These are moments – of learning, of growth, of inspiration – that our teachers spark; where they add colour to students’ lives, as much as the students do to theirs.
We ask our
Outstanding Youth in Education Award
finalists and recipients:
What brings you joy?
What brings you joy?
Recipient
Recipient
Recipient
Recipient
Recipient
Recipient
Recipient
Finalist
Finalist
Finalist
Finalist
Mr Lim Yang Jun
Fuhua Primary School
Teacher
Recipient, OYEA 2025
Mr Lim champions inclusivity, transforming spaces to cater to students of different needs.
With his team, he introduced calming corners in every classroom, signalling that any student may experience negative emotions, and ready support is available to all, regardless of their challenges or backgrounds.
In this way, the physical environment itself becomes a powerful tool for fostering a welcoming and inclusive school community.
Mr Lim also practises Universal Design of Learning (UDL), an approach that encourages the provision of multiple modes of learning – more ways means more needs met.
“There might be students who aren’t able to read or spell every single word,” he explains, so “instead of insisting that they always write, why not let them talk, use actions, or even draw?”
“Students become more excited when they learn through UDL.
They’re also more engaged and confident in class, because they can choose the mode they want to express themselves in.”
Ms Amanda Lim
Nan Chiau Primary School
Teacher
Recipient, OYEA 2025
To Ms Lim, Art is not about teaching students to become artists or produce aesthetically pleasing works.
“It’s an avenue to explore traditions and cultures, practise imagination, and gain life lessons. Learning about an artist’s life, for example, creates teachable moments for values like respect, perseverance, and sincerity,” says Ms Lim.
In SPACES @ NCPS, one of her Art initiatives, Ms Lim creates spaces and apparatus around the school for unstructured play, such as doodle boards and learning art on the move through art trails.
“Learning, unlearning and relearning about ourselves is a chaotic process. Chaos needs structure and boundaries for it to take place meaningfully, so students can express themselves and find their own identity in safe spaces like these.”
“The joy of teaching is like a tea party in Alice’s Wonderland – colourful, chaotic, and joyous, with meaningful things happening at every corner.”
Ms Lim recalls how a quiet student opened up because he was passionate about a project – using art to give back to society. It’s about giving students opportunities to contribute meaningfully.
Mr Kartik Gayan Rajaram
Compassvale Seconday School
Year Head (Acting), Upper Secondary
Recipient, OYEA 2025
“It’s important to help them identify what’s within their control, and what’s not,” says Mr Kartik.
The Personal Education & Career (PEC) Plan is one way he puts that sense of control in his students’ hands. It guides students to chart their journey from secondary school to a post-secondary course. Mr Kartik digitalised the PEC Plan to offer information personalised to each student, based on their inputs and goals.
For example, when students input their subject scores, the PEC Plan recommends ways to calibrate their academic workload and post-secondary pathways they can take. When they input the field of study they want to pursue, the PEC Plan shows them which subjects they need, and at which level, alongside the subjects and levels they are currently taking.
This helps students – and their parents – set achievable goals and make better-informed decisions. It also complements teacher-student conversations about their future, he adds.
“Every conversation, initiative, and little success can guide our students towards discovering their purpose.
If they have a sense of who they are, and who they want to be, that will lead to the actions that they will take – and that’s ownership.”
Mr Ervine Quek
Nan Hua High School
Geography Teacher
Recipient, OYEA 2025
Teaching has evolved from instructing to mentoring, says Mr Quek, who encourages his students to discover, research, initiate, and lead.
This draws out deeper and more creative insights from them, such as during the Asean Forum that he initiated with his colleagues. One year, students surprised him with a rap about the relationship between Asean and China.
Mr Quek also creates ways for students to “experience” his lessons – from role-playing as magma when learning about tectonic movements in Geography, to inspiring inclusive sports as a Social Studies spin-off.
“As they say, ‘I hear and I forget, I see and I learn, I do and I understand’,” he explains.
“You are not a bad student, just a student who made some bad decisions.”
When Mr Quek was a teen, these words from his teacher, and other teachers who “saw me for who I could be”, triggered a change of heart in him. They also inspired him to be a teacher.
Ms Hshieh Szu An
Presbyterian High School
Subject Head (Character & Citizenship Education)
Recipient, OYEA 2025
When Ms Hshieh was thinking of ways to get students to chime up more, she decided better facilitation might be key.
She introduced the Circles Framework to her colleagues, to equip them with facilitation skills to lead various types of Circle Time with their students – to build relations, improve discussions on contemporary issues, and deepen thinking.
There’s a fun visual cue too.
When this plushie is out, we all know it’s Circle Time!” she adds with a laugh.
A teacher in charge of a sports CCA shared that her team faced tensions during competition season. By facilitating Responsive Circles, “the teacher got the team to air their thoughts”, Ms Hshieh explains. “After helping them to unpack their issues, they bonded more as a team.”
“Teaching is deeply fulfilling, but it’s not without its challenges.
Offering tools like the Circles Framework to my colleagues has helped shape a caring school culture, allowing them to better connect with students and rediscover the joy of journeying with them.”
Ms Lim Siew Gek
St. Gabriel’s Secondary School
Assistant Year Head
Recipient, OYEA 2025
Ms Lim realised early on in her teaching career that her students learnt best through hands-on experiences.
To make her Geography lessons more fun and engaging, Ms Lim came up with a card game known as “Hunger Games”, for students to learn about food scarcity around the world.
With the rise of EdTech tools, Ms Lim shifted her games online for students to play on their Personal Learning Devices.
“If you walk past my lessons, you’ll see that all my students are busy gaming. But these games are planned in a way that what’s taught is no less than what a traditional Geography lesson covers ,” says Ms Lim.
“Aside from making lessons fun for my students, I also want to feel joy from what I teach.
That’s what spurs me to think more creatively for my lessons.”
Mr Muhammad Sultan Karimshah
St. Joseph’s Institution
Maths and Chemistry Teacher
Recipient, OYEA 2025
Promoting students’ safety – both online and offline – comes hand-in-hand with Mr Shah’s role in the Discipline Committee.
“It’s a symbiotic relationship, to look into the wellbeing of students and their conduct,” he says, citing the example of how the Committee helped a student with gaming addiction.
In the cyber wellness programme for Year 3 and 4 students, which Mr Shah helped shape, selected boys act as ambassadors, such as by sharing what online bullying looks like.
“We also invite speakers like game developers to talk about how elements in games are designed to hook players,” says Mr Shah.
“Being aware of these features help them better understand their behaviours.”
Mr Shah, who teaches Maths, also approaches the subject with the intention of developing students holistically.
“It’s not just about formula, theorems and equations. I make sure my students make sense of what they are doing.”
Ms Eunice Kho
Bukit View Primary School
Senior Teacher (High Ability Learners)
Finalist, OYEA 2025
In class, Ms Kho’s laptop displays a board of live responses from her students. Each answer is tagged by AI with a smiley or frown emoji and a brief summary of how her students did on an assignment. “See the frowns? Let’s fix them,” she says.
She taps on Student Learning Space to set tiered challenges. This will “stretch high-ability learners while giving every student a voice and choice” on how they learn, she explains.
Tech makes marking easier, but she is also conscious not to correct students too quickly, as self-checking is a skill they should learn.
“Helping both students and teachers make sense of their work brings me joy.”
When a colleague’s student was disengaged, Ms Kho co-created a lesson to blend the student’s love of drawing with language goals. It gave the student renewed purpose , showing the power of personalised learning.
Ms Esther Mak
Nanyang Primary School
Teacher
Finalist, OYEA 2025
Our future workforce can’t afford to work in silos, says Ms Mak. They need to know how to collaborate and learn together.
“So we start them young – to know how to disagree respectfully, to take responsibility for their own learning, and realise they can learn from one another,” says Ms Mak.
Learning is no longer about downloading information from the teacher to student, she emphasises.
She builds routines into her lessons. When posed with a real-world Science question, students practise thinking by themselves first, before discussing in teams to reach a shared understanding.
Finally, Ms Mak guides the class to a consensus, in a way that synthesises what they have uncovered themselves.
“This routine pushes learning beyond knowledge. They learn values like speaking respectfully, communicating clearly, and taking in new information.”
Getting students to take ownership of their learning – that’s one of Ms Mak’s chief goals and joys as a teacher.
Ms Chang Wan Yin
Dunman High School
Maths and Social Studies Teacher
Finalist, OYEA 2025
Imagine trying to buy a fridge. You would need to check its dimensions, how much energy it guzzles, and how big your electricity bill would be, among other things.
All this requires Maths, points out Ms Chang, who believes in equipping her students to see the hidden figures behind life’s decisions.
Her students also learn the calculations behind buying insurance or coming up with a personal savings plan.
“At the start of the year, I asked them: What do you want to achieve from learning Maths, besides grades? And quite interestingly, they told me that they want to see how Maths is applied in real life.”
In Maths and in Social Studies, which she also teaches, it may be about justifying their response more than producing model answers.
She brings this out in a game she created, where students represent countries that need to weigh national interest versus international interest.
“Students are learning that sometimes, there’s more than one correct answer.”
Ms Charlene Chan
Xinmin Secondary School
Senior Teacher (Character & Citizenship Education)
Finalist, OYEA 2025
Ms Chan advocates for the meaningful integration of tech in professional development among her peers and encourages responsible digital use among students.
She’s developing a tool to track social-emotional skills; it enables students to take charge of their personal growth by, say, setting character goals.
Teaching can be humbling, says Ms Chan. She used to think giving the most honest feedback would help her students, till one student was equally honest to say it wasn’t helping her.
It made Ms Chan think twice about her strategy and find new ways to engage her.
“I used to think teenagers were scary, and to face 40 of them at one go was not something I could imagine doing.”
Now, the former video producer has no regrets about switching paths.
Mdm Koh Seok Xian
Anderson Serangoon Junior College
Maths Teacher
Recipient, OYEA 2025
Junior college students are at an age when they tend to keep their challenges to themselves, says Mdm Koh.
So she takes extra steps to check in with them regularly or help them develop coping strategies.
She also fosters a strong peer support network to encourage conversations around and agency between students.
Beyond nurturing emotional strength, she believes in helping students find purpose. Through service-learning projects, she creates opportunities for them to serve and engage meaningfully with the community.
In this way, learning shapes not just their minds, but their character, she adds. To her delight, many of the students go on to volunteer or work in the social services, and health care sectors.
Mdm Koh also models self-care and resilience by carving out time for rest and family.
“I find a rhythm that is sustainable for myself and my family.”
