Values in Action (VIA)
Discover how VIA at Princess Elizabeth Primary School builds empathy and care in students. Through the LOVE Experience and community projects, pupils learn to serve others with heart.
Head of Department
Ms Shanthi Govindasamy
Level Head - CCE
Mdm Faizlyana Binte Ismail
Values-in-Action (VIA)
In our school, Thomas Lickona’s (1991) Moral “Knowing”, “Feeling” & “Action” theoretical framework is used in guiding the planning of our VIA curriculum, aligning our VIA efforts with national directions and other school programmes.
The design of our VIA programmes and activities is guided by a framework which engages students in a developmental, segmented and progressive manner in terms of age-appropriateness and the level of involvement. Engagement of students in VIA programmes and activities can occur within the classroom, during CCAs as well as within leadership groups.
Preparing students to be future-ready citizens, the school provides platforms to develop students in serving and leading with empathy. These platforms aim to enable our students to understand the plight of others and provide opportunities for them to contribute actively to home, school and community, internalizing and demonstrating values through their meaningful experiences in VIA.
Reviews are conducted to strengthen communication of rationale for VIA, and increase student involvement and ownership in the planning of activities. Reflections and assessment of students’ learning outcomes are carefully monitored.
LOVE Experience
Anchoring on our school core value of Empathy, we piloted our school’s Learning Our Values with Empathy (LOVE) Experience for the P1s to P4s in 2021. The LOVE Experience is a collaboration between our LLP (Student Leadership and VIA) and ALP (Innovation and Enterprise) programmes.
The LOVE Experience enables our students to practise Empathy by learning about additional needs of different groups of people in the community. Our students also apply Inclusive Design (ALP) during their Programme for Active Learning (PAL) lessons for Lower Primary and Project Work (PW) lessons for Middle and Upper Primary.
As part of the deliverables, during those lessons, students created an item or prototype for the benefit of their respective focus groups. During their LOVE Experience, students also take time to reflect on and pen down their learning points.
LOVE Experience Focus Area for Each Level (Pilot Year 2021):
Primary 1: Elderly (School Cleaners and Grandparents)
Primary 2: Hearing Loss / Hearing Impairment
Primary 3: Vision Loss / Visual Impairment
Primary 4: Dyslexia / Reading Difficulty
Primary 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder
P1 LOVE Experience Deliverable: Light-Up Thank You Cards for our Elderly Cleaners
P2 LOVE Experience Deliverable: Light-Up Toy for Students with Hearing Loss in Canossian School
P3 & P4 LOVE Experience Project Work Reflections
Primary 5 LOVE Experience Background and Deliverable
Princess Elizabeth Primary School has worked with our community partner, Eden School, on numerous occasions. In 2021, for the first time, both schools embarked on a pilot PEPS-Eden Satellite Partnership Book Project. In 2022, this project blossomed to become part of the school’s LOVE Experience. This wonderful opportunity is a VIA project by PEPS’ students for Eden’s students. For PEPS students, it aligns with our CCE (VIA), English and ICT domains. Our Primary 5 students and EL teachers have worked on producing a series of twelve English Picture Books in 2021 and 2022 for young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to help them cope with public etiquette and guide them in their daily activities. The twelve books cover six themes namely ‘Road Safety’, ‘Keeping Myself Clean’,‘Going to the NLB Library’ , ‘Planning A Party’, ‘Going to the Supermarket’ and ‘Making Payment at a Supermarket’. The students also value-added to the project by recording and producing an audio version of the books.
Lower Primary Helping Hands @ Home
In line with what they learn during their CCE lessons, it is encouraged that VIA for our lower primary students starts at home. Thus, we would like our students to help out at home and do something for their families by helping with some household chores.
Through this activity, we hope that our students will learn more about having empathy for their family and learn to help out at home when they can.
Cleaners’ Appreciation
Each year, we collaborate with our Environmental Education (EE) Programme to acknowledge our cleaners for their hard work in keeping our school environment clean. This year, we know they worked extra hard amidst COVID-19 to help students and teachers manage the cleanliness of our school to keep everyone safe.
Our Primary 1s made cards and our Primary 4s wrote thank-you notes for the cleaners, which a few of our student leaders presented to them, during our cleaners’ appreciation session. Thank you aunties and uncles for your hard work!
