Since our founding, the mission of the Singapore American School has been to provide an exemplary American education with an international perspective. It is our belief that the learning process is the most enriching, engaging, and meaningful when done in a context that is in-person. We also recognize that at times world circumstances may result in the need for distance learning. In these instances, where we learn may change, but the culture of excellence, extraordinary care, and possibilities that guides SAS does not.

The philosophy that guides these goals is the same at SAS whether we are in-person or distance learning. However, these goals make explicit certain aspects of the distance learning experience when that mode of instruction is required. They ensure students continue to learn at high levels, are mentally and physically well, and can return to in-person learning with minimal impact to their education pathways. 

Goals that we strive for in distance learning:

• Communicate beliefs and expectations clearly to students, parents, faculty, and staff;
• Deliver a high-quality learning experience for students;
• Provide differentiated learning opportunities for our students;
• Provide regular opportunities for both synchronous connections between students and teachers, and asynchronous independent opportunities for student learning and growth;
• Attend to the social-emotional development and well being of every student; 
• Ensure the experience is developmentally appropriate, manageable and sustainable for students, families, and teachers;
• Provide feedback to students on their progress towards power standards and desired student learning outcomes (DSLOs).
• Communicate beliefs and expectations clearly to students, parents, faculty, and staff;
• Attend to the social-emotional development and well being of every student; 
• Ensure the experience is developmentally appropriate, manageable and sustainable for students, families, and teachers;
• Deliver a high-quality learning experience for students;
• Provide regular opportunities for both synchronous connections between students and teachers, and asynchronous independent opportunities for student learning and growth;
• Provide differentiated learning opportunities for our students;
• Provide feedback to students on their progress towards power standards and desired student learning outcomes (DSLOs).

Beliefs That Guide Distance Learning at SAS
These overarching beliefs about learning apply to both in-person and distance learning at SAS. When applying them to our schooling approaches, these fifteen beliefs have specific importance to distance learning and were used to guide the development and implementation of distance learning at the SAS:

1. Child Safety is Essential: Ensuring child safety in person and online is of the highest priority. Clear guidelines have been developed for how this is done during distance learning. These guidelines should be adhered to by teachers, students, and parents when distance learning is occurring. 
    
2. Child Health and Well Being are Essential: We believe that distance learning should be structured in a way that supports the health and well-being of our children.  
    
3. Clear Learning Targets: To learn effectively, students need clarity about learning targets, feedback on where they are in relation to targets, and instruction on what steps to take to move forward. Our approved SAS curriculum scope and sequence should continue to be followed by professional learning community (PLC) teams of teachers but should be tightened and focused to account for the distance learning context. Landing pages and distance learning platforms should be clear, simple, and easy to navigate for students, teachers, and families to understand and achieve these targets. 
    
4. High-Impact Instruction & Assessment Practices Remain Essential: High-impact instruction and assessment practices should remain regardless of in-person or distance learning. This includes clarity of learning tasks, sequences, and design of the experience. Assessments need to continue to assess student learning aligned to power standards and key learning outcomes. It is essential that teachers provide both formative and summative assessments in the distance learning context. In the event of extended distance learning, teachers should expect professional growth feedback from their supervisor on their instructional practice online.
    
5. Diverse Learning Needs Are Met: We have an obligation to provide support to our diverse learners, including those with accommodations and Individualized Education Support Plans (IESP). It is recognized that in the distance learning context how IESP supports are delivered may change but the school should ensure the essence of the agreed upon supports are delivered upon. This requires flexible and nimble practices that allow for accommodations for students, with or without an IESP, who learn differently in a distance context. 
    
6. Programming Is Developmentally Appropriate: As students go up in grade and age, their level of independence, attention, and focus increases. Additionally, the need for parental support decreases. As a result, programs should not look the same at different levels of schooling and instead should be differentiated to meet the needs and abilities and developmental stages of the learners.
    
7. Social-Emotional Learning and Connection: To learn effectively, students need a social-emotional connection to their teacher and their peers. Additionally, teachers need to provide explicit instruction and feedback on social-emotional learning targets associated with Responsive Classroom and advisory programs.
    
8. Synchronous Connections are Important to Learning: Learning is a social enterprise and requires collaboration between teachers and students. As a result, various synchronous activities are needed. Whole group is important for direct instruction and responsive classroom/SEL strategies. Small groups are important for differentiated, direct instruction and feedback as well as for students to collaborate on tasks. Individual (1:1) connection between teachers and students is important for student check-ins (to make sure no one is falling through the cracks), remediation or summer extension for outliers, and personalized emotional support. Since all three are important, all three need to be present.
    
9. Individual (asynchronous) Activity is Important to Learning: In the classroom setting, this occurs when students are engaged in individual work and teachers are floating around answering questions and providing 1:1 feedback. In an online setting, this remains important. Students can independently complete tasks that are submitted for teacher reflection and/or feedback. Although teachers do not give feedback on every piece of work submitted, teachers are using what they learn from this work to inform their decisions about next instructional steps as well as small group configurations. In some cases, students will also have the chance to access videos that have been posted and rewatch or slow down portions where they are confused. Therefore, there should be a blend of synchronous and asynchronous.
    
10. Student Unstructured Time is Important: It is important for students to have “down time” during a distance learning school day. This happens on a regular basis during in-person school through recess and choice/free time that teachers build into their schedules. This becomes more important as students and families are coping with the social-emotional impact of the causes of distance learning such as COVID-19. Structured and unstructured play is important at all ages but is particularly important at the younger grades. Therefore a distance learning school day need not look exactly like an in-person school day.
     
11. Schoolwork Within the School Day: To support student well-being, we should limit the amount of homework and consider homework assignments with lesser use of screen time where feasible. Homework should focus on the most essential learning.
     
12. Teacher Preparation Time: Teachers need time built into the schedule to analyze and respond to student work independently as well as coordinate with their PLC teams. This is necessary to determine the makeup of small groups, who needs individual support, and the next steps in instruction and assessment. 
     
13. Strive to Find Commonalities in Schedules: The ability for families with children in multiple divisions to find common unstructured times during their school day promotes social, emotional, and physical wellbeing. To the extent practical, we should strive to develop common divisional start, end, and lunchtimes from preschool through twelfth grade. 
     
14. SAS Parents Are Supported: SAS has a responsibility to support parents as they partner with us in the education of their children while distance learning. This may be through parent education, parent coffees, and online modules as well as regular communication. Commonality in communication mechanisms will be helpful for families that have multiple children in different divisions. 
     
15. Feedback from Parents and Students Informs Programming: Regularly seeking feedback from parents (especially in the elementary school) and students (especially in the middle and high schools) should be part of our practice. We welcome feedback to inform our continuous program improvement efforts.