By Nwe Cherry Khine
The time has come once again to sing along to the tune of familiar National Day songs, with the Singapore flag hanging proudly from the balconies of HDB flats and the whole nation dressed in red and white. National Day 2016 celebrates Singapore’s 51st year of independence, and although it is not as huge of a milestone as Singapore’s 50th, NUS High definitely did not tone down its festivities.
Despite the morning’s glaring sun, the contingents accompanied by orchestra’s music, marched proudly onto the field following the parade commander’s commands. Planes flown by the Youth Flying Club members were also a highlight of the parade, performing awe-inspiring stunts in the air.
After a short break, the school settled into the hall for the National Day concert. The opening act was by ‘Hello It Us’, the winners of Talent Search 2016, who sung a lovely national day medley. The main section of the concert was a scripted talk show, in which ‘guests’ were shown a video on typical Singaporean topics and were later tasked with answering a question on the topic. With each video featuring hilarious and relatable content about Singapore’s quirks accompanied by the actors’ uniquely Singaporean personalities, the school definitely had a wonderful time, and picked up quite a bit of useful trivia in the process.
This year, in addition to the usual parade, classroom activities and concert, there was a school wide carnival held at the concourse during the break for the students and staff to relive their memories with childhood games like snakes and ladder, “fishing” and pick-up sticks. A small prize could be redeemed after a number of booths have been completed.
This was the school’s first national day carnival and students participated in the games with enthusiasm and even our Mrs Lee, our principal, tried her hand at the games!
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