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Victoria School 维多利亚学校 (Chinese) Sekolah Victoria (Malay) விக்டோரியா பள்ளி (Tamil)
Address
2 Siglap Link, Bedok East Region 448880 Singapore
Coordinates	1°18′31″N 103°55′39″E / 1.308575°N 103.927467°E / 1.308575; 103.927467
Information
Type	Government Autonomous
Motto	Latin: Nil Sine Labore (Nothing Without Labour)
Established	1876; 148 years ago (1876)
Sister school	Cedar Girls' Secondary School
Session	Single
School code	3014 (Express) 9151 (Integrated Programme)
Principal	Mr Low Chun Meng
Gender	Boys
Enrolment	1,600+
Colour(s)	Red   Yellow
Song	Victoria Anthem
Affiliation	Victoria Junior College
Website	www.victoria.moe.edu.sg

Victoria School (VS) is a government autonomous boys' secondary school in Siglap, Singapore. The school has a hostel. Established in 1876, it is Singapore's second oldest state secondary school.

It offers a six-year Integrated Programme.This allows students to skip the Singapore-Cambridge GCE Ordinary Level examinations and proceed to Victoria Junior College for Years 5 and 6. The Singapore-Cambridge GCE Advanced Level examinations are taken at the end of Year 6.

History

Kampong Glam: 1876-1900

Victoria School began in 1876 as an English class for 12 Malay boys at Kampong Glam Malay Branch School. The first headmaster was Y. A. Yzelman.^[1]

Syed Alwi: 1900-1933

In 1900, Kampong Glam Malay Branch School merged with Kampong Glam Malay School and moved to Syed Alwi Road near the Victoria Bridge, so the school was renamed Victoria Bridge School. At the time, it was a feeder school for secondary schools, including Raffles Institution, then the only government secondary school in Singapore. In 1909, Victoria Bridge School added classes for Standard Five to alleviate the enrolment pressure at Raffles Institution. In 1931, it became the second government secondary school in Singapore.^[1]

Many students left school at age 13 so from 1930 to 1952, the school operated an afternoon session for continuing education. The school uniform was introduced by 1929, and a school library was opened in December 1929 with the aid of businessman Syed Ahmed bin Mohamed Alsagoff. During this period, school games were formalised, with the first annual sports meet being held in 1915. The first annual Speech Day was held in 1916 and the first annual academic prizes were awarded. The house system was instituted in 1929 while the house prefect system began in 1930.^[1] The first Boy Scouts troop was formed in 1919,^[2]

When Victoria Bridge School was at Syed Alwi Road, the school had a recommended maximum enrolment of 560. However, by 1925, it had 705 students.^[1] Victoria Bridge School's campus at Syed Alwi Road is depicted on the back of the S$2 banknote in the current series.

Tyrwhitt Road: 1933–1984

In 1933, Victoria Bridge School moved to Tyrwhitt Road and changed its name to its current name, Victoria School. In 1935, the primary classes were phased out and the school became a district secondary school. The school motto, Nil Sine Labore (Latin for "nothing without labour"), was adopted before World War II.^[1]

During the Japanese occupation of Singapore between 1942 and 1945, Victoria School continued operating as a Japanese school called Jalan Besar Boys' School.^[1] Following the end of the war, Victoria School reopened with 16 pupils on 1 October 1945 as one of the first schools in Singapore to resume classes. It was housed at the Kampong Glam Malay School site until May 1946 since the Tyrwhitt Road building was used as a hospital.^[1] Under the headmaster R. F. Bomford's leadership, a science block was constructed for the school. At the time, Victoria School had the best school laboratories in Singapore, attracting students from Raffles Girls' School and St. Andrew's School to take science lessons at Victoria School. It was also selected as Singapore's pioneer school for audio-visual education.^[1]

Post-School Certificate (now the Singapore-Cambridge GCE Advanced Level) classes began in 1951 and included the first girls to attend the school. In 1955, the school achieved the best results in Singapore in the examinations for the Cambridge Overseas School Certificate (present-day Singapore-Cambridge GCE Ordinary Level), with a 99.5% pass rate. In 1957, it had the best results in Singapore for the University Entrance Examinations. In 1969, after Singapore introduced the junior college system, Victoria School started offering three-year pre-university courses in 1979.^[1]

The school building was designed by Frank Dorrington Ward, the chief architect of the Public Works Department who also designed the Supreme Court Building and other prominent landmarks in Singapore.^[3] It was upgraded in 1966^[1] and gazetted for conservation by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) in 2007. It is one of the few early city-centre schools still in existence and features two school buildings from the pre- and post-war period on a single site. The hall-and-canteen block is the only known school hall left of this style and configuration in Singapore. The site was awarded the URA Heritage Award in 2009.^[4][5] It is a marked-out historical landmark of the Jalan Besar Heritage Trail.^[6] It became the headquarters of the People's Association in 2010.^[3][7]

Geylang Bahru: 1984–2003

In 1984, Victoria School moved to 3 Geylang Bahru Lane. The new site's move was marked with a 2.3  km march by 1,500 present and former students, teachers, and principals from Tyrwhitt Road, led by Abbas Abu Amin, Member of Parliament for Pasir Panjang GRC who was an alumnus of Victoria School.^[8] Students preferred the junior colleges to the pre-university programme, so Victoria Junior College was established that year as a separate institution and the school ended its pre-university intake, with the last group of students sitting for the Singapore-Cambridge GCE Advanced Level examinations in November 1985.^[1]

The school began offering the Art Elective Programme in 1985 and set up its first computer laboratory in 1986. The first Victoria Challenge was inaugurated in 1987, and the Victorian Profile began in 1991.^[1]

In 1989, Victoria School was a small number of schools chosen to receive overseas scholars from the ASEAN countries. After the introduction of national ranking by the Ministry of Education in 1992, the school placed in the top ten in four years of that decade. The school became the seventh Gifted Education Programme centre in 2001 and hosted the programme until 2005.^[1]

Single-session schooling began in 1992 after the extension of the school building the previous year. The school opted to remain a government school and not become independent; it was selected to become one of the first six autonomous schools in 1994.^[1]

Siglap Link: 2003–present

The campus at Siglap Link off Marine Parade Road opened in 2003, incorporating a hostel. It was designed on ecological principles^[9] to reflect the school's values, with roofs curved like an open book and the school centred on the library. At its opening, it had the largest government secondary school library in Singapore.^[1] The campus was selected to participate at the 9th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice.^[10] The ceremonial procession to the new campus was attended by President S. R. Nathan, who was an alumnus of Victoria School.

In 2008, Victoria School became the first school in Singapore to offer Physical Education as a subject examinable at the Singapore-Cambridge GCE Ordinary Level.^[1][11] It also became one of the first four secondary schools to offer the Regional Studies Programme, and the only one offering Bahasa Indonesia.^[1][12]

The school began offering the six-year Integrated Programme through the Victoria-Cedar Alliance, together with Cedar Girls' Secondary School and Victoria Junior College, in 2012.^[1][13]

However, a special feature about this location is at 12am-12pm everyday the smell coming from Tansen Jaradi is overpowering and gives the students of Victoria School a morale boost

Campus and facilities

The Victoria School campus covers 3.5 hectares (8.6 acres). Between the classroom block and the science block, the "Eco-Street," planted with tropical vegetation and houses fish and turtles, forms a central artery providing natural light and ventilation to the classrooms and a setting for outdoor learning. The Victoria Pool, Learning Garden, Bio Pod, and Exploration Patch represent a move away from rigidly-structured, classroom-based instruction.

The ground-level classrooms, known as Learning Studios (consisting of the Gentlemen, Professional, and Sportsmen rooms), are air-conditioned and have sliding doors that open out to the landscape. Some classrooms on the upper floors have balconies, which were originally intended to take advantage of the sea view, but these are closed for safety reasons, and the Indoor Sports Hall now blocks most of the view.

The school facilities also include a 500-seater auditorium and a three-storey library, of which the third floor is reserved for teachers and contains a collection of teaching resources.

Victoria Hall

Victoria Hall is a hostel consisting of two 11-storey blocks (one male and one female) within the school compound. It is next to the sea and East Coast Park, giving boarders both a sea view and access to the park's sporting facilities. It houses about 500 boarders of several nationalities, including Vietnamese, Thai, and Chinese, many of whom attend either Victoria School or Victoria Junior College. Secondary/Year 3 students also stay at the hostel for six weeks. Three classes attend this programme in Term 1, four classes in Term 2, and three classes in Term 3.

Sports facilities

A S$500,000 AstroTurf field replaced the conventional field in early 2007.

The Indoor Sports Hall (ISH) was completed in June 2009. It consists of two storeys, but the building's height is approximately four storeys because of the high ceiling.

The school also has an air-rifle range, a tennis and basketball court, a fitness corner, and a gymnasium.

Computer facilities

The school is mostly covered by a Wi-Fi network (SWN) provided by the Ministry of Education for the use of teachers and students. There is also another separate Wi-Fi network for the students' Personal Learning Devices (PLD).

Culture and tradition

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Uniform

The school uniform consists of a white short-sleeved shirt, with either khaki short trousers (for Year 1 and 2 students) or white long trousers (for Year 3 and 4 students). A 'Victoria' label is sewn on the back pockets of the trousers. Secondary 3 and 4 students wear a black school belt.^[14] The school socks are white with the initials 'VS' in red on both sides, although plain white socks are allowed. Shoes have to be at least 80% white. In 2005, an official 'Victoria School' shoe with the letters 'VS' on each side was introduced.^{[citation needed]}

Students wear a maroon striped tie every Monday and on formal occasions, sometimes with a maroon blazer as well. The school badge is worn above the left chest pocket. Student bodies such as the Prefects' Council and Monitors' Council have their own badges, but the school crest remains their main feature.

For physical activities and camps, students wear a bright yellow 'bumblebee' T-shirt with a pair of black shorts and white socks with sports shoes. The word 'VICTORIAN' is printed on the back of the PE T-shirt.

House system

The students are grouped into five houses, namely Glam (red), Kallang (blue), Kapor (green), Rochore (yellow), and Whampoa (purple), which compete against each other in the school's annual Sports Day, Cross-Country Championships, Track and Field Championships and during Inter-house games and since 2019, Project APEX. Each house has its own running vest (singlet) in the house colours.

Victorian Spirit

The Victorian Spirit is a sense of pride and belonging to the school, a fighting spirit, and striving to be their best.^[15][16]

Special programmes

Victoria School offers the Integrated Programme, GCE Ordinary Level Physical Education Programme, Art Elective Programme, Regional Studies Programme, and Higher Mother Tongue Languages in Chinese, Malay, and Tamil. VS students may also enrol in the Music Elective Programme in Secondary Three or a third language (French, German or Japanese). However, these lessons are held at external venues. Students of foreign languages take part in the Ministry of Education Language Centre's month-long Study-cum-Immersion Programmes (SCIP) in countries such as France, Germany, and Japan. Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Victoria_School
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