Originally born and educated in the U.K., Jemma has been living in Singapore since February 2017 with her husband and three children. She has been working in various early childhood education settings around the globe since 2004, building a rich repertoire of experience and skills. Jemma has a Master’s Degree in Education Studies and she has enjoyed a positive teaching chapter consisting of six academic years in total at our Sentosa campus. Jemma has taught Primary classes for the past four academic years with a carefully crafted focus on core academics and skill based inquiry.

Before joining EtonHouse, Jemma held the position of ‘Class Teaching Lead’ at an International School in Doha, Qatar. Jemma firmly believes in inquiry-based learning and also acknowledges the importance of academic learning, such as literacy, mathematics and science, to enable well-rounded learners. She looks forward to offering children a range of meaningful experiences as children build knowledge, skills, and a positive disposition towards school and their classmates at Sentosa.

As a creative educator, Jemma has a passion for mentoring children and encouraging them to be independent thinkers. She views children as ‘competent’ and provides them with opportunities to develop mastery with tools, materials and ideas. Jemma describes herself as an ‘active and engaged’ teacher and believes in participation and ‘wondering’ alongside children.

Jemma also values her journey as a Mum and this allows her to bring a great deal of patience, understanding and love to her role and work alongside families in her care. She looks forward to inspiring the children when she welcomes her Year 2 class for August 2024!

Xiaonan graduated with her Teaching Degree in 2009. She also holds a certificate in Montessori teaching and has 15  years of teaching experience with children from 18 months to 6 years old.

Xiaonan has taught at EtonHouse Sentosa and EtonHouse Claymore for 8 years in total. Xiaonan is our Mandarin Pedagogy Coordinator and advocates for engaging and innovative language learning practices. Xiaonan has invaluable teaching expertise and thoroughly enjoys sharing her creative and musical talents with the children.

Xiaonan believes Mandarin learning should be fun, exciting and meaningful for the children in her class. She uses intentional teaching to connect the children’s learning and uses the Mandarin language, stories, games, projects, dance and songs to enrich their knowledge. She likes to use music as a communicative tool to interact with children and hopes to instil the value of music into the hearts of every child. You will often find Xiaonan using the harmonica and guitar to make circle time engaging for the children. She also enjoys collaborating with her fellow teaching colleagues to further the children’s inquiry and hopes to grow alongside the children as they also teach her new things every day.

Xiaonan nurtures Mandarin speaking, reading and writing through planning with our Chinese Language Acquisition Framework and promotes progress for all children by crafting experiences that are developmentally and individually appropriate.

During her free time, Xiaonan enjoys various outdoor activities; she loves to travel to explore the exotic world and capture those wonderful moments on camera as an avid photographer!

Alethea joins from another International School in Singapore where she currently teaches Primary Years. She has 7 years of teaching experience under her belt. Alethea currently works with Year 2 and has a strong understanding of the next transition and academic expectations for children moving into Year 3.  Alethea holds a Degree in Education and a Diploma in Education. Alethea is trained in inquiry, concept-based learning, IB PYP and Inquire-Think-Learn as a returning and past EtonHouse Teacher.

Alethea is very passionate about developing a strong sense of pastoral care and wellness along with academic success for primary learners. Alethea advocates how each child is unique and how knowing their learning styles and personalities provides invaluable insights into how to motivate each student in their learning without a ‘one shoe fits all approach’.

Alethea strongly pulls on the social context for learning and believes in peer collaboration, showcasing children’s work to inspire others and enabling all children to become mentors and take the lead in areas that they are confident in.

Alethea has a strong passion for inquiry and takes pride in her provocations to lead children into their new inquiry cycles with curiosity. Alethea has a firm understanding of children’s academic goals required whilst also balancing her day with mindfulness and creative projects to ensure there is transdisciplinary learning for children to apply conceptual understandings in various ways and to ensure there is time to decompress across the day.

Alethea described some of her favourite mindfulness experiences alongside children as sky gazing, listening to the sounds of nature and mindful breathing in the sky garten at her current campus.

Alethea has launched various club initiatives for her current campus to enhance the children’s experiences and she also takes the lead to volunteer with dance choreography for events involving primary students. 

Alethea is very excited to meet our Year 3 friends for the next academic year.

Yvonne joined us from another well known International Primary School in Singapore three years ago. She brings an extensive 19 year career in Education with her and holds a Bachelor Degree in Primary Education with Honours. Yvonne has taught in Scotland, Brunei and Singapore. 

She has valuable experience teaching Primary Year 1/2/3/4/5 learners and feels very confident supporting our Upper Primary Cohort based on her class teaching and grade level leader experience. Yvonne had a positive year teaching Year 3 learners on campus at Sentosa during the past school year and motivated her children to become well-rounded thinkers.

Yvonne brings a background in teaching the U.K. curriculum and the globally renowned and well-known PYP International Baccalaureate Curriculum (IB).

Yvonne promotes high self esteem and self belief for the students in her care. She encourages them to take on roles and tasks that have responsibilities and engage a higher skill set. Yvonne feels outdoor learning and time in nature remains a vital part of older children’s daily schedule and comments how this support mental health, wellbeing and increased focus during classroom work. This aligns well with our nature school ethos.

Yvonne is an advocate for building strong academic and skill-based learners through stand-alone core subject learning time and integrated inquiry projects. 

Yvonne is a mum to two girls and feels this further value adds to her work as a teacher and her partnership with families. Yvonne likes pulling on her class parents’ skills and talents via volunteer opportunities.

In her free time, Yvonne enjoys swimming, cycling and playing the clarinet.

Alison originally comes from Scotland U.K., and has enjoyed an International Teaching career. Alison joined us three years ago from her teaching role in Primary Years, Dubai with high recommendations. Alison holds a Degree in Primary Education and brings 9 years of invaluable experience teaching Primary sector classes.

Alison taught Year 4 during the last academic year at Sentosa and strongly connects to our nature school ethos and inquiry methodology. 

Alison comments how this links to her own childhood and experiences in Scotland. Alison is passionate about scaffolding Primary learners through inquiry, projects and focused learning with intentionality for core learning academic subjects. 

She advocates how effective questioning is a key skill that she employs to complicate learning for children. Alison believes children do best when they are treated as co-learners in the class and their voices are welcome, respected, and used to catapult learning further. Alison comments I promote a strong ethos of inclusion and create a safe and secure learning environment in which learners feel relaxed and comfortable to voice their opinions and share their concerns.

Alison highly values Language & Literacy and Mathematics as key areas to enhance daily through focused work. She comments on how this supports children in successfully accomplishing experiences inside and outside of school.

Alison places emphasis on carefully planned experiences in these areas and takes personal observations to note any gaps in learning to offer further support as an accountable teacher.

Alison described her classroom goal as guiding children towards full independence, as strong social and collaborative learners with research skills who enjoy investigation. Alison also views herself as a lifelong learner and constantly upgrades her knowledge and skills through workshops and courses, including obtaining her ‘NPQML’, middle-level leadership qualification with University College London.

Alison values parents as key stakeholders and aims to ensure they are closely informed on their children’s learning through documentation shared with families online, informal chats, parent-teacher conferences, and more formal reports.

Alison looks forward to supporting our Upper Primary Cohort for the school year ahead!

Xiao Du holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Chinese Language. Xiao Du also has a Diploma in Early Childhood Education and a Masters in teaching Chinese to speakers of other languages. Xiao Du has 11 years of valuable teaching experience with both primary and pre-school classes.

August 2024 will mark Xiao Du’s third academic year with us. Xiao Du has supported us in delivering Mandarin programmes across our Primary and Pre-School classes. She is versatile and has a strong skill set with older and younger language learners. Xiao Du connects strongly with our Mandarin Language Acquisition framework and takes pleasure in designing meaningful sessions to stimulate children’s progress with listening & understanding, speaking, reading and writing in Mandarin.  Fundamentally, Xiao Du believes relationships and creative learning pathways are the two most important factors in the classroom.

Xiao Du comments how warmth, patience and positivity are key when forging trusting relationships with children. Xiao Du believes children innately want to learn and discover when they feel safe and secure. Xiao Du advocates how all learning goals can be turned into fun and playful encounters with creative planning that involve games, projects and learning with a curious disposition.

Xiao Du enjoys working in Reggio Emilia inspired settings and feels children thrive when they are active learners through inquiry. As a parent, Xiao Du values the importance of building a close home-school relationship with families and enjoys sharing more about the children’s day and progress.

Xiao Du is well loved and appreciated by our school community and she looks forward to supporting our Primary cohort closely.