Sung Siew Secondary School

Infobox Secondary school
name = Sung Siew Secondary School

motto = Faith Zeal Excellence
"Iman, Tekad, Cemerlang"

established = 1907
type = secondary school
affiliations = Basel Christian of Malaysia
head_name = Principal
grades = Bridge Class - Upper Six
head = Lee Chin Hoi
founder = The Rev. Yap Hyen Moo
students = around 1500
city = Sandakan
state = Sabah
country = Malaysia
website = [http://www.sung-siew.com www.sung-siew.com]

Overview

The Sung Siew Secondary School is a single-session secondary school located in the city of Sandakan, state of Sabah, East Malaysia. It is located at the foot of Trig Hill which is 2 kilometres away from the city. The school was established in 1907, which is one of the oldest school in Sandakan.

The current principal of the school is Mr. Lee Chin Hoi, who has occupied the post since early 2005. There are around 80 staffs and 1500 students in the school. The school is also recognised as one of the leading secondary schools in the state.

The school's mission statement is;

"To provide a complete and effective education; expand each individual's overall potentials in producing quality human beings."

"Membekalkan pendidikan yang sempurna dan berkesan, memperkembangkan potensi individu secara menyeluruh untuk melahirkan insan yang berkualiti tinggi."

History

Sung Siew Secondary School is a part of the Basel Christian Church of Malaysia. The development of Basel Church schools was inspired by foreign settlers to provide education to their children.

Sung Siew has its origin in the year 1907, it was founded by the late Rev. Yap Hyen Moo, who was commissioned by the Basel Mission's Church at West Point in Hong Kong to station at Sandakan as the first catechist school teacher. At first it was purely a Chinese school and known as the Basel Mission School. In 1910, a German pastor, Rev. Shie came from the Basel Mission in Basel, Switzerland and started the English section. He became the first principal. Since then, the school became known as ‘Sung Siew’ which means ‘Double Education (English and Chinese Language). Among a number of efficient and dedicated teachers at that time, the late Mr. Chung Yuk Fong (who was at one time the President of the Basel Christian Church of Malaysia in Sabah) was well known in his dedication to the school.

In 1914, the First World War broke out and as a consequence, the English section of Sung Siew was compelled to close, but the Chinese section remain unaffected. During the ensuing three years after the first World War which ended in 1918, the school had financial and personnel difficulties and therefore the English section was not reopened until 1922.

At the end of 1941, the Japanese army arrived and occupied North Borneo and Sung Siew was compelled to close for the second time. It reopened in 1946/1947, firstly with the Chinese Section and later the English section. The church and school suffered greatly during World War II. Leaders were killed and property was extensively destroyed and burnt. The school was faced with total rebuilding problems after the war. The only church property that was not destroyed during the World War II was an old rectory built by the German mission. This old building was later renovated for occupation by an American Missionary. In 1949 a double-storey wooden building costing about RM 16,000.00 was built with the aid of an outright donation of US$ 2,000.00 from the then Director of the Lutheran World Federation in Hong Kong, the late pastor Arthur S. Olson, and a single generous donation of RM2,000.00 from a member of the church, the late Mr. Wong Tet Siew.

Current & Former Principals

The school is comprised of two main sections; senior block and junior block. The senior block includes the basketball court, reading hall and the theatre building. All Form 3, Form 4 (Art Stream), Form 5 and Form 6 (Upper and Lower 6) classrooms are located in the senior block. The senior block is occupied with a total of five laboratories; Physics Laboratory, Biology Laboratory, Chemistry Laboratory, Science Laboratory I and Science Laboratory II (not to be confused with Junior Laboratory) along with a library, "Kemahiran Hidup" (Living Skills) workshop, Computer Laboratory and Mini Theatre.

Physics Laboratory, Biology Laboratory, Chemistry Laboratory, library and all senior block classrooms except Form 6 are located at the U-shaped building whereas two Science Laboratories, Computer Laboratory and Mini Theatre are located at the theatre building which is situated above the Canteen A. All government examinations including PMR, SPM and STPM regardless of junior or senior students were held at the U-shaped building of senior block.

Junior Block

Apart of Senior Block, Junior Block is located across the road, linked to Senior Block with the Skybridge. Junior Block houses classrooms for Bridge Class, Form 1, Form 2 and Form 4 (Science Stream) students together with a staffroom, Junior Laboratory and Canteen B. The latter building was for Sung Siew Primary School until 2005 as the primary school was relocated to a new location in Taman Indah Jaya, Mile 4.

The assemblies of junior students are held at the Atrium, instead of the Grand Stage. However, Form 4 (Science Stream) students that reside at Junior Block, are required to gather for Monday assemblies, not Tuesday assemblies. Meanwhile, s such as the annual Invention Exhibition and Science Week Exhibition are held at the Atrium.

Official website

Before the current website, there have been numerous ideas for the school's official website for as early as the year 1998. Previous school website projects including the one in 2004 (searched by the Wayback Machine) did not stood for long as generations of students are graduated each year.

The present website development was started by a group of students led by the student Lee Yang Yang and teacher Ms Latifah Yusof in November 2005. After several months of development, the school's website [ [http://sung-siew.com The school web site] ] was officially launched on 7 February 2006. The website featured school events, photo gallery and some Adobe Flash effects.

In April 2006, a school forum was established to provide interactive activities among website surfers. However, the school administration board decided to close down the forum in fear of vandalism. Since then, only the main page of the forum remained while access to the forum itself completely disabled.

A new website development team was elected in July 2006 to succeed the pioneer team. The website development team for session 2006 and 2007 was led by Raymond Heng. The new Chief Website Designer for the year 2007/2008 was led by Ms. Cynthia Chee.

References