Tampines Secondary School

Tampines Secondary School (TPSS) is a government co-educational secondary school in Singapore. It shares the same building as Tampines Primary School, but the school is not affiliated to Tampines Primary School. In 2008, it shifted to a holding site in Bedok South Road and moved back to Tampines Street 12 in March 2010, under the MOE PRIME upgrading programme.

History
Tampines Secondary School was established in 1986. It has the honour of being named after Tampines New Town and to be among the first schools built to serve the new community. The school started on 2 January 1986 with its first Principal, Mr Koh Sei Hian, 12 teachers and 458 pupils in 12 Secondary one classes. He laid a firm foundation for the growth of the school. In its first year, classes functioned at Pasir Ris Secondary School as the school building was still under construction, and was later occupied by Tampines Junior College till December 1986. The school formally moved into its Tampines site on 23 December 1986. Mr Koh charted the journey for Tampines Secondary School with a vision that "Pupils should acquire desirable social and moral values in addition to skills and knowledge to serve society." The school's motto, "Betterment of Self for Society" is a call to each student The school was officially opened on 8.8.88 by Mr Phua Bah Lee, then Senior Parliamentary Secretary (Defence) and Member of Parliament for Tampines. Mdm Daulath Tajuddin joined the school as Principal in December 1995. Many improvements to the school have been made under her leadership. Mdm Tajuddin retired from service on 31 December 1999. Mdm Poon Chew Leng was appointed Principal of Tampines Secondary School with effect from 1 January 2000. Mr Neo Tick Watt was appointed principal in 2001. The school celebrated her 20th Anniversary in 2006 with a Gala Dinner and the formation of its first Alumni. In December 2007, the school shifted to a holding site in Bedok South while the premise is undergoing PRIME project to upgrade its facilities. Mr Neo led the school until 2009 and has since retired from service in December 2009. In January 2010, Mr Balamurugan was appointed principal of the school. In March 2010, the school shifted back to Tampines St 12.

Milestones

 * 1986: Tampines Secondary School was established. Mr Koh Sei Hian was appointed as a Principal.
 * 1988: The school was officially opened by Mr Phua Bah Lee, the then Senior Parliament Secretary (Defence) and Member of Parliament for Tampines.
 * 1989: The only cohort of Tampines Secondary's Pre-U students graduated.
 * 1996: Madam Daulath Tajuddin was appointed as Principal.
 * 1998: A building programme was started to add two new blocks to the existing school building. This was to prepare the school for its single session in 2000.
 * 1999: Launch of school website at http://schools.moe.edu.sg/tpss
 * 2000: The school started having single session classes. Madam Poon Chew Leng was appointed as Principal.
 * 2001: Mr Neo Tick Watt was appointed as Principal. Mr Bang Tee Lip was appointed as Vice-Principal.
 * 2004: Madam Chiew Ah Hiang was appointed as the second Vice-Principal.
 * 2006: Tampines Secondary Celebrated her 20th Anniversary. Tampines Secondary School Alumni was formed. Dr Leong Chou Ching elected as the 1st President of the Alumni.
 * 2007: Tampines Secondary relocated to 2 Bedok South Rd for PRIME upgrading.
 * 2008: The school website URL is changed to http://www.tpss.moe.edu.sg. Tampines Secondary elected its 2nd Alumni Exco with Mr John Lim Kwan Shen as the 2nd President of the Alumni.
 * 2010: Mr Neo Tick Watt retires as Principal. Mr Balamurugan appointed as Principal. School relocated back to Tampines St 12.
 * 2011 - "B2B"
 * 2012 - "Be The Change"
 * 2013 - "Way Forward"

Tampines Tree: Our Metaphor
The name "Tampines" originated from the name of a valuable timber tree. The name of the tree was formerly spelt as "Tampinis". It was changed to "Tampines" as it was the nearest romanised version of the word. The tree provided a strong and durable ironwood timber which was in great demand in the early days. As there was no forest conservation during those days, the popular demand of the wood from the Tampines tree almost made it extinct by the early eighties. The Tampines tree has been our metaphor of strength and resilience. Our shared values of care and concern, teamwork, achievement, responsibility and continuous improvement are reflected as the roots of the tree.

The Tampines tree is one of the most valuable timber trees in Peninsula Malaysia, known for its strength, suppleness and durability.

Shared Values
The school runs its programmes in line with the 5 shared values of Teamwork,Peserverance,Service and Success.

Facilities
Tampines Secondary School shares the a main building with Tampines Primary School including a black box theatre. It has about 40 to 50 classrooms (including special rooms), an AV Theatre, a Dance Studio, a Media Resource Library, 4 Computer Labs, 2 IT resource rooms, 2 Physics Labs, 2 Biology Labs, 2 Chemistry Labs, Staff Common Rooms, a Canteen, a bookshop, general office, conference room, Kitchens, Sewing Room, Design and Technology staff room, D&T Tech room and 2 D&T studios.

The school is equipped with an interactive learning room with an interactive whiteboard, a digital messaging system with 5 LCD monitors and wireless LCD projectors in its classrooms.

House Affiliations
Tampines Secondary School has a house system consisting of four houses named after the stars in space. They are Turais (Yellow), Polaris (Blue), Sirius (Red) and Spica (Green). The first letters of each star comes from the school's acronym.

CCAs in Tampines Secondary form an integral part of the school’s Character Development efforts. It provides an opportunity for students to learn new knowledge, skills, values and attitudes, and provide for healthy recreation. Students get to choose from 20 CCAs from the 4 main categories of Sports and Games, Uniformed Groups, Performing Arts as well as Clubs and Societies.

The school offers a wide range of CCA that exposes the students to different experiences and encourages the exploration of diverse interests.

Our CCA structure focuses on four domains namely Character Education (CE), Health, Student Leadership and Outdoor Education.

Twinning and International Exchange programmes
In the age of globalisation, Tampines Secondary has twinned with schools overseas for mutual learning and cooperation.

Tampines Secondary School had a Twinning Programme with SMAN 15 Surabaya, Indonesia Indonesia. Students from Singapore visited their Indonesian counterparts in the First Leg (23 May - 1 June 2008) and their Indonesian counterparts visited Singapore in the Second Leg (1–9 July 2008)