History

            The Serangoon Secondary School was previously known as the Serangoon English School and when it was founded, the Anglo Chinese Tamil School.

            It was founded in 1928 as a primary school with only seven classes under a headmistress and seven teachers. Thereafter the number of classes increased to12.

Intially, the school was  the only government co-educational school in the Crown Colony. It was also a feeder school for Raffles Institution. In 1937, three more standards were added and with this, the school provided education up to Standard Eight or Secondary Three as it is presently known. The boys and girls who had successfully completed Standard Eight then then went on to Raffles Institution and Raffles Girls’ School respectively where they spent another year to prepare for their School Certificate Examinations. This system remained till the eve of the Japanese Occupation of Singapore.

            Under the Japanese Occupation of Singapore (1942-45), the school was used as a Japanese Higher Normal School for the training of officers in the Japanese Education Service. During the three intervening years, much of the equipment was lost and structural alterations were made to the school.

            The immediate post-war years were difficult too because of the shortage of text books and lack of furniture and equipment. For a short spell, the school functioned at the Malay School at Aroozoo Avenue. Up until 1965 and for 20 years, it was strictly a boys’ school. In 1965, when Pre-University education was introduced, girls were admitted for the first time to the Pre-University One classes.

            The School formed its first School Certificate class in 1949. With the School Certificate class, the school could now be considered a Full School in the sense that a student could begin with Primary One and complete his secondary education with a Cambridge School Certificate. The problem of accommodating too many students also necessitated introducing an afternoon session as well. To remedy the situation and also to fulfil the need for a science laboratory, new extensions were built and completed in 1952. The new Science Block consisted of two science laboratories on the ground floor and an Assembly Hall upstairs. A new wing comprising four classrooms was also built.

            Primary education in the school ceased in 1957 and the school became a purely secondary school in Upper Serangoon. In 1965, the first Pre-University class was formed. It was co-educational. Later the Pre-University classes were expanded to include two Pre-University One and Two classes.

As the building began to age and the and condition appalling, it became imperative that new accommodation had to be provided. So early in 1967, the school moved into its new, modern premises at Lowland Road which had cost the government $1.1 million to build. Included in the new premises was a centralised workshop to provide the basics of technical education for Secondary One and Two students. The old premises was later used as an SAF Transport Base until it was demolished recently.

            In 1968 and for one year only, the school also took in six classes of Primary Six repeats. In 1976 owing to the establishment of Junior Colleges for Pre-University students, the Pre-University classes were also closed.

            Over the years, the School saw an increase in its enrolment. The Lowland Road premises was simply too small to conduct remedial and enrichment classes and co-curricular activities. To show the sore lack of much needed space, the School had even to rent two air-conditioned containers to serve as classes for extra lessons.

As the premises at Lowland Road could not accommodate the school’s growth, and as the facilities were outdated, a new school premises was planned and subsequently built.

In 2001, the School moved once again to a spanking new building at Upper Serangoon View. The new school is equipped with 38 modern classrooms with the
most up-to-date facilities, including a library, AVA Theatre, language and computer laboratories and audio visual studio and others costing S$18.3 million.

            Today, the School stands proud to occupy the new building and wants to make full use of it to give a much-needed rounded education to all students.

            Currently, the School has a large enrolment of 1514 cohorts comprising 639 boys and 875 girls. It also has a staff of 98