Boon Lay Secondary School Explained

Boon Lay Secondary School
Native Name:Sekolah Menengah Boon Lay
文礼中学
Motto:To Love and To Forgive [1]
Streetaddress:11 Jurong West Street 65
Singapore 648354
Country:Singapore
Coordinates:1.3434°N 103.6997°W
Established:1977
Type:Government
Session:Single
Gender:Mixed
Principal:Mr Inderjit Singh
City/Town:Boon Lay
Homepage:www.boonlaysec.moe.edu.sg/

Boon Lay Secondary School (BLS) is a government secondary school located in Jurong West, Singapore.

History

The school commenced operations in 1977 at a S$3.59 million campus at the junction of Boon Lay Way and Jalan Boon Lay,[2] with 13 classes, seven of which were English-medium and the remaining six Chinese-medium. It was officially opened in 1979 by the then-Member of parliament for Boon Lay Ngeow Pack Hua.[3] It became a solely English-medium school in 1998, and started operating single-session in 2000.

In 1996 Boon Lay began enrolling deaf students.[4] Specifically it educated deaf students who were required to use sign language to communicate. In 2017 the Government of Singapore designated Beatty Secondary School as the school to educate deaf students who must use sign language, concentrating all such students at one school due to them numbering about 15.[5]

As part of the phasing-out of streaming, Boon Lay has been dividing classes by their students' co-curricular activities (CCA) since 2017.[6]

Merger with Pioneer Secondary

In 2017, Boon Lay Secondary School absorbed Pioneer Secondary School due to falling enrolment in both schools.[7]

School identity and culture

Crest

The current school crest was introduced in November 2016, in order to commemorate the merger of the school with Pioneer Secondary from then on. It depicts two people moving as one moving towards their goals, embodying a teacher and student working together. Its resemblance to a ladder also calls for its students to spur on to greater heights. The crest is accompanied by the acronym of the school and its Chinese name, the latter indicating the school's early years as a Chinese-medium school.[8]

Notable alumni

Member, Taiwanese boy band, F4[9]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Organisational Culture . BLS website . 30 June 2023.
  2. News: . Boon Lay School To Open . The Straits Times . 18 November 1976 . 14 November 2017 . NewspaperSG.
  3. News: . School to open officially. New Nation. 27 July 1979. 14 November 2017. NewspaperSG .
  4. Web site: Lim. Chin Heng. An Overview of 20-year Development of Total Communication Approach with Signing Exact English in Singapore (1977-1997). Signal. Singapore Association for the Deaf. May 1998. 217–219. - MITA (P) No. 250/10/97 - Document starts on p. 9/11.
  5. Web site: Deaf students who sign can join mainstream primary school from 2018. Today Online. 2016-09-20. 2021-06-20.
  6. News: Jolene Ang. Boon Lay Secondary's 'unorthodox practice' of organising form classes by CCAs. The Straits Times. 5 March 2019. 22 March 2022.
  7. News: Lim . Kenneth . 22 secondary schools to merge over next 2 years due to falling demand . ChannelNewsAsia . 4 March 2016 . 14 November 2017 . 16 May 2017 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170516193203/http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/22-secondary-schools-to-merge-over-next-2-years-due-to-falling-d-8133758 . dead .
  8. Web site: School Crest . . boonlaysec.moe.edu.sg . 14 November 2017.
  9. https://www.webcitation.org/5knzVLH3v?url=http://www.geocities.com/kenzhu_xiao_tian/biography.html