A Time for Teachers and Pupils to Bond

It’s Form Teacher Guidance Period (FTGP) time and the pupils of Primary 2 Bravo at Anchor Green Primary School are gathered at the front of the classroom. They listen closely as their form teacher Mrs Siti Farhaana tells them a story about a selfish monkey who only wants to play his own games with his friends, the bear and the duck. Through this and other tales, the pupils switch their attention from English and Maths to an equally vital lesson about the importance of giving way to others and not always having it their way.

Introduced last year to 12 PAL (Programme for Active Learning) Partner Schools, the weekly FTGP is a dedicated period during curriculum time in which teachers focus on building positive relationships with their pupils and developing their social and emotional competencies. By 2012, MOE plans to expand the FTGP to Primary 1 and 2 classes at all primary schools in Singapore.

What pupils take away from FTGP sessions are lessons in life skills such as self- and social awareness, managing oneself and relationships with others, and responsible decision-making. These lessons are illustrated and conveyed through stories, interactive activities and discussions, with recall and reinforcement through FTGP journals where pupils pen their thoughts and impressions following a period of self-reflection with their teacher and classmates.

Learning about themselves and their classmates

To Mrs Siti, the FTGP offers a chance for her to reconnect with her pupils. “Because there are no academic objectives to be achieved during this period, I can have more heart-to-heart conversations with the pupils and they, in turn, can get to know me on a more personal level,” she explains. “Some pupils find it easier to approach me after such interactions.”

For the pupils, FTGP entails enjoyment as much as enrichment. Describing the period as a time of “fun activities”, Saket R. Pai says, “My favourite activity is sitting around in a circle and passing a soft toy around to music. When the music stops, the person holding the toy must tell the class something about himself.” He adds, “We always laugh a lot!”

Saket’s classmate Lim Sin Yee reveals that she has learnt more about her friends thanks to FTGP activities. “Theresa’s favourite colour is pink, Javier’s favourite food is chicken rice and Alzeius’s favourite food is roti prata,” she reels off.

Knowing what excites individual pupils has also paid off for Mrs Siti during academic class periods. “Because I get a better idea of their personalities and preferences, I know what engages them and can come up with lessons that will get them more interested in their schoolwork,” she remarks.

Discovering cries for help

At the same time, teachers at the school have found the FTGP programme to be useful in alerting them to pupils who are going through personal problems. Relating an encounter earlier this year, Mr Kirupanantha Kumar Palaiyan says, “During one FTGP lesson, a new transfer pupil wrote that family bonding time was not important to him.” After speaking to him, Mr Kumar learnt that the boy’s parents had recently divorced and his mother had left him at a children’s home. “Now we work closely with this pupil’s guardian to look after him so he feels cared for,” he adds.

Another teacher, Ms Dorling Tan, shares that FTGP has helped her Pri 1 pupils adapt to the challenges of the primary school environment by showing them how to recognise and express their feelings. “I had one pupil who seemed perfect in every way,” she relates.

However, during an FTGP session, the girl wrote in her workbook, ‘I don’t like my mummy”, before erasing the line. The words were still faintly visible, and prompted by Ms Tan, the pupil revealed that her mother was giving her a lot of pressure about schoolwork. “She realised she was feeling angry about it,” remarks Ms Tan, “I referred the pupil to go for counselling with her mother and she seems to be much happier these days.”

Such issues would not usually surface during other lessons, explains Mr Kumar, who is responsible for managing the FTGP programme at Anchor Green Primary School. Summing up what the FTGP aims to achieve, he said, “It’s all about building positive relationships and helping pupils cope with the different challenges they might face in life.”