Writing Feedback / What do you think schools can do to ensure the health, well-being and safety of their students [3]

GCE O-Level Past Examination Question. Instructions were to write 350 - 500 words on the chosen topic. Thank you for reading!!

WHAT DO YOU THINK SECONDARY SCHOOLS CAN DO TO ENSURE THE HEALTH, WELL-BEING AND SAFETY OF THEIR STUDENTS?

"Good health and good sense are two of life's greatest blessings"

Health, well-being and safety is the most important aspects of one's life. In Singapore, students suffer from health problems due to stress from our demanding education system. This is why the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education are working closely to ensure that students are kept from developing mental and physical problems that will affect their health and education. I believe that secondary schools can ensure health, well-being and the safety of students by promoting health campaigns, making sure that students eat healthily, and making sure that they have a balanced lifestyle.

Firstly, by promoting health campaigns, students will be educated on how to prevent themselves from falling ill. Through these health campaigns, students will learn the signs that will tell them if they are falling ill or if they are overworking themselves. Amongst Singaporean youths, is it very common to have headaches and migraines due to the stress of trying to keep up with their demanding syllabus from their schools. However, just because it is common, does not mean it is ok. Headaches and migraines are the first base to falling ill. That is why we have to prevent it to ensure that students are kept from falling ill. Thus, promoting health campaigns will ensure that students are equipped with the skills and knowledge to prevent them from falling ill.

Secondly, by ensuring that students are eating healthily, they will be encouraged to start a healthy diet. Maintaining a healthy diet is the first step to ensuring that a student's well-being is well taken care of. Schools can do this by ensuring that at least one day a week, students are given fruit everytime they buy a meal during recess. By doing this, student's will be getting a healthy fruit in their diet. This will benefit their health greatly. Thus, by ensuring that students maintain a healthy diet, students will be prevented from developing health issues.

Thirdly, by making sure that students lead a balanced lifestyle, they will be able to lead a happier and healthier life. Due to long school hours, and the countless amount of homework given by teachers, students are not able to balance out their lifestyle. Because of this, the obesity rate of Singaporean youth is on the rise. Thus, schools can step in to ensure that students have more exercise per week. By conducting mass exercises every morning and after-school activities related to exercise, students will be able to lead a more healthier lifestyle.

In conclusion, by promoting health campaigns, making sure that students eat healthily, and making sure that they have a balanced lifestyle, we are able to create a conducive environment for students to achieve their best learning capabilities.

Writing Feedback / 'We get educated only in school.' What are your views? [5]

"Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself."

We all know that the reason we go to school is to get educated. But, what is education? Education is the process of recieving instruction so as to better one's knowledge. There are two types of education; Formal and informal. Formal education is where one recieves education from a teacher or a trained professional. Informal education is a type of knowledge that one acquires from anywhere outside of school. This leads back to the question which states 'We get educated only in school'. I believe that we get educated both in and out of school. School equips us with many useful skills and is one of the only places where we can recieve formal education. However, we can also gain knowledge through interaction with others and through technology.

School equips us with many values that we must apply in our lives. Without school, we wont be educated on values such as compassion, humility, responsibility, integrity, service and excellence of success. Without this values, we will not be able to do well in this society. We require this skills to be able to show our employers in the future that we have learnt something in life and have learnt from our actions and consequences.

School is also one of the many few places where we can get formal education. Teachers at schools are people who have went through learning and have proven themselves worthy of being able to teach. They are given a guideline on the schools' education system and only they know what the students really need to know in preparation for an exam such as the GCSE O-Level Examinations. Informal teachers will not be able to properly equip a student for what he needs to know for his exams. They can only teach a subject based on what they know about it and not in reference to what the student needs to know.

We can also gain education from interaction with people. We can acquire useful skills such as social and speaking skills. As we interact with our friends on a day to day basis. We learn how to speak properly and how to interact with people. We cannot get this gain this skill if we are sat infront of a computer all day. Without this skill of being able to properly talk to people, it will be difficult to get a job in the future. The reason that there are job interviews is because employers want to see if you have the skills that they want and whether you are educated enough for the job. This is also where are speaking skills play a very important role.

In this day and age, we can also gain education through technology. Everything that we need to know is on the internet. This is why many students use the internet to get their homework done. But, if we can use it to get our homework done, who is to say that we cannot use it to teach ourselves our exam syllabus. Thus, in this 21st century, we can depend on the internet to gain education.

These are the ways in which we can get educated in and out of school. But what matters most is not how we get our education, but whether or not we actually get the right information or knowledge to benefit us in our day to day and future lives.