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Office of Learning

Welcome to SAS

Singapore American School is an open admissions school that believes in inspiring a passion for learning, encouraging emotional and intellectual vitality, and empowering students with the confidence and courage to contribute to the global community and to achieve their dreams. To support this vision, SAS offers a comprehensive liberal arts education that is engaging, challenging, and robust within its day-time programs and its after-school programs.

21st Century Curriculum

  • All curriculum is standards-based, aligned to the most current recommendations of professional associations in the U.S., and collaboratively developed with faculty to ensure appropriate challenge and rigor. 
  • All curriculum is on a regular cycle of review and renewal.
  • Opportunities are seized within curriculum and courses to integrate an international perspective.
  • Service learning is integrated within the curriculum for grades K-8, and 40+ service clubs are student-initiated in the high school. 
  • Technology integration for enhanced and extended student learning is embedded within unit plans.

21st Century Assessment

  • Explicit assessment guidelines are in place that reflect best practices.
  • Common assessments are developed in conjunction with the writing and revision of units.
  • Professional conversations are occurring around standards-based grading and reporting.
  • Assessments are used purposefully by faculty to inform instruction in the classroom.
  • Educational data is used by faculty, administrators, and the Board as it relates to student learning, programs, demographics, and perceptions.

21st Century Learning

  • SAS pursues a balanced approach in its attention to the quality of teaching and the quality of learning in the classroom. 
  • Learning Principles provide clarity on what is meant by quality learning. 
  • Meaningful use of assessment data by the teacher informs differentiated instruction within the classroom. 
  • Collaborative models of instruction are provided for students with diverse special needs, ranging from push-in and pull-out interventions for struggling students to gifted students. 
  • Classroom learning environments provide multiple resources, including meaningful uses of technology, for enhanced and extended student learning. 
  • Faculty Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) engage in conversations about learning targets, evidence of learning, and adjustments within instruction to address needs of diverse learners.

To support ongoing educational developments for 21st century learning, SAS has established a few open architectural systems and structures:

  1. Focus on cultural shifts needed to support practices.
  2. Collaborative and distributed leadership models.
  3. Learning organization systems (e.g., research, professional learning network of schools, Professional Learning Communities within the school.) 
  4. Backward design based on graduate profiles and graduate expectations .
  5. School Accreditation -- Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) -- for extensive stakeholder input (i.e., parents, students, faculty, administrators, classified staff, Board) as part of a Self-Study process .
  6. Support for Innovations (e.g., partnerships, service learning, extended learning, new courses.) 
  7. Technology Integration that promotes 21st century skills in creativity and innovation, communication and collaboration, research and information fluency, critical thinking, problem solving and decision making, and digital citizenship. 
  8. Strategic Planning for long-range planning and for annual progress accountability.

Singapore American School is the largest international American school in the world, and is considered by some sources to be one of the leading schools in the world. Our success in student learning is predicated on the quality of our staff, programs, and the positive and supportive relationships that SAS achieves through collaboration among educators and our parent community. SAS is located in one of the most progressive countries in the world that is also looking at how to continually upgrade its own learning and achievements, and this makes for a dynamic and exciting learning environment for all of us.

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