As with all other UWC residential communities, our boarding community is incredibly diverse, both culturally and socio-economically, with boys and girls ranging in age from 13 up to age 20 from all over the world. At the moment we have about 150 students from more than 52 different countries. Even our boarding staff is made up of teachers and other members of the College community who come from 18 different countries. 

This is definitely one of the best things about living in a UWC boarding house: with so many different people which so many different life experiences and world views, there will always be something new to learn, something interesting to talk about, and new friends to be made.

House families

How do we manage to take care of such a big and diverse community? In Tampines House we do so by using a system of house families. Our boarding community is currently divided into four house families, named after local trees: Cempaka Family, Keranji Family, Rambutan Family and Tembusu Family. The families are mixed in terms of age and gender. Each house family has a houseparent and a boarding services executive (BSE) to look after it. The houseparents and BSEs work together closely to help boarders with all sorts of things: travel arrangements, academic monitoring, trips, activities and services, finances and pocket money. They also keep a close eye on the physical, social and emotional wellbeing of the boarders in their families. 

Assistant houseparents

We also have a team of assistant houseparents who make up a very important part of our boarding community. The assistant houseparents are teachers or members of the College staff who come to Tampines House once or twice a week to help us in the evenings and on weekends. They have many different tasks and responsibilities, such as supervising evening study times, managing leave requests, doing occasional room checks, and helping with the evening shutdown routine and bedtime checks.