Elementary School

In phase one, our elementary school will create spaces that are responsive, flexible, and can adapt to innovations in education for decades to come.

Update (February 2023) Back in August, we shared our projections that our new elementary school building will be finished in 2024. Despite challenges posed by Covid-19, we continue to make steady progress. Currently, our plan is to welcome students into the new elementary school building in August for the start of the 2024-25 school year, subject to continued progress on the construction. We'll share an update when students return in August of this year. Click here for some photos and a video showcasing the progress so far.

Our students, educators, and parents, will continue to use the current facilities without any disruption. We are very much looking forward to moving into this extraordinary new elementary school facility when it is complete.

Press play to listen to Principal David Hoss

26 percent more learning space

175 percent more play space

Five separate dining spaces

Reduced travel time

and simpler navigation for students through the building

Covered 25-meter swimming pool

Additional full-sized gym

Covered bus bay

protects students from rain at arrival and dismissal, and creates a large covered play space

Elementary School Groundbreaking

“3-2-1, Eagles!”

And with that, a half dozen of our elementary schoolers, clad in hard hats and safety vests, lifted their nearly shoulder-height shovels to hurl clumps of dirt into the air. The flying of dirt celebrated the groundbreaking of our new elementary school. Read more

What do our students want?

We asked elementary school students from kindergarten through fifth grade to share what they'd like in the new campus! They offered some amazing ideas for everything from playgrounds and equipment to opportunities for learning and sustainability. Elementary school deputy principal Ken Schunk takes on requests for playspaces and equipment and tells us what's in the works as we continue with SAS Reimagined.

What is the Learning Community Experience?

In kindergarten through fifth grade, one important aspect of the design is that our students will be in learning communities in which all classes will have individual, separated classroom spaces. Those individual, fully-enclosed classrooms are designed for classes of 22 students. In addition, the learning communities are designed with the opportunity to utilize shared spaces and configure classrooms in ways to best promote student learning and collaboration.

In 2020-21 many community members participated in a series of design advisory group meetings focused on the design of the new building. We are grateful to you for your participation. If you are interested, you can see check out the sessions here (May 2020, August 2020, September 2020, October 2020). We also held a parent coffee at the end of last year to highlight our learning and work. Click here to see that coffee.

All of that work gave our team of educators, architects, and learning design specialists helpful considerations and advice that enabled us to refine and improve the design. Below you will see the layout of a learning community that we will be using for all classes in grades 2-5. In this learning community, you will notice four separate, fully enclosed classrooms as well as a small group room and an educator workroom. You can also see the shared space in the Commons area. Each learning community, with the four classrooms, the common area, the small group room, and the educator workroom, will have 88 students, four homeroom teachers, and four instructional assistants. The design for kindergarten and first grade is similar but generally with fewer classrooms in a learning community.

Learning communities give students:

Structured learning experiences similar to those currently enjoyed
An opportunity for deep connection with a homeroom teacher and bespoke connections with other teachers in the learning community
Opportunities to build more and stronger relationships with peers
A variety of spaces that meet their learning, social, and wellness needs

These spaces can adjust to meet the needs of the learners and the content of the day’s lessons. Students and teachers will use small group or collaborative spaces based on the lesson plan and the individual needs and learning styles of students. We are excited to have classrooms that can become exactly what a student needs to be their best.

One of our key learnings from our development of classrooms in recent years is our need to ensure that students can both have fully enclosed classroom spaces that are quiet and separated and also can utilize collaborative spaces that are flexible enough to meet the specific demands of the lesson. Some of our past designs did not have this flexibility or did not provide for each class to have its own separate, fully enclosed, quieter space. We have sought to incorporate these learnings in this new design.

Click here to see the latest update from elementary school principal, David Hoss.

elementary school location

Find Out More Here

Building organization

Find Out More Here

FAQs

How is a learning community the same and different from our current classrooms?

Similarities

22 students are assigned to one classroom teacher and instructional assistant.
Each child's experience begins and ends in a separate, fully enclosed homebase classroom with a single teacher, an instructional assistant, and 21 other students.
The majority of your child’s learning time will be spent in small groups guided by a teacher and instructional assistant.

Differences

Instead of having four classrooms side by side running down a hallway, the classrooms are spaced out differently so they each open into a common room area. (see graphic below) By arranging the classrooms in this way, we are able to decrease hallway space and increase learning space by X%. This arrangement of classrooms is called a learning community.
Learning support and English as additional language (EAL) teachers are located directly in the learning community which means they spend less time traveling to pick up/drop off students and more time working directly with students.
While students continue to enjoy a deep relationship with their homeroom teacher and instructional assistant, there will be times based on the learning needs of students where we will form small groups with students from different homerooms and in that event they may be guided by another learning community teacher or IA.

How do learning support and English as an additional language (EAL) work in these new spaces?

Learning communities will have learning support teachers and an English as an additional language (EAL) teachers embedded directly into the learning community based on student needs. We will continue to provide our learning support and EAL services to our students, with a greater emphasis on support teachers “pushing in” to support students in their classrooms.

The classroom teachers, IAs, learning support teachers, and EAL teachers will use student academic data to answer the following questions:

What do we want all students to know and be able to do?
How will we know if they learn it?
How will we respond when students do not learn it?
How will we extend the learning for students who are already proficient?

For example, if the data shows that four students in one classroom and two students in another classroom need additional support, the learning support teacher may join the students in the small group meeting room to offer them direct instruction tailored to their needs.

One of the advantages of this structure is that students will not need to leave their learning community to receive support. This will help minimize the disruption, loss of time, and stigma that may be attached to being “pulled out” of the classroom.

What does research say about the success of learning communities?

One of the findings in the data is that the spaces on their own do not necessarily change student learning. It is the combination of the space and the complementary teaching practices that make these spaces powerful learning environments.

Pros/Benefits

Cons/Cautions

Type D spaces (open plan with the ability for separate classrooms) promote deep learning - an approach associated with higher quality learning outcomes. For more information on deep learning, click here and here (Imms, Mahat, Byers, & Murphy, 2017).
Type D spaces promote teacher mind frames that have been shown to have significant positive impact on student learning. Click here to learn more about these mind frames (Imms, Mahat, Byers, & Murphy, 2017).
Co-teaching (when two teachers function equally as instructors) is made easier in flexible learning environments. Co-teaching has a positive impact on teacher efficacy related to student engagement, instructional strategies, and classroom management (Katz, Lai, Caruso-Woolard, & Hampton, 2018).
Learning communities support teacher collaboration which has been found to have a statistically significant effect on student achievement on standardized math and science tests. (Carroll, Fulton, Doerr, 2010)
The results suggest that the varied, adaptable nature of flexible learning spaces coupled with the use of student-centered pedagogies, facilitated a higher proportion of class time interacting, collaborating and engaging with the lesson content. This may translate into beneficial learning outcomes in the long-term. (Kariippanon, Cliff, Lancaster, Okely, Parrish, 2019)
Flexible spaces minimize barriers to learning that traditional structures may cause (e.g., schedules, physical spaces, grouping patterns of learners, configurations of personnel) (Bold Moves for Schools: How We Create Remarkable Learning Environments, Jacobs & Alcock, 2017)
While the gains from individual spatial changes (e.g., color, flexibility, connection, light, sound) are small, the combined impacts on learning are substantial (Barrett, Davies, & Zhang, 2016)

There is minimal empirical data that adequately evaluates how learning environments (traditional or alternative) impact teaching and learning (Byers, Mahat, Liu, Knock, and Imms, 2018).
Type E spaces (open plan with some adjoining spaces but without the ability for separate classrooms) have a more limited impact on deep learning and teacher mind frames (though they have a more positive impact than the traditional classrooms in Type A) (Imms, Mahat, Byers, & Murphy, 2017).
Level of noise can be an issue if sound-proofing is inadequate (Leggett, Dodd, & Dunn, 2015).
Teachers require adequate preparation and support to collaborate as co-teachers and to use the space effectively (Mahat, Grocott, Imms 2017).
The actual space on its own (open vs traditional) has little impact on student learning (Hattie, et al, 2017).

Please click here to see a collection of global and SAS data.

How will you manage distractions in these spaces, especially during important times like MAP testing?

Students will continue to take their Measure of Academic Aptitude (MAP) achievement tests in enclosed classrooms as they have always taken these exams. One specific question that has arisen is about the distraction that may occur with glass walls. During MAP testing in particular, all students engage in this work at the same time which means there will be no distractions in the learning community during this testing period.

We actually have a model of this already in use with our first and second grade half-moon areas where four classrooms surround a common group room area. This space has been in place for the past 15 years and has operated successfully to provide a self-contained classroom space, while also providing the flexible space outside of the classrooms to support other flexible learning groupings.

Early Learning Center Hub

Bus Bay

Elementary School

Early Learning Center

Elementary School

Elementary School Entrance

Learning Community in Elementary School

SINGAPORE AMERICAN SCHOOL REIMAGINED

Schoolwide

The new campus will bring to our students, faculty, and community members a variety of benefits across divisions.