Throughout our 60-year history we have increased enrollment at various times to meet the needs of the American community and Singapore government. While we do not intend to dramatically increase enrollment we will build in the capacity to add students at a future time should the need for more seats arise. Our current enrollment for the 2018-19 school year is 4,028. As we continue to build out the Chinese immersion program we anticipate that number growing to roughly 4,200 over the next five years.

Our re-enrollment numbers vary from year to year. Historically, we have seen re-enrollment dip as a function of the global economy and not as a result of students transferring to other schools in Singapore. However, this is something we intend to keep a close eye on should we proceed with this project. Regardless of construction we intend to continue to deliver on our vision of being a world leader in education, cultivating exceptional thinkers, prepared for the future.

We have heard from other IASAS schools that there is often an increase in demand during the construction period because families want to ensure their child is able to get a seat to take full advantage of the new buildings when they open.

The school board is tasked with ensuring the long-term health and success of Singapore American School. As an elected body and as stewards of the future they will make the final decision regarding the scope, phasing, and financing of this proposed project.

The school board is scheduled to meet in December 2019 to make a decision regarding the proposed campus upgrade project.

The 2019 calendar year has been marked as a year of parent engagement in order to collect as much feedback and advice as possible regarding the proposed campus upgrade project. The school board will meet in May to discuss the findings from the four community workshops held in April. There will then be another series of workshops held in the fall and the school board will then meet again to consider all of the feedback provided before making a final decision in December.

There is no approved start date for the proposed campus upgrade project. Based on the reports from several contractors and architects the earliest construction could begin is 2021.

The proposed campus upgrade project is something that will impact many of our community members and as a result we want to involve our community as much as possible. In April 2019 we held a series of workshops to help collect feedback and advice regarding the proposed project. There will be more workshops held in the fall. We encourage you to attend these workshops and reach out with any questions or thoughts. We want to engage the community as much as possible throughout this process.

Task force members are selected primarily on skillset and availability. For example, we gathered the expertise of finance and development professionals to contribute to the facilities subcommittee. If you are interested in supporting one of these committees or task forces in the future please register your interest with the school board at board@sas.edu.sg.

The data collected from the April community workshops will be processed and reviewed by the school board. When we return in the fall we will hold another series of workshops to provide greater detail and gather more feedback. The school board will then take all of the information collected and use it to guide their discussions and decision making in December 2019.

One of the trends emerging in library spaces is a shift to creating more experience based environments that include maker spaces and opportunities for individuals to build and create. While we do not have a firm design plan for the future library spaces we have already begun to introduce maker spaces into our library spaces and plan to continue that if we move forward with the proposed project.

The Welcome Center is envisioned as one of the key places to welcome SAS Families, current, past, and future to the upgraded campus. It will house all of the family and student services in the current Eagle Stop, including the book shop, SAScard services, and bus services, and administrative functions like admissions and advancement. It will be a place to showcase all of the great things happening at SAS, and for parents to linger and connect in the cafe and coffee shop.

The campus site plan positions all buildings to have better visual and physical access to nature, supporting student and adult well-being, and making the most of our enviable 36-acre Woodlands site. The new elementary school is positioned to have views to the rainforest and it is envisioned that every floor will have outdoor space, both for play and learning. The middle school is positioned along the treeline of the SAS rainforest, providing visual and physical access to this unique outdoor laboratory. The high school will have views to a new park at the center of the campus, and will maintain its views to the rainforest treelines. Imagine being able to see trees and plants for nearly every learning space, rather than walls and lockers!

At this stage of the planning process, there is about a 35 percent increase in space used for learning between the current campus and the proposed upgraded campus. This increase in learning space is created by recapturing the large amount of circulation space in the existing buildings in new more efficient footprints that eliminate long hallways and under utilized spaces.

Much thought has been given to students and adults arriving on campus as pedestrians or on bicycles and scooters. Plans will consider an extensive network of covered paths connecting all buildings. Should the project move forward we will continue to explore safe and efficient means that the community can transition around campus.

We have heard from parents, students, faculty, and staff that across all school divisions there is opportunity to enhance the dining experience. One considered approach is to create multiple smaller dining venues at each division so that students can dine in smaller groups. This approach aims to significantly reduce the noise and bustle of student dining, and subsequently alleviate the time it takes to transition to and retrieve lunch while increasing the odds that students will find their first choice for a seat. For example, in the elementary school we are considering an approach that will create a small cafe per grade level, allocated on each floor. Fourth and fifth grade would share a larger dining space, so that a wider variety of foods may be on offer as students transition to middle school. This supports our belief in the importance of making a big school feel small, and for every child to feel a sense of community and belonging.

The plan is to provide an increase of learning space for every school division, and to provide a much wider variety of spaces than our current classroom and lab model. Across the entire campus, we are currently planning an increase of about 35 percent. The kind of work we ask our students to do now requires them to not only listen to a teacher, but to collaborate in small groups, to brainstorm independently, to make products that demonstrate their knowledge—sometimes all during one class period. We therefore need greater flexibility in the kind of spaces our teachers and students can choose from, and create more connections between spaces.

We are exploring locations for the booster booth, and should the project move forward would love to enage the booster community in determining the best place. Some suggestions that have been made are at the south end of the stadium field close to where the new stadium seating is proposed.

The site plan does not propose a complete rebuild. In fact, about 40 percent of the existing buildings are retained and renovated, while 60 percent are rebuilt.

The reason the site plan includes a rebuild of the elementary school and middle school is because both are landlocked, and beyond their original design capacity for students. There is simply no room for them to expand, and it would be difficult and disruptive to heavily renovate these buildings given the limited access to them. Additionally the footprint and configuration of the elementary and middle school buildings do not offer much opportunity to create flexible learning envrionments. Bathrooms and stairwell locations 'landlock' learning space into small clusters of classrooms in long linear configurations. Other than moving or eliminating the interior walls, there are no options for changing the configuration of space in much of the elementary school and middle school. The plan envisions a significant renovation to the high school to recapture the space made available by relocating the early learning center in the new elementary school, and reorganize the space to create a 'heart' of the high cchool that includes dining space, an art gallery, and social spaces for each high school house. The plan also envisions an addition to the high school to house an expanded Center of Innovation, along with space for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), as well as arts, design, media, and purpose built space for robotics.

The site plan and phasing have been designed to minimize disruption. The new elementary school for example is built on the opposite side of campus from the existing elementary school, so that students are far away from any construction activity. There are many protocols SAS can put in place for construction contractors including limiting heavy construction to summers, and breaks, staging of construction vehicles off of campus, and dust and air polution requirements, and air filtration for building close to construction. The current SAS campus has actually undergone many construction projects since it opened, including the construction of the current high school right next to the current middle school with students on campus.

Simultaneously, we are working to build new state-of-the-art facilities as quickly as is practical, understanding that some of our students will have left Singapore by the time the entire plan is complete. Along the way we will continue to improve and enhance facilities for current students including new pathfinder projects and renovation projects that will be completed in the short term.

Our first priority is to ensure that our current students and families are well served both educationally, and with our current facilities. We will not waiver from this commitment. From reducing air and noise pollution to ensuring traffic is well managed, we endeavour to take multiple steps to minimize construction disruption to our community.

We anticipate that the biggest disruption will be to play fields; the new elementary school will be constructed on what is now the north and south fields. Once the new elementary buildings are constructed, the old elementary buildings will be demolished and the play fields will be replaced there (and a new 50-meter pool will be added!). We will lose those field spaces for about two school years. We will source temporary field spaces near our Woodlands campus now and will have those fields secured before construction begins.
 

Currently a number of timing proposals are being considered. The answer to this question is therefore dependent on the chosen timeline for starting and progressing construction. As timing strategies for the upgrade are explored and firmed up we will provide insight accordingly.

Pathfinder projects and other renovations will continue to happen over the summer where possible. Renovations to the S block, including enhancements to APEx could happen at any time during the master plan implementation, and would be phased to offer benefits to middle school and high school students even before the new full renovation are complete.

As we look to source temporary field spaces near our Woodlands campus, the ability to host IASAS will be strongly deliberated and reviewed.

Some other schools include that have undergone a campus upgrade or rebuild include Seoul Foreign School, UWC Dover, American International School of Guangzhou (currently in design), NIST International School, and Tanglin Trust School.

Throughout its history SAS has been responsive to the growing needs of the community and has welcomed modern educational practices, understanding that only through a process of continual growth, transformation, and renewal do we remain truly successful. 1996 saw the opening of the Woodlands S$112 million campus which in todays dollars equates to approximately S$184 million.

Faculty across all divisions have been engaged in a series of planning and design workshops, and many have spent time in prototype flexible enviroments. Faculty are looking forward to new ways to arrange classrooms, increased collaboration with colleagues, new gyms, new libraries, and dedicated robotics space understanding there will new challenges along the way as we implement our strategic vision.

There has been significant teacher involvement from the beginning of the process of considering upgrades to our campus. Before even beginning the design of our site plan, many teachers were engaged in a multi-year research and development process where we looked around the world for the latest thinking in pedagogy and the use of space

Teachers were then involved in the site plan development process, as both part of the task force, and in feedback sessions

Most recently, we have created seven different design working groups that have engaged in thinking through what we need in each building to support great learning, and thinking across the campus about space for performing arts, dining, and athletics and activities.

We are considering a number of finacial models that will leverage existing facilities reserves, take on long-term structured debt, and fundraise for specific projects. It is important to note that funds reserved for teacher salaries, benefits and professional development will not be impacted by the facilities project.

As with any construction project of this size the financing is always subject to the current market rates available. it is impossible to predict what the market will allow regarding borrowing rates at any given time in the future. Delaying the project could have significant impact or no impact at all on our financing.

We are currently working through a number of different financial models. It is important to note that funds reserved for teacher salaries, benefits and professional development will not be impacted by the facilities project. Our goal is to have minimal impact on current families, keeping tuition increases similar to what they’ve been over the last six years—four percent or less per year.
 

As we commence community workshops, the facility committee will begin to explore four proposed timing strategies. For more information about the four proposed strategies please click here.

Each year we publish an annual report where we report on the expenditures from the previous academic year. Please refer here to learn more about our finances.

As of June 2018 our total reserves stand at S$233.4 million.

At this time we are working through a variety of financial models and will know more once make a decision regarding the scope of the proposed project.

The site plan has not been officially submitted to the government, though the EDB has been consulted and has indicated support for the investment. Submission to the URA for actual permitting requires plans to be further developed. 

Flexible Learning Environments provide students and teachers with the flexibility to choose from a wider range of spaces to support the kind of learning students are engaged in now, and in the future. Rather than a one size fits all model, we are envisioning our flexible learning environments to support the needs of all learners, including: introverts with small pods and "caves" for quiet study and focus; extroverts with areas to connect with other students and collaborate in ways that are productive and not distracting to others; those who learn through doing by providing more space for making, and prototyping - as just a few examples. Flexible Learning Environments provide not only a variety of spaces, but also connections between spaces so that students and teachers can practice the kinds of workflows that the modern world requires - brainstorming to protyping; research to presentation; collaboration to independent work. We are finding it is not possible to do all of this in a classroom. Flexible learning environments are also flexible to future needs, and can be easily reconfigured so that it isn't necessary to do the kind heavy demolition that our current buildings require to change the learning environment.

To learn more about the benefits of a flexible learning environments we encourage you to participate in one of our campus learning walks or read this Journeys artcle (the positive impacts of a flexible learning environment)

Our starting point for the future of our learning environments was not the space itself, but what teachers and students needed to do in the spaces. To better understand the unique needs of our students, teachers and families, we have been prototyping flexible learning environments on our own campus and learning from each iteration. We call these prototypes "Pathfinder Projects"

Currently, each of our divisions has implemented various type of flexible learning environments within their contexts and the results have been promising. We will continue to collect data in these spaces to help us understand the costs and benefits of these spaces.

Expand curriculum with new purpose built spaces for making, engineering, robotics. More space for art, music, pe. More opportunity to create interdisciplinary experiences

Our strategic focus can be found here. We believe that an upgraded campus structure allows us to deliver more confidently on our vision and mission and allows us to continue to expand the offerings provided to our students.

For more information about the connection between these spaces and the learning that happens at SAS please visit this page.

The biggest risk is designing spaces that our faculty may not yet be ready to practice in. Many schools around the world have started with ideas about space, before having firm ideas of what teachers and students would do in the space. We started the other way. Our research and development phase brough us to the latest thinking on high impact instructional strategies, and that led us to think about how we would align our spaces with the knids of instructional strategies research has shown works.

It takes time for faculty to evolve practice, and this a journey SAS has been on for nearly a decade. Great schools never stop improving, and as we have learned from college admissions counselors, the students who join our campus each year, and the partners from industry in Singapore and around the world, we must continue to evolve to prepare students for our rapidly chaning world. We therefore have invested considerably through the Office of Learning in professional development, and in putting into practice high impact strategies across the campus - from XX in the Elementary, to Tri-Time in the Middle School, to Catalyst and Quest in the High School. These all came from our research and development, and examples of our continued evolution.

 

One of the driving design principles of the campus is ensuring flexibility for the long term. We understand that what kids need now may be different in 10 or 20 years and an upgraded flexible campus allows our faculty to adapt over time. Flexible learning environments are flexible to future needs, and can be easily reconfigured so that it isn't necessary to do the kind heavy demolition that our current buildings require in order to change the learning environment.

After a comprehensive engineering review, we have learned if we were to continue business as usual (BAU) over the next 15 years campus maintenance will include ongoing summer works to revamp learning and play spaces.

This plan will depend on the chosen option for timing strategies. Once this decision is firmed up we will update this website and FAQ accordingly. Please check back again soon.

This plan will depend on the chosen option for timing strategies. Once this decision is firmed up we will update this website and FAQ accordingly. Please check back again soon.