Hong Kah Secondary School

Hong Kah Secondary School (丰嘉中学) (HKSS) was a co-educational government neighbourhood school at 931, Jurong West Street 42, Jurong, Singapore. The nearest MRT stations were Lakeside and Chinese Garden. Subjects offered included Triple Pure Sciences. There was a wide variety of CCAs.

The school is now closed, having merged into Jurongville Secondary School with effect from January 2019.

History

HKSS began operations in 1994 with 14 Secondary One classes. There were 6 Express, 5 Normal (Academic) and 3 Normal (Technical) classes. It was the holding school for Pioneer Secondary School, which moved to its own school in 1995.

Hong Kah was named after the old Hong Kah Village in Jurong. When Jurong was redeveloped, the original village and its inhabitants were relocated but the name was retained phonologically for the sense of rootedness to its history. The characters encompass the meaning of "abundance" and "praises".

HKSS was officially opened by the MP for Hong Kah GRC, Mr Harun A. Ghani, on 28 June 1996. The school presented its first batch of pupils for the GCE 'O' and 'N' Level examinations in 1997. In 1998 it offered its full complement of examination candidates, including its first batch of Sec 5N pupils.

In 1997 the enrolment increased to 1,200 pupils.

Principals

Since its establishment, the school had five principals. The last Principal was Mdm Sung Mee Har.

School song

A life is given to each one of us
To make this a better world
Our life in Hong Kah we shall treasure
In Hong Kah our true-self we discover.
Conquer our shadows, fears and tears
We are blessed with many a strength.
Wisely we shall tend and use them
The world is in our hands.
Hong Kah, Hong Kah
We learn from thee
We give to thee
Helps us shine of good mind
Help us care with a heart that's ever kind.
Firmly nudge our Hong Kah boys
Gently urge our Hong Kah girls
Our future to us beckons
With pride, joy and confidence.
Conquer thyself, conquer thyself
We learn from thee
We give to thee
Together, together we grow.

School motto

The school motto of "Conquer Thyself" embodied the values of self-discipline as demonstrated by the 5 Rs: following Rules, showing Respect, taking Responsibility, building Relationships and Reflecting on the impact of our actions on all those around us.

Direct School Admission

Primary students could apply for DSA through soccer for both boys & girls.

Discipline

Hong Kah Secondary School made full use of corporal punishment (for boys only) to maintain discipline. Its website said "The school will administer caning (for all serious and repeated offences) on the day the offence was committed, with or without parents' consent. Counselling will be provided after the caning is carried out.

The punishment was administered to the student's clothed buttocks. The usual number of strokes was from one to four. The caning was done either in the school office or in front of the offender's class, or in the corridor outside class, or in very serious cases in front of the whole school ("public caning").

For failing to submit assignments on a third or subsequent occasion, boys received one stroke of the cane and girls get two days' community service. Boys received two strokes for smoking, in or out of school (girls: 3 days' suspension). Caning (3 strokes) and counselling were also administered for truancy.

In order to encourage punctuality, penalties for lateness were progressively tightened up in recent times. A while ago, the punishment for being late to school 10 times in a term was one stroke of the cane. This was changed to a stroke on the sixth occasion of lateness in a term. Since a new clampdown on punctuality at the beginning of 2012, the provisions were made still stricter, and the punishment for arriving at school after the flag-raising ceremony had started (but still in time for lessons) a fourth time in a term was one stroke of the cane (boys) and one day's external detention (girls). For the fifth time it was 2 strokes for boys and two days' detention for girls, and at the sixth or subsequent tardy the pupil was suspended.

All the above applied to students who still arrived in time for curriculum hours. Boys who did not do so received two strokes of the cane even on the first occasion and the same on every subsequent occasion. Girls in this situation had to wear a "corrective vest" for the whole day. This made HKSS one of the strictest schools in Singapore as far as caning for lateness was concerned.