Anderson Secondary School
Anderson Secondary School (ANDE) (Chinese: 安德逊中学, Pinyin: ān dé xùn zhōng xúe) is an autonomous, co-educational government school in Singapore. It is one of the first autonomous schools in Singapore, becoming such in 1994. It was ranked "Top Neighbourhood School" by the Straits Times in 1992, and has received the Singapore Quality Class Award (2002) and the Best Practice Award for Staff Well-being (2003).
History
The school was founded in 1960 as a girls' primary school. In 1964 it expanded its mission to become Anderson Girls' Secondary School, and in 1965 began admitting boys for the first time. The school has been hosted at many sites; it was originally located at Stevens Road, but in 1984 moved to Ang Mo Kio Street 44. In December 1993 it moved to its current location, Ang Mo Kio Street 53.
Anderson Secondary School has been used from time-to-time for educational experiments. In 1994 it was declared an autonomous school, and in 1996 was one of the first schools to use the Student's-and-Teacher's Workbench project. In 1997, it was chosen as an IT demo school.
Notably, the principal who helped the School to get the Singapore Quality Class award was Chan Khah Gek.
The former school vision "Caring and Responsible Leaders of Tommorow" was changed to "An Institution of Distinction to Inspire and Serve" in 2003.
PRIME Upgrading
In year 2003, the school had undergone a PRIME upgrading project for around three years until 2006. The school had been raising funds for non-standard facilities such as a student activity hub, heritage centre and a multi-purpose studio. It also upgraded the lecture theatre and classrooms and also had a new five-storey building. It is also noted that in 2005, the last stage of the upgrading process of the school was extremely challenging. The temporary canteen was used as a canteen and an assembly area, which would mean that the students would experience stuffiness there. Most of the students were unable to use some of the facilities such as the school hall, cookery rooms and mostly the soccer field which was only ready in July 2006. The school library was moved to another part of the school building in the first half of the same year and had undergone a new zen-style layout. Like any of the facilities down for upgrading in 2005, the students had to bear with the inconvenince for not using the library. Borrowing of books and lessons held in the library were suspended.
On an interesting note, a special facility called the "INSPIRE TOWN" was officially opened in 2005 as well. The INSPIRE TOWN is a room where innovation and creativity is encouraged amongst pupils.
Emblem and motto
The school's emblem is the bamboo, meant to symbolise greatness, nobility, distinction, purity, and humility. The school's motto, With Constancy and Purpose, is also related to the bamboo, which is very versatile and hardy.