Historical School Sites

(edited from GESSOSA Website, 06/01/02)

From its early years at Telok Ayer Street to what will be its new home at the junction of Alexandra and Henderson Roads, Gan Eng Seng School has done a fair share of site hopping around the island. Here are some of its locations :

On the Move Again ! ~ by Samantha Santa Maria 26 Jul 1999 ST Gan Eng Seng will have a brand new campus in 2001, but it will be built with the school's history in mind.

IT HAS moved six times in its 114-year history.

And yesterday, Gan Eng Seng School had a ground breaking ceremony for its new site at the junction of Henderson and Alexandra roads.

The $18 million premises will be bigger and better than those at its current Raeburn Park site.

But the school, which will be ready by 2001, also wants to preserve its history.

A team of 10 students, past and present, got together last August to come up with a vision for the new school.

Two months later, they had one. Architect Jimmy Lam, an old boy of the school, was asked to oversee the building of the new school. The team also recommended that a Heritage Hall and alumni room be built.

Mr Y.T. Chang, 30, an assistant architect and part of the brainstorming team, said: "The Heritage Hall will show our respect for the past, yet its design will be modern and reflect new ideas.

"The hall will display photographs and other school artifacts.

It will be the first thing visitors will see and the last area students walk through as they leave.It also faces Gan Eng Seng's original Telok Ayer Street site, he said - "a constant reminder that we should never forget the past".

	1 Telok Ayer Street (1885-1941) Founder Gan Eng Seng started the school, then known as Anglo-Chinese Free School, in some shophouses. In 1889, the colonial government alloted it a nearby site for a new school building.
	2 Park Road (1941 - 1946) When its building at Telok Ayer Street was declared unsafe, the school was housed temporarily at : Sepoy Lines Malay School (top picture) Pearl's Hill School (below picture)
	3 Outram (1946) After World War II, it re-opened, using the Outram School premises.
	4 Waterloo Street (1947 - 1951) In May 1947, the school took over an abandoned Japanese school building, which houses the Stamford Arts Centre today.
	5 Anson Road (1951 - 1986) The British Governor of Singapore, Sir Franklin Gimson, officially opened the new premises. In 1961, the school went co-ed when the first batch of pre-university girls joined its sixth-form classes.
	6 Raeburn Park (1986 - 2000) In 1987, the first cohort of Secondary 1 girls entered the school. The new building was opened officially in 1989 by the then Minister of State (Community Development), Mr Chng Jit Koon.
	7 Henderson / Alexandra Roads (2001 - present) Dr S. Vasoo, a Gan Eng Seng alumnus and an MP for Tanjong Pagar GRC, officiated at the ground-breaking ceremony of the new school site on 25 July 1999.