Tanglin Trust School (TTS) is an international school in Singapore. The school teaches a British-based curriculum and is primarily intended to serve the British expatriate community in Singapore. Approximately 70%-80% of the students in the school are British. The school has over 2500 students.
Though the majority of students come from the United Kingdom, around 40 nationalities are represented among the student body. Very few Singaporean students attend the school as the Singapore government's regulations prevent most of its citizens from attending international schools. The school was founded in 1925. For much of its existence, Tanglin was a primary school, but in the mid-1990s, the school expanded and now offers full secondary education, from Nursery School to Sixth Form.
In 2006, The Guardian newspaper named Tanglin Trust School as one of the best UK-curriculum international schools in the world.[1] The Good Schools Guide International remarked that the school is "a well-resourced, well-run school with a sound academic record and good facilities."[2] Lifestyle Boutique listed the school as one of the "most prestigious schools in the world" on its Top 10.[3]
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The school follows the British Curriculum to accommodate mostly British expats. The school has over 190 faculty staff, 56 teacher assistants and 175 support staff. The school has maintained a consistently excellent academic record; students have gone on to study at a wide range of universities in the UK and the rest of world, including the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Columbia University, Les Roches International School of Hotel Management and La Sorbonne.
Depending on their year group, students take the National Curriculum Tests that are compiled and published by England's Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. The school achieves impressive A-Level and GCSE results. [4]
The majority of students are British, as a matter of policy, and the remainder of the student population is largely drawn from Commonwealth countries. Lengthy waiting lists exist for most year groups. Children holding a British passport, children of staff, and prospective students who have siblings already attending the school are some of those given advantages on the waiting lists. A Placement Rights scheme exists to facilitate accelerated entrance into the school. Students may be asked to attend an interview or complete an exam depending on the circumstances.[5]
The school comprises separate buildings for Infant, Junior and Senior School students, as well as a Sixth Form Centre and a sports ground off-campus. There is also a six-storey Sports and Performing Arts Complex and a new Central Administration Building as of April 2007.
The separate buildings include: multi-purpose assembly and sporting halls, music rooms, indoor facilities for orchestras and choirs, suites for the study of Information and Communications Technology, drama studios, science laboratories, libraries, health centres staffed by nurses and canteens/cafeterias.
The school also has four libraries on campus for the three schools- Infant, Junior and Senior School, and a professional development library for staff.
Other facilities at the School include: an eight-lane 25 metre swimming pool; a learner pool; outdoor playgrounds; tennis courts; playing fields; a fitness centre; an outdoor chess corner and lunch areas. There is also a Café.
The school was founded on the island of Singapore in 1925 by Anne Griffith-Jones. The school was known as Tanglin Day School, and later changed its name to Tanglin Preparatory School. When it opened, it operated from premises within the Tanglin Club. It began with five students, but soon began to grow rapidly. At the time, many British expatriates living in Singapore sent their children away to boarding school in Britain at an early age. The school offered the alternative of providing British-style education in Singapore, so parents could postpone boarding school until an older age.
In 1935, Griffith-Jones opened a second school – the Tanglin Boarding School in the Cameron Highlands (now part of Malaysia). Again this was intended as a near-by alternative for expatriate families living in the region who would otherwise have to send their children to boarding schools in Britain. Many children who attended the school in Singapore up to the age of eight then went on to the boarding school in the Cameron Highlands, which catered for students up to the age of 13.
The Japanese occupation of the Malay Peninsula in 1942 forced the closure of both schools, as British expatriates in the region (including Griffith-Jones) were interned by the Japanese. The schools reopened after the war. In 1948, the school in the Cameron Highlands had to be put under full-time armed guard after terrorists surrounded the school, and was eventually forced to close by the Federal Government for security reasons. However the school in Singapore continued to flourish.
In 1958, Griffith-Jones retired and sold the private company Tanglin School Ltd to the British European Association in Singapore. In 1961, governance of the school was handed over to a non-profit education Trust known as the Tanglin Trust Ltd.
In 1971, the Trust opened a second British international primary school in Singapore called Weyhill Preparatory School. Three years later the Trust also took over the running of another international school in Singapore called Raeburn Park School, which had been opened in 1954 by the Singapore Harbour Board for the children of its expatriate staff. In 1981, the three schools were merged into one at its present campus on Portsdown Road. Initially, the campus housed two largely separate-functioning infant and junior schools known as Tanglin Infant School and Tanglin Junior School. A separate nursery school (known as Winchester Nursery School) also operated at different premises for a few years, but this was later moved to the Portsdown Road campus. In the late-1980s, the administration and curriculum of the schools was centralised under a single Head Teacher and the name Tanglin Trust School was adopted.
The school expanded its student age-range beyond primary school in 1996. It now takes in students up to the age of 18, and prepares the secondary-age students for GCSE and A-Level examinations, along with offering the International Baccalaureate program.