Shearerlyn Mok

Striving For Excellence

I am thankful for all the opportunities Wellington provided for cultivating my passion for music.

I am proud to have spent 6 years at Wellington Primary School. When I graduated in 2010, Wellington Primary was celebrating its 10th anniversary, and even though it has been 5 years since, I still recall the many fond memories created there. While I am currently studying music (piano) at the School of the Arts, Singapore (SOTA), I believe that my time at Wellington inspired me to decide on pursuing the arts even as a 12 year old.

Wellington provided me with platforms to explore different means of making music, thus developing my interest in the arts. With the school choir and brass band, I had many opportunities to perform and to make music with like-minded people, which really was the most enjoyable aspect of the CCAs. One of the fondest memories I have of my time at Wellington Primary is the overnight brass band camp that the school organised in preparation for the Singapore Youth Festival (SYF) that year.

Another aspect of Wellington Primary that I am very grateful for is that teachers encourage and nurture students’ personal ideas and give us support even beyond the curriculum. I remember forming a ‘band’ with my friends, and how the teachers encouraged us to perform for the schools’ 10th anniversary and graduation concert even though we were not particularly great performers at that time. Moments and opportunities like these had a huge impact on me as a budding young musician, and motivated me (and, I am sure many, others too) to pursue our interests.

Studying in SOTA, where the arts take up a substantial amount of time in our timetable each week, it is important that we not lose our fundamentally passion for it. Furthermore, as a school which offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP), we have to be prepared to cope with many other subjects, the arts being just one of them. It certainly takes effort to manage both the arts and academics simultaneously, but doing something that I enjoy really makes the process more bearable, and for that, I am thankful for all the opportunities Wellington provided for cultivating my passion for music.