Fairfield Methodist School (Primary)

Fairfield Methodist School (Primary)
File:Fairfield Methodist School (Secondary) crest.jpg
Location
100 Dover Road, Singapore 139648 1°18′0.511″N 103°47′6.785″E ⧼validator-fatal-error⧽
Information
Type	Government-Aided
Motto	Pure and Honest
Religious affiliation(s)	Methodist
Established	4 August 1888
Sister school	Fairfield Methodist School (Secondary)
Session	Single (Day)
School code	5020
Principal	Mdm Law Li Mei
Age range	6 to 12
Enrolment	Approx. 1,500
Song	School Song School Hymn
Website	http://www.fmsp.moe.edu.sg

Fairfield Methodist School (Primary)

Fairfield Methodist School (Primary) (abbreviation: FMS(P)) is a primary school located on Dover Road. Founded in 1888 as the Anglo-Chinese Girls School, it is one of the oldest primary schools in Singapore. Its current premises is at the neighbourhood of Dover in Queenstown, Central Singapore.

The five core values are as follows: Love and Reverence for God, Integrity, Resilience, Respect, Serving and Giving. There are eight teaching departments in the school.

It is affiliated with its Sister School, Fairfield Methodist School (Secondary).

History

Founding

The Beginning

Miss Sophia Blackmore, a 31-year-old Australian missionary from the Methodist Women's Foreign Missionary Society, had just established her first school in Singapore. Meanwhile, several influential Chinese families were persuading her to teach their daughters. A widow later offered Blackmore her home along Cross Street for teaching.

On August 1888, the Anglo-Chinese Girls' School began with just eight Peranakan girls.

Contradicting accounts

However, there have been conflicting and differing stories on how the school really started, especially from the history book, Singapore: A Biography.

According to the sources, Fairfield was started in August 1888 by Miss Sophia Blackmore, a 31 year old missionary from the Methodist Mission. Her mandate in 1888 was to start a girls' school in Singapore in an enclave called Telok Ayer. She finally managed to start a class for eight Nonya girls in a little room at Cross Street. During that time, education for girls was definitely not favoured by the early traditional Chinese immigrants, even among the liberal-thinking Baba merchants. Miss Blackmore then started going house to house, trying to persuade families to enroll their girls in her school. However, little by little, they suspected that she was a government spy sent to catch them secretly gambling at cards. They had started to pass the word that the young missionary lady was in fact a 'mata-mata' agent who was helping the British government enforce its new law against gambling.

Miss Blackmore's habit of asking for the women's names and writing them down in her notebook seemed to have alarmed the women. This was actually done as a record of who she visited, but still, the parents were suspicious of her. In spite of the differences and even suspicion from parents, Miss Blackmore persevered in her vision for a girls' school, and found that the parents were starting to welcome her more cordially, and would even invite her to sit down and chat over a cup of tea. They started to become more receptive to the idea that it would be good for their daughters to get a little education.

In June 1888, Miss Blackmore finally managed to get her first pupil. She recalls,

How pleased we were when one little girl, hearing of the school, clapped her hands and begged her mother to let her attend. She had been nicknamed 'Gondol', which means bald, because her head had been shaved during sickness. Not much knowledge entered that little bald head, but her own willingness to come to school helped others to decide.

After Gondol's mother agreed to send her daughter to school, a few other mothers followed her lead. Altogether, seven more pupils were signed on. Soon, she managed to rent out the front room of Nonya Boon, a rich widow's front room. The Anglo-Chinese Girls' School was finally founded.

Early Years

The school was soon renamed Telok Ayer Girl's School. It is a common misconception that it was the original name the school was founded as. However, it is currently unknown when the name change took place.

In 1893, the new principal, Emma Ferris, found that the furniture had been removed because the landlady had decided to rent the room out to someone else to be used as a shop. She managed to find a new site for the school in a corner house along Telok Ayer Road. By then, the school had 30 students. In 1905, the school moved from the corner house at Telok Ayer into a larger house at Neil Road.

The principal, Miss Olson, realised that she required more space in the building and tried to raise funds for a new building. The biggest donation (USD 5,000) came from a Mr Fairfield from New England. This allowed the school to construct a new school building on a site provided by the government at Neil Road. The school moved from Telok Ayer into the new premises on Neil Road in 1912, and was promoted to a 'first-rate school' by the British Government. The relocated school was renamed Fairfield Girls' School. By 1917, the growth of the school had forced a hundred Fairfield girls to study in a dark shophouse. In response to this, a new block extension was completed, consisting of six classrooms and a chapel hall in 1924.

During the Japanese occupation of Singapore, the school was shut down. It only reopened in 1945. Between 1942 to 1944, the school building was taken over by the Japan Military Force.

In 1958 the school was renamed to Fairfield Methodist Girl's School.

On to Dover

Becoming Fairfield Primary

FMS(P) Students, 2008

In 1983, the school moved to its current Dover campus to accommodate a larger population of students. Concurrently, the school went co-educational, becoming the first Methodist School in Singapore to do so, and became two separate schools, Fairfield Methodist Primary School and Fairfield Methodist Secondary School, each with its own administration, but still under the Fairfield Methodist School Board of Management. The schools also saw its first intake of boys as well.

In 1988, Fairfield Methodist Primary School celebrated its 100th anniversary, together with its sister school.

In order to facilitate the school to go single session by 2005, the school embarked on a PRIME Building Project in 1998 to build a new extension block and upgrade the existing facilities.

120th Anniversary Onwards

Fairfield Methodist Primary School celebrated its 120th anniversary on August 2008. A commemorative plaque was erected on the site of the old Fairfield Methodist Girls' School at Neil Road, and a combined celebration was held with Fairfield Methodist Secondary School.

For its 120th anniversary, Fairfield Methodist Primary School joined Fairfield Methodist Secondary School in an attempt to break three world records. This includes trying to break the world records for the most number of people playing Uno simultaneously, forming the longest contra line of people dancing together, and the most number of people playing Sudoku. Only the Sudoku world record was broken, and it has since been broken by other schools. The schools also entered the Singapore Book Of Records for having 5000 people (consisting of students, staff and parents) make a Fairfield Badge on the school field, and the record for the longest painting in Singapore on the same day.

To highlight the common history, heritage and close relationship of the Fairfield Methodist Schools, the name of the school was changed to Fairfield Methodist School (Primary), effective from January 2009.

Over subscription

It recent years, the school has become a hot favorite by Singaporeans. It has been oversubscribed multiple times during the phase 2B of the Primary 1 registration exercise over several consecutive years. In 2014, it was the most oversubscribed school, with 51 children applying for only 29 available spots, despite efforts by the Ministry of Education to cool down the demand and allow students to enter the schools they choose without balloting.

Former Principals

Fairfield Primary

Cheong Yuen Lin, an old girl of Fairfield, became the principal of the school in 1983.

In 1989, Dorothy Ho became its Principal.

Dorothy Ho retired in December 2001 and was succeeded by Tan Shook Fund. Tan, however, died unexpectedly in 2003 in a drowning accident in Krabi off Southern Thailand.

The baton was passed on to Charles Tong, in February 2004. He was its first male principal.

The school was turned over to Mrs Chaillan Mui Tuan in December 2008.

In 2016, Mdm Law Li Mei became its current principal.

Co-curricular activities (CCAs)

The CCAs offered at FMSP provides students with a platform to discover their interests and talents, as well as to learn core values, social and emotional competencies and emerging 21st Century competencies. They also aim to emphasise social interaction by providing a common space for friendships and social integration among students of diverse backgrounds.

The school offers 3 broad categories to cater to the needs and interests of the students:

• School Teams
  • Aesthetics
    • The Handbells, Choir, Chinese Dance CCAs each managed to get the Singapore Youth Festival destination award every year four times in the past three years, while the Concert Band has likewise done similarly well, but with a certificate of Accomplishment.
  • Sports
    • The sport teams of the school aims to develop robustness, fair play and team spirit in students of the school.
• Uniformed Groups
  • The Uniformed Groups of FMS(P) consists of the Boys’ Brigade, Girls’ Brigade and Red Cross. All three have won multiple awards over the years,
• CCA LEAPS
  • CCA LEAPS allow students to explore and extend their interests in wide-ranging modules which may be knowledge-based or skills-based. They are allowed to choose their modules based on their interests or curiosity.

Awards and accolades

The School Distinction Award (SDA). The School Distinction Award aims to give recognition to schools with well-integrated and sustainable school processes and practices that have provided useful educational and developmental outcomes for the students.

Fairfield Methodist School (Primary) also achieved the following:

Best Practice Award for Student All-Round Development

Best Practice Award for Teaching and Learning

Best Practice Award for Staff Well-Being

School Events

Annually, Fairfield holds a sports carnival, in which the upper primary pupils of the school houses compete against each other in various sports.

Sports Day is similar to the sports carnival but is for lower primary pupils. The sports are less vigorous than the ones in the carnival.

Notable Alumni

Fairfield Primary

• Jamie Yeo: Celebrity
• Kit Chan: Singer
• Joshua Tan: Actor (Ah Boys to Men)

See also

• Fairfield Methodist School (Secondary)
• Miss Sophia Blackmore
• Methodist Girls' School, Singapore

External links

• School website
• School leaders
• Neil Road (Article)
• A walk down Neil Road
• Exhibition on women pioneers to open on Thursday at the National Museum

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