Raffles Institution


Raffles Institution, founded in 1823, is the oldest school in Singapore for pre-tertiary education. It is an independent school, providing secondary education through a boys-only Year 1-4 section and pre-university education through a coeducational Year 5-6 section.
Since 2007, the school has offered the six-year Integrated Programme, which allows students to bypass the GCE O-Levels, and take the GCE A-Levels instead. Known as the Raffles Programme, it is offered jointly with its sister school, Raffles Girls' School, or RGS.
RI was among the first schools to receive the Ministry of Education's School Excellence Award. It is a member of various academic partnerships and alliances, such as the G30 Schools and The Winchester Network. It also co-founded the Global Alliance of Leading-Edge Schools.

School history

Foundation

Raffles Institution was founded by Sir Stamford Raffles, who proposed the establishment of the Institution or Singapore Institution at a meeting he convened on 1 April 1823. Raffles wanted to establish a college for the people of Singapore since the founding of the colony, and wrote on 12 January 1823 that a site for a planned college had been selected. His intention was to provide education for the children of local leaders in the new British colony of Singapore as well as the company's employees and others who wished to learn the local languages. Another objective was to "collect the scattered literature and traditions of the country" so that the most important may be published and circulated. Raffles referred to the plan as his "last public act"; by setting up the Institution, he hoped it that it could, through its generations of alumni, serve as "the means of civilising and bettering the conditions of millions" beyond Singapore. Those involved in the plan for the Institution included Reverend Robert Morrison, Sophia Raffles, William Farquhar, and William Marsden. It was initially suggested that the Institution should merge with the Anglo-Chinese College founded by Morrison in Malacca, but this plan did not materialise. Raffles contributed $2,000, secured a grant of $4,000 from the British East India Company and, together with subscriptions from other individuals, raised funds totalling $17,495 for the project. He drafted the curriculum, and set up the structure for the board of trustees that included William Wilberforce.
The original building of Raffles Institution was sited on Bras Basah Road and it was designed by Lieutenant Phillip Jackson, the Garrison Engineer. Raffles laid the foundation stone of the building on 5 June 1823, a few days before he left Singapore for the last time on 9 June. No classes were held while the building was under construction, but the project stalled and the building was left unfinished for some time. Raffles' vision was also not shared by the Resident John Crawfurd, who felt the scale of the project excessive, and that the government should focus its efforts on elementary education instead. In 1835, a group of European merchants raised money for the Raffles Monument Fund to commemorate Raffles' contribution to Singapore, and proposed that it should be used to complete the Institution. George Drumgoole Coleman was then hired to finish and extend the original building by Jackson.

Early years

On 1 August 1834, Reverend F.J. Darrah opened the Singapore Free School with 46 boys, which quickly grew to nearly 80. When the building for the institute was completed in 1837, the school applied to occupy the building, a proposal the trustees of the Institution accepted. The Singapore Free School moved into the building in December 1837, and became the Institution Free School. It was however established as an elementary school rather than the college that Raffles had initially intended. Originally the school offered classes in Malay, Chinese and English, but the Malay classes soon closed in 1842 due to low enrolment, and it would eventually become an English-medium school. In May 1839, the first wing extension was completed, and the second at the end of 1841. In 1856, the Singapore Institution Free School was renamed Singapore Institution.
In the 1860s, the school was gradually turned into a high school. In 1868 the school was renamed Raffles Institution. The most significant headmasters of the period were J.B. Bayley and R.W. Hullett, who oversaw the transition and ran the school for a cumulative period of 50 years.
The school is Singapore's first institution to enrol girls, with 11 pupils accepted in 1844. In 1879, the girls wing of the school was established as Raffles Girls' School.

Relocation

The school moved in March 1972 to Grange Road. The old building was demolished and replaced by Raffles City Shopping Centre. The Bras Basah campus's library building is featured on the $2 paper and polymer note in Singapore currency.
In 1984, it became one of two schools selected by the MOE to pilot the Gifted Education Programme to cater to intellectually gifted students.
In 1990, the school moved again, this time from Grange Road to a new campus at Bishan, a recently created new town.

Raffles Junior College

In 1982 Raffles Junior College was established at Paterson Road to take over the school's burgeoning pre-university enrolment. It subsequently moved to Mount Sinai Road.
In 2004, the new Raffles Programme was offered to Secondary 1 to 3 students. It allows RI students to enter RJC and sit for the GCE A-Levels at 18, without having to sit for the GCE O-Levels, giving them more time to engage in enrichment and co-curricular or passion-driven activities. The curriculum serves to "seek to nurture the best and brightest into men and women of scholarship who will be leaders of distinction, committed to excellence and service in the interest of the community and nation." This subsequently led to the merging of RI's GEP and Special/Express streams to form a single Raffles Programme stream, and the establishment of its in-house academic talent development programme, Raffles Academy, catering to exceptionally gifted students via subject-specific pullout classes from Year 3 onwards, in 2007.
In 2005, RJC, along with Hwa Chong Junior College, became one of the first junior colleges in Singapore to attain independent status. RJC moved to its new Bishan campus adjacent to RI at the start of the 2005 school year, after attaining independent status and becoming the first Pre-University Institution in Singapore to be awarded the School Excellence Award.
In 2009, RI and RJC re-integrated to form a single institution under the name Raffles Institution to facilitate the running of the Raffles Programme and better align processes and curriculum.

School identity & culture

RI is a member of various academic partnerships and alliances, such as the G30 Schools and The Winchester Network. It also co-founded the Global Alliance of Leading-Edge Schools.

Motto

The school motto - Auspicium Melioris Aevi - comes from the coat of arms of its founder, Sir Stamford Raffles. The official translation by the school is 'Hope of a Better Age'.

Mission & Values

The school's mission of nurturing thinkers, leaders and pioneers of character who will serve by leading and lead in serving is further supported by the institution's FIRE Values - Fortitude, Integrity, Respect and Enterprise.

Rafflesian Principle of Honour

Houses

The five houses, three of them named after former headmasters, are Bayley, Buckley, Hullett, Moor and Morrison, represented by the colours yellow, green, black, red and blue respectively.
Year 1 students are sorted into houses by class. In the early years of RI's history, there were ten houses, including a sixth Philips house, later disbanded. House allocations used to be student-based, instead of class-based. Each House is led by a House Captain, a Year 4 student, who carries out his role along with the respective House Committee. The Houses participate in inter-house tournaments and activities, notably including the annual Inter-House Sports Carnival, Dramafeste and the Inter-House Debate tournament, with points earned from each activity contributing to the House Championship which is awarded at the end of the school year.
Students of the college section were divided into five Houses, the name of which is an amalgamation of its counterparts in RI and RGS:

Orientation programmes

Year 1: Orientation Camp

The new intake of Year 1 students go through a 3-day orientation camp, involving understanding the school's culture and knowing the campus grounds, and various activities to facilitate class bonding, leadership development, etc. Year 4 Peer Support Leaders and the Head and Deputy head prefects guide them through this camp and the rest of the orientation period. At the end of the camp, the Year 1s receive their school badges in the Junior Rafflesian Investiture Ceremony, which occurs on the Friday of the Orientation Week.

Uniform

The Raffles uniform from year 1-4 is all-white, including a white short-sleeved shirt with the Raffles badge at the top-right corner of the shirt pocket. Lower secondary students wear white short trousers and white socks. From Year 3 onwards, students may continue in short pants or opt for white long trousers. Shoes are white-based for all students, with the exception of laces, which must be fully white. Year 3 and 4 prefects must wear formal black shoes, except for Physical Education lessons, where they are required to change into appropriate shoes. School ties are worn only for formal occasions. Teachers have a formal gown for special occasions.

Discipline

In former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew's book The Singapore Story, he mentions being caned for chronic lateness in the 1930s by the then headmaster, D.W. McLeod. In 1956, a former RI prefect wrote that, during his time there, "boys were caned on their bottoms for even winking at the girls. We did have very good discipline in our time and the boys became good citizens, lawyers, doctors, etc."

Curriculum

Since 2007, the school has offered the six-year Integrated Programme, which allows students to bypass the GCE O-Levels, and take the GCE A-Levels instead. Known as the Raffles Programme, it is offered jointly with its sister school, Raffles Girls' School, or RGS.

Raffles Leadership Programme

The Raffles Leadership Programme is an initiative of the Leadership Development Department, aimed at preparing Rafflesians to take on positions of leadership in school and in life. All Year 3 pupils go through the programme which includes going through the Leadership Challenge Workshop and taking the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Instrument. It also features a one-term residential component at RI Boarding. The boarding programme started as a trial in 2008 and has now become a full-cohort programme.
Under the RLP, Year 3 pupils also get to take part in a ten-week residential programme in RI Boarding to learn about independent living skills. The RLP Boarding Programme was adjusted to a 7-week programme in 2019.

Language Elective Programme

Raffles Institution will be offering the Malay Language Elective Programme from 2020

Students' Council (Junior College Section)

of the Year 5-6 section is divided into a total of eight departments, namely the Welfare Department, the Communications Department, the CCA Department and the five House Directorates. Each councillor also takes up one or two of the six functions, which are college events organised by the council: National Day, Teachers' Day, Grad Night, , Orientation and Council Camp.
Members of the Students' Council are selected through a college-wide election process. Each batch undergoes a rigorous selection process, which culminates in the Council Investiture. The Students' Council is headed by a President, who is assisted by his/her EXCO consisting of two Vice-Presidents, two Secretaries, the three Heads of Departments and the five House Captains. As of 2020, the school is served by the 40th batch of Student Councillors.

Student activities

Co-curricular activities

Secondary School section

Raffles Institution offers about a forty CCAs under the co-curricular activity programme, including sports, uniformed groups, performing arts, and clubs and societies.
CCAs are categorised as either core or merit CCAs. Core CCAs comprise all sports, uniformed groups and performing arts, as well as Raffles Debaters while merit CCAs consist of all other clubs and societies. Every student of the school takes up at least one core CCA. Merit CCAs are optional, but students are encouraged to take up at least one merit CCA to supplement their core CCA. Certain merit CCAs, such as the Infocomm Club, however, may substitute for a core CCA instead.
The school's sports teams and uniformed groups have earned top places in many national inter-school competitions, doing well in Red Cross Youth, Rugby, NCC, SAILING, Floorball, Boys' Brigade, and cross-country among others.
The performing arts groups have also done well in the Singapore Youth Festival, held once every two years, while the clubs and societies have also won awards.

Junior College Section

The Year 5-6 section offers over seventy CCAs including sports, performing arts, and clubs and societies. Unlike in the first four years of the Raffles Programme, no distinction is made between core and merit CCAs. Students may offer up to two CCAs, no more than one of which may be a sports or performing arts group.
Teams from RI performed well nationally in 2011, with the performing arts groups clinching 15 Golds and 5 Silvers at the biennial Singapore Youth Festival Central Judging and the sports teams winning 32 championship titles as well as 24 Silvers and 11 Bronzes at the National Interschools Sports Championships. The school's Clubs and Societies have also performed excellently in their various national competitions, with Raffles Debaters clinching championship titles and the History and Strategic Affairs Society clinching best school delegation awards at international Model United Nations conferences.

Publications

The college community is served by , the school's journalism society, which publishes its flagship online student newspaper Word of Mouth. The newspaper includes features, op-ed columns, sports reports and concert reviews. In addition, all staff and most students also receive a copy of the , the school's official magazine, from the Communications Department.
The journalism society regularly publishes articles dealing with daily school life, recent assemblies and events as well as wider national issues including the SG50 sentiment and the .
In 2015, students from the school also started an unofficial satirical publication called "" that made fun of school events and examinations.

Boarding

Raffles Institution Boarding is housed in a Boarding Complex consisting of five blocks. These are named after the five Houses; Bayley, Buckley, Hullett, Moor and Morrison. Each block, apart from the new Hullett block, can accommodate 90 pupils. All blocks have their own staff, and the Boarding Complex is overseen by several Boarding Mentors.

History

The foundation stone of the Boarding Complex was laid by Lee Kuan Yew on 25 March 1994. The first batch of boarders moved into the Complex in 1996.
During the upgrading works in 2006, the former Moor block was demolished to make way for a 13-storey twin tower hostel, the Hullett block, completed in July 2007, and the former Hullett block in turn renamed Moor. The three blocks of Buckley, Moor and Bayley houses boys enrolling in Raffles Leadership Programme, whereas Morrison block catered to girls previously.

Campus

The Raffles Institution Year 1 - 4 campus consists of six main blocks on 18.65 hectares of land.

Yusof Ishak Block (Former Admin Block)

The main building is the Yusof Ishak Block, comprising offices, staff rooms, lecture theatres, study areas and computer labs, as well the Main Atrium. It houses the Year 1-4 General Office and the Raffles Archives & Museum. Major upgrading works were completed in early 2007.

Science Hub

The Science Hub, opened in 2008, includes facilities for specialised research such as Xploratory-Labs; as well as Chemistry, Physics and Biology labs. It also houses the Discovery Labs, a Laser Animation/Technology Studio, the Materials Science Lab and the Raffles Academy Home Room. It is connected to the Yusof Ishak Block.

Hullett Memorial Library / Shaw Foundation Dining Hall

The Hullett Memorial Library stands between the Sheares Block and ArtSpace. Co-founded by Dr Lim Boon Keng and Sir Song Ong Siang, it was named after Raffles Institution's longest-serving Headmaster, Richmond William Hullett, in 1923. The Library's official founding also marked the centenary of the founding of the institution. The Library traces its roots to the founding of the Institution, making it the oldest library in Singapore. The origins of Singapore's National Library lie in the HML.

Sports facilities

The school's gymnasium underwent renovation in 2010, and was used as a training venue for gymnastics in 2010 Summer Youth Olympics, together with that in the Year 5-6 campus. The school also has two tennis courts, two basketball courts, two squash courts, and two cricket nets.
Following the re-integration with Raffles Junior College from 2009, more sports facilities are available. Floorball, table tennis, judo and gymnastics are RI sports now able to use the Year 5-6 Campus facilities.

Alumni

RI's alumni body, the Old Rafflesians Association, includes former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, and three former presidents of Singapore: Yusof bin Ishak, Benjamin Henry Sheares, and Wee Kim Wee. RI is notable for having produced 94 President's Scholars, 3 out of 7 Presidents, 2 out of 3 Prime Ministers, including the first elected Prime Minister in Lee Kuan Yew, 4 Speakers of Parliament, 7 out of 20 members of the current Cabinet, 6 Ministers of State and 13 CEOs of government-linked statutory boards and agencies.

Notable alumni

Arts

Raffles Institution was featured in an episode of the Australian version of The World's Strictest Parents. In this episode, teenagers Zaine and Memphis attend the school, only to truant class midway through the day and attempt to take a taxi towards Orchard Road without being caught.