Recent Events

Year 12

CAS Day

Tuesday 10th May

On Tuesday all our Year 12 IB learners were involved in a day of CAS.

It was an early start with Service, volunteering at Willing Hearts. Everyone showed resilience and determination in cooking and packing hundreds of meals for people around Singapore. Despite the heat and pressure in the kitchen, everyone worked together adapting to any task given to them.

Smaller team work then began with the Creative challenge in the local area. Route planning over breakfast at the food hall and off teams went! Some truly creative outcomes, well done!

The day finished with a chance to compete in different team sports with learners also sharing their knowledge of refereeing and umpiring the different matches. Also a bit of fun with a final obstacle race!

A great day of collaboration, made successful by our open minded, risk taking, resilient learners. Now keep it going throughout the rest of your CAS program.

Mrs Joanna Bevan

CAS coordinator

Gamelan Festival

Learners were introduced to different instruments in a Javanese gamelan ensemble as well as basic techniques of playing gamelan in our very first Nexus Gamelan Music Festival. The main focus of the workshop was to play and make music together as a team. Learners also discovered more about the significance of gamelan in cultivating a cultural identity in South East Asia.

The workshops were held over 2 days with all learners from Y6 participating as they have recently completed a cultural unit in music based on Gamelan, it was a great opportunity to play these amazing instruments! In addition IGCSE and IB learners also got involved as this is relative for their courses.

We would like to thank Gamelan Asmaradana Ltd and their team for working with our learners and sharing their expertise.

Nexus Beats 2022

DJ Jawbe

Joshua (Yr8)

Nexus Beats MCs

Tobias and Paloma

ORLA

This year was a major event, even unprecedented.

I want to thank first of all the learners involved and the parents, guardians and all of our Nexus community for supporting this event.

The evening's concert featured 18 bands, a DJ and 2 MCs, all of whom had prepared their own material, rehearsed, produced their own publicity, and created a show.

As IB learners, your child is a Risk Taker, an Inquirer, Knowledgeable, a Communicator, a Thinker, is Principled, Open Minded, Reflective and Caring.

.. and it was a fantastic show - I hope you had fun!

Best wishes

Mr Fordham

Nexus Beats VIII:2022 The Year Of The Tiger -Edit.mp4

Please click on the above video to watch the concert! Feel free to share with your family and friends.

Drama

Jerzy Grotowski Theatre workshop

With visiting actress & theatre practitioner Gey Pin Ang

The restrictions have eased, and workshops are back! On the 29th of April the IGCSE and IB Theatre groups were treated to a rare physicality and vocal workshop by local artist and theatre practitioner Gey Pin Ang.

The workshop

On Friday afternoon, the 15 students and two drama teachers met in the Black Box studio excited to be visited by such an esteemed local theatre practitioner. Gey Pin got straight to work asking the students to be mindful of how their bodies and minds connect, and spent 45 minutes or so warming us all up with movement exercises that helped us to break down barriers and relax into the work. We then spent time playing with how the voice connects with the body, and creating physical and vocal representations of text.

Grotowski was one of the main theatre masters of the 20th century that emphasised an embodied actor training. He created the ‘Poor Theatre’ movement in which he believed that all a performer really needed was an awareness of their body, voice and an audience to perform to. Gey Pin guided us through creative playing and active participation, with the aim of learning to find our intuition and expand our self-discovery. It was a fun, engaging and challenging workshop. We laughed, we felt safe to explore, and we all came away closer, more confident, and more mindful performers.

Who is Gey Pin Ang?

Gey Pin is best known locally for the title role in the Chinese version of Silly Little Girl and the Funny Old Tree and being the artistic director of Theatre OX. Gey Pin was a member of the Workcenter of the world famous Polish theatre practitioner Jerzy Grotowski, and performed lead roles, touring internationally with the company promoting the development of theatre arts. Her embodied practice and research are featured in scholarly journals, books of intercultural theatre and anthropology. Ang holds a PhD in Drama by Practice-as-Research, and her recent works include The Peculiar Tra La (Intercultural Theatre Institute, 2019), The Silly Little Girl and the Funny Old Tree (Young People’s Performing Arts Ensemble, 2019), and Antigone (LASALLE College of the Arts, 2019).

Duke of Edinburgh's International Award

The Duke of Edinburgh's International Award

Adventurous Journey, 06th and 07th May 2022

Last Friday and Saturday, 30 of our Year 10 learners took part in their long awaited Qualifying Adventurous Journey. Until now, this had not been possible due to COVID-19 but we were delighted that we can now finally make things like this happen! In their groups of four or five, they followed an ambitious route for this time of year. This route took in East Coast Park, Marina Barrage and Kallang areas before participants made their way back to school. They cooked their planned meals on the school site, before tidying things away and returning home to grab some sleep . Everyone was back together the following morning out West in Bukit Batok ready for an 8am start.

On Saturday they explored the western canal network before joining the rail corridor and travelling north, finishing at Hillview. Most groups managed to navigate the routes on both days without a hitch. Despite the hot and sticky weather, groups made good time and finished slightly before schedule on Saturday. Despite the physical challenges of the journey and the not so friendly hot weather, it was clear that our great Year 10s were happy to be back out again with their friends and enjoying the outdoors.

The next stage for this cohort of Award participants is to prepare and deliver a short presentation which is focussed on their chosen topic related to their journey. They also need to submit a reflection on their experience during the Adventurous Journey. Presentations will take place later this term. In order to complete the Bronze Level of the Award, all participants will need to ensure that they have completed and successfully logged the required number of months of the Service, Skill and Physical Recreation sections.

Wildlings ‘Survival Skills’ trip with Year 10

Friday 29th April.

With sunny dispositions and matching weather to boot, thirty Year 10 learners hopped on board a coach heading for ‘Wildlings’, an outdoor activity centre where their skills of survival would be put to the test.

Here they were greeted by enthusiastic staff who led them through a series of workshops. From tapioca-planting to tea-brewing, bread-making and shelter-building, the learners learnt a series of skills required for life in the ‘wild’.

The learners were tasked with the sawing and chopping of wood for the fire which in turn was used to bake (incinerate for some) their breadsticks. In addition, they were taught how to identify edible plants, sampling many from the diverse range on offer in order to brew their own tea. To the surprise of many of them, the end result was drinkable, even pleasant!

As part of our ‘Triumph over Adversity’ unit in English, we were asking our learners to put themselves in the shoes of our protagonist, Brian, a survivor of a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness from the novel ‘Hatchet’. They all gave it a really good go with special mentions going to Yichen and Wendy for the way they really engaged with their activities!

As the day’s excursions drew to a close and fatigue began to set in, the final leaf was laid on the large shelter the groups had been working on. Here, everyone could relax in the shade of their own efforts before departing back to reality and back to school to round off the day. Overall, it was a fantastic trip and so great to see all the learners really immerse themselves with the great outdoors. Well done all!

YEAR 12 IBDP GEOGRAPHY FIELDWORK

Our Year 12 Geographers, led by Mr Henry, have been out and about around Singapore this month collecting primary data for their IA as part of their IBDP course.

Learners investigated the differences that exist in 'Quality of Life' between two contrasting areas of the city.

The comaparitive locations were sited in Little India and Robertson Quay.

Learners undertook fieldwork techinques such as land use surveys, traffic counts, environmental quality surveys and questionnaires in order to measure and compare diversity.

Well done to our Year 12 learners who demonstrated the learner profile attributes of being knowledgeable and reflective inquirers. Mr Henry and I were especially impressed with your resilience & determination in applying your fieldwork skills to gather such a wealth of great quality primary data.

Ms Sarah

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