History
The school started in January 1932 with two classes and 60 pupils.
After just a week at the new school, Mrs Downe and a teacher were transferred out due to the small enrolment. Miss Alvis, one of the two remaining teachers, was appointed headmistress. She and the other female Chinese teacher taught all 60 students. Soon, word spread about Bukit Panjang English School and by 1941, there were classes from standard one through six.
During World War II, when the Japanese were in Singapore, the school premises were believed to have been occupied by the Imperial Army. Throughout the whole war and the occupation of Singapore, the school was closed.
Three years later, on 12 September 1945, the Japanese surrendered but the school did not reopen until January 1948. Mr C.A. Peterson took principalship from the school's reopening till 1951, when he was transferred out. His successor, Mr Wee Loh Siew, took charge until 1959, when he was succeeded by Mr Felix Choo. By the time Mr Wee took office, enrolment had increased to 350. To cope with the demand for places in the school, Bukit Panjang Government Afternoon School was opened in July 1952 with an enrolment of 112. An annual magazine under the editorship of Miss Boswell published by the school during the '50s provided an invaluable record of the school.
Read more about this topic: Bukit Panjang Primary School
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“It gives me the greatest pleasure to say, as I do from the bottom of my heart, that never in the history of the country, in any crisis and under any conditions, have our Jewish fellow citizens failed to live up to the highest standards of citizenship and patriotism.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)