School History

Mdm Thoo Mei Lan was the founding Principal and introduced its first Outreach Programme to provide Hillgrovians with the opportunity to engage in challenging outdoor activities to build their confidence, team spirit and leadership qualities. As a new school in an established housing estate, the school harnessed the location and history of Bukit Batok to strengthen her students’ pride and sense of identity and empower them to make positive contributions to the community at large.

Mrs Yeow Lee Lin was instrumental in steering the school towards providing a holistic education and she introduced development programmes such as educational field trips, learning journeys and CCA platforms for the total development of Hillgrovians. In 2003, Mrs Yeow’s first year as Principal of Hillgrove Secondary School, one of the biggest challenges was managing SARS. In March, the nation made a decision to close all schools. To make sure that our students continue to have some form of education, teachers had to come back, set worksheets, print them out in hard copies, put into envelopes, and either send them to the students through postal service or hand-deliver to their homes. When schools were ready to be opened, there was a lot of monitoring and ring-fencing to ensure that the students were safe.

Mr Kenneth Lee built on Hillgrove’s traditional strength of providing a disciplined, family-like environment conducive to academic excellence, while growing new competencies to provide all Hillgrovians with a range of interdisciplinary competencies and social skills. In 2009, Mr Lee led the staff to come together to articulate their shared philosophy for Hillgrovians and this was translated into P + C = S (Potential + Character = Success).

Against the backdrop of a slew of new directives and major shifts in the educational landscape, Mrs Angeline Chan, the 4th Principal of Hillgrove Secondary School, was key in leading the re-envisioning of Hillgrove’s refreshed school vision – “Reflective Learners, Caring Changemakers”. Believing in the potential of every child, she further supported the development of Hillgrove’s distinctive programmes in Flight & Aerospace and the Arts, providing greater avenues for every Hillgrovian to discover their passions and talents, and strengthened character and values education through enhanced partnerships with our stakeholders. Together with the staff, the school culture was unpacked as CARE, which stands for Collaboration, Affirmation, Respect and Excellence. CARE defines us and speaks of our desire to help one another to be at our best and soaring as one!