Talent Development Approach
Secondary school is a time where you discover more about yourself – your strengths, interests and potential. At Xinmin, we believe in providing you with the right environment to explore, learn and grow. A spread of different programmes and activities are specially designed for you to challenge and develop yourselves into Curious Learners, Compassionate Contributors and Confident Leaders. These programmes and learning experiences would provide you with opportunities to cultivate your interests, build on your strengths and talents, and enable you to enjoy your learning.
We urge you to fully immerse yourself in these learning experiences and seize these opportunities as they present themselves to you. Only then, can you truly discover what you can be good at, where your interests lie, and hopefully, by the end of your time in Xinmin, have some ideas about what and how you can pursue these interests at a deeper level in the next stage of your education.
Xinmin Talent Development Approach
The talent development opportunities we provide in Xinmin could broadly be organised along five domains:
-
Cognitive
-
Aesthetics
-
Psychomotor
-
Community
-
Leadership
The different opportunities within each domain are further structured into four levels in accordance to Treffinger’s Levels of Service approach for talent development. Broadly speaking, Levels I and II programmes are broad-based and highly-inclusive, while Levels III and IV programmes place greater emphasis on catering to the needs and interests of smaller groups of students.
Our goal is for every Xinmin student to reach at least Level 2 in all five domains when he/she graduates. The following table provides examples of the talent development opportunities available for different domains and levels:
A key component of our Talent Development Framework are our processes of identification, development, student ownership, monitoring and recognition that happens in all levels of development.
In summary, our Talent Development Framework is as follows:
You may wish to check out the department pages to find out more about the talent development opportunities they provide.
Harnessing Student-Initiated Learning to develop your Talents
From Term 3 of 2021, Blended Learning will be a feature of every secondary students’ school experience in Singapore. Once every fortnight, there will be a day where students do not need to come to school. Instead, you will be engaging in home-based learning at home. The reason for making this change is to nurture you to be self-directed learners and provide you with the time and space to explore and develop your interests.
One feature of Blended Learning is Student-Initiated Learning or SIL for short. SIL is a dedicated time during your HBL for you to explore your personal interests, both within and outside of the curriculum. It also provides you with a good opportunity to learn to be an independent, passionate and lifelong learner.
You may wish to spend the time set aside for SIL to explore and further develop your talents. To support you in this, the school will provide you with some suggestions and resources. However, you may also wish to decide on the area of interest you want to explore and delve deeper in.