life.
But nevertheless, it is heartening to know that many of our boys achieved their personal best performances during this championships.

Our Sec 4 Captain, Ng Pei Xiang, threw 13.50 for Shot Put- his personal best so far(even though Shot Put was not his main item)

Sean Toh, won the 100m Gold for the C-Div boys. RedSports have carried an image and write up on the event (see http://redsports.sg/2008/07/14/sean-toh-100m-hurdles)

During the finals today, I went down to lend my support with the rest of the VS Boys.
Even though, our athletes knew they were lagging behind in points, each of them gave off their best. Despite facing daunting performances from the rest of the competitors, the spirits of our boys never flagged.
I managed to catch some clips of our boys in action:
Here we see Howard Chung of 2C giving his best for the Javelin.


The boys from VS also cheered their hearts out their seniors who have gone on to college. Here we see Loo Yi Hao, currently in VJC, running his heart out for the 100m


I feel that the speech given by our Guest-of-Honor, MP Christopher DeSouza was very apt. He said that when he was in JC his events were 800m, but for once, he wanted to try and compete in the 100m but was doubtful about his chances of success, His friends gave him some very good advice. They said that even if you come in last, the purpose of running any race is to see how fast you are, how good you are.

If you have given your best, then knowing how good your best is- that is the most important thing you can get in return. Only by truly knowing where our limits are can we break them and move ourselves on to greater heights

Principal,Mr Low summed it up best in his words of encouragement to the boys.
"You must have Passion and Pride for your school- these 2 come together"
"It is not about winning, it's about being a fearless competitor on the field"

Nil Sine Labore

GCE PE CourseWork (Soccer/Hockey- Week 4)

Today is our 4th Week of Soccer/Hockey,
The boys are given more responsibility in their lessons are taking turns to lead their warm ups.
We begin each session with a brief introduction of the day's teaching points.

Our Hockey boys today will be working on defensive play by using concepts of channeling:


For our Soccer boys, they are focusing on shooting and volleying today:

GCE PE Coursework (Soccer/Hockey- Week 3)

For Soccer, the boys are progressively moving up to more technical skills.
Today, they are concentrating on the various ways to dribble past an opponent.


As the boys get more competent, an obstacle is placed to simulate a passive defender.
Here the boys use a green cone to take the place of an imaginary defender.


We don't see the boys taking Hockey today because most of the boys taking the Hockey module this semester are from the soccer team (and vice versa)
And today for the first time since 1973, the B-Boys have made it to the finals!

Tune in for more updates later on the match when we go to Jalan Besar Stadium

GCE PE CourseWork (Soccer/Hockey- Week 2)

In our Week 2 of CourseWork for GCE PE, the Hockey boys have had the priviledge of having Mr Suketu Khabaria from the Singapore Hockey Federation come down to give them a session on Hockey Rules and Umpiring

Mr Khabaria is an International Umpire for Hockey and gave our boys valuable insights into the game.

He was able to give them a detailed explanation of the various rules and regulations for players and referees. This will help them in their coursework to develop a better understanding of the game.

For the soccer boys, they were already on moving on to more advanced passing skills in their lessons.