By Carl R. Geronimo
See full album: FEU Senior High

After having a long preparation, Far Eastern University Senior High School (FEUSHS) welcomed its first batch of Grade 11 students who started their classes yesterday, June 20.

FEUSHS Executive Director Regina Sibal said that it is a big preparation for them to welcome the students. “Remember this is the first time that we will have them so we opted not to have them choose the sections first because we are also unaware of how many students will be finally having through a certain number of students. So for now, we already prepared the schedules and then we also posted the sections already of the students,” she said.

It opened four academic strands. These include Accountancy Business and Management (ABM), Humanities and Social Sciences (HUMMS), Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM), and General Academic Strand (GAS).

Also, Sibal pointed out that each academic strand has a particular requirement that is related on what they are offering. “Kasi kunwari mag-o-offer ka ng STEM, they have to look for their laboratories. They have to have physics, chemistry and biology lab and not all of the schools could ever satisfy that. If you choose a particular strand, there is a corresponding requirement (For instance, you would offer STEM, they have to look for the laboratories),” she stated in the September-October 2015 issue of FEU Advocate.

Faculty and Staff preparation

Sibal said that it is important that the faculty must be prepared before they face the students. “In fact, we have a series of faculty development workshop last week. We trained the teachers on how to construct it in the right way,” she said.

“Then we have to train them how to handle concerns of students, how to classroom management, how to mentor the students, how to integrate certain philosophies of environment and peace, and also how to integrate technology in teaching,” she added.

On the other hand, FEUSHS prepared not only teachers but also life coaches in line with their mentoring and career pathing program. “Part of mentoring is also assigning the advisers and not just advisers but also some of the faculty and staffs as life coaches. In fact, even my cashier and our admission officers will be assigned as life coaches to some students because our objective is that in this day and age where the company of your students are computer establish and all, human relationship are very important and they have to find people that they look up to,” she said.

“I don’t think there’s another senior high school who will commit to assigning people in their faculty and staff to be life coaches of the students because before you feel them in college they first have to know what to do,” she added.

Meanwhile, Sibal pointed out that FEUSHS is still in the process of preparing the classrooms. “Before the initial plan was we were limited to the NB [Nursing Building], the first six floors but the sixth floor is being used by the admin so we looked for another venue which is the adjacent building, the Educ[ation] Building (EB); so some of the floors will be assigned to us as well so that we will be able to accommodate some of the students,” she said.

FEUSHS is currently using the first five floors of NB and the second to fifth floor of the EB. A total of 2,000 Grade 11 students will occupy the rooms of the said buildings.

Safety and Security

FEUSHS has their own entrance and exit point located at the former FEU visitor lounge beside the Gate 3 of the campus. However, students are temporarily allowed to enter the gates of the main campus while their Identification Card (ID) is being processed.

One of the parents of the student shared their insights about FEUSHS. “Ang gusto ko dito malinis ‘yung paligid tsaka maganda ‘yung policy nila. Marami namang security tsaka talagang chine-check talaga nila lahat [in the entrance] (I like the clean surroundings and the policy. There are a lot of security and they really check everything in the entrance),” she said.

“Pero ang concern ko lang dito ‘yung pwede silang lumabas. Baka kasi kung saan-saan sila kumain at pumunta lalo na kapag may barkadahan na sila (However, my only concern here is that they’re allowed to go outside. I am worried that they might eat and go somewhere especially when they have their friends already),” she added.

In response to this, Sibal said that they give the students freedom gradually. “To me for you to appreciate your freedom you also have to appreciate what’s like to this following the rules,” she said. However, she clarified that there are certain restrictions in the campus including their curfew in staying in the campus. She said that students who need to stay in campus due to school related activities should ask for permission.

Moreover, students shared their experiences and insights about their first day as a Grade 11. “Okay naman din po dito, malinis siya. Na-welcome naman po ako at maayos din ‘yung policy. Mabait din po at magaling magturo ang mga teacher (I like here because the campus is clean. I was welcomed and I like their policy. We also have good teachers),” Kyla Mizielle stated.

Also, Philip Nathaniel Santiago shared his experience. “Medyo nahihiya pero excited kasi siyempre bagong classmate. ‘Yung first impression ko, ‘yung adviser namin mabait siya tapos medyo strict (I am shy yet excited because of new classmates. My first impression about my adviser is humble but slightly strict),” he said.

FEUSHS as technology assisted learning

Sibal said that the use of technology will assist the students in their learnings. “The things that I would like to also emphasize, even comes from the direction of our President himself. One is of course the technology assisted learning, and it’s not just for the sake of using technology. In fact, we are very careful now because the difficulty in using technology as I’ve seen it happen in a lot of schools, for the sake of implementing ‘okay you buy a tablet’ but they’re not efficiently using it,” she pointed out.

“So when I commit that there’s a technology component of how we do things it’s a 360 thing – the teachers are trained, the students will also train, and the technologies and academics systems are also in placed to handle that,” she added.

She also added that they are studying the use of certain applications as part of the technology based learning of students. “We’re studying the use of Edmodo and we’re looking at certain Apple technologies now for using in our system,” she said.

Edmodo is web-based platform that provides communication and connection with learning materials for the students, teachers, and parents.

“We’re already studying the integration of certain technologies not just from Apple but also other providers that we will integrate in using the next system,” Sibal added.

When asked about the problems that FEUSHS is facing, she said “The shared facilities because the facilities are still gonna be used by FEU Manila. And for example, the Educ[ation] Building it’s not completely ours as well and of course we have scheduling concern with certain FEU Manila area facilities,” she said.

However, Sibal clarified that it is not a serious problem for them. “But at the end of the day we are a community and this problem is something that we can easily resolve within,” she pointed out.