Applied Learning Programme

Inspiring Thinking Tinkerers @Clementi Primary: An Interdisciplinary Approach to develop Critical and Inventive Thinking, Collaborative and Communication skills.

The world which we live in today is characterised by rapid technological advancement, disruptions, and unprecedented challenges. Clementi Primary School is committed to scaling up student-centric experiences to equip Clementians with the skills and attributes to thrive in the fast-changing world.

To this end, the school will adopt an interdisciplinary educational approach to learning, where most subjects such as English, Science, Mathematics, Arts and Social Studies are incorporated to develop Clementians’ intellectual depth, critical and inventive thinking, collaborative, and communication skills as well as dispositions for self-directed, lifelong learning. These skills and dispositions would be critical to prepare Clementians for real-world problems that are often ill-defined and multifaceted in nature, and that require an interdisciplinary approach to understanding and addressing them.

Our six-year ALP will enable Clementians apply these skills in systematic ways to solve real-world problems. Undergirding the programme is the Design Thinking (DT) framework – ‘Empathise’, ‘Define’, ‘Ideate’, ‘Prototype’ and ‘Test’. DT processes and structures will be deliberately incorporated in viable learning tasks across different subjects to develop Clementians’ problem-solving skills. To support the DT processes, the school will use “Visible Thinking” as a pedagogy to bring about Clementians thought processes and “Growth Mindset” to inculcating positive dispositions in the Clementains as they go about exploring and designing.

Over time, Clementians will learn to transfer and apply these skills across different contexts, analysing real-world problems, gather information, generate potential solutions, refine ideas and test solutions. We envision that through this programme, for all Clementians will become empathetic, creative and critical problem solvers who regard errors as part of the learning process.

To ensure that all Clementians have opportunities to acquire and apply communication, collaboration, critical and inventive thinking skills in a meaningful and sustainable way throughout their six-year learning journey in school, the ALP is further divided into two tiers.

In short, Tier 1 programmes are foundational in nature that aim to develop the makers’ mindset and Tier 2 programmes aim to deepen Clementians’ application of these skills when they move beyond Primary 3.

To lay a strong foundation for lower primary Clementians (Primary 1 and Primary 2) to develop cognitive processes to assess options, evaluate credibility of content, make sound decisions, explore and think out of the box, the school will leverage English Language lessons and intentionally infused the teaching of creative and inventive thinking into content instruction.

Having been exposed to creative and inventive thinking skills in their lower primary years, all Primary 3 Clementians will undergo a 5-sessions of “Design Thinking Workshop” to help them understand the DT framework and its application. Clementians get to explore how DT is used to solve real-life problem they faced in school or at home. Reinforcement of DT application is then done in Social Studies, where Clementians are challenged to think of devices to save water which ties in with “World Water Day” yearly.

At Primary 4, Clementians will undergo the “Art Design Thinking Challenge”, where they will be tasked to visit a playground near the school to understand how different components in a playground serve different playing experiences. Clementians will be challenged to use paper sculpture to design a desired playground that could include handicaps and other users.

At Primary 5, Clementians will be learning about food security and experience the process of farm-to-table-to waste through awareness of food waste and food waste management. Linking to Science concepts learnt in class and incorporating DT processes, Clementians will propose solutions to real life food security issues.

At Primary 6, Clementians will use DT as tools to apply to post-examination project work, such as in Values-in-action project or Entrepreneur programme.

To enriched and deepen Clementians’ application of these skills, the Tier 2 programmes focused on 10 weeks DT applications in English, Mathematics and Science for some selected Clementians. These Clementians are challenged to come up with their own project that they would like to develop following the DT framework focusing the key phase “Empathize”. The process is firmly based on how Clementians can generate a holistic and empathic understanding of problems people face. Hence, they are tasked to observe and look at problems or issues they would like to develop to help their family, friends, and others to solve.