Loos in Action

Happy Happy Toilets of Fernvale

Where is one place where you would visit everyday?

Yes, you guess right. It is our toilet.

Fernvale Primary School is proud that the Restroom Association ( Singapore) has remained one of our supportive partners. For 2007, we are privileged to receive a Gold award for the Happy Toilet School Education Programme.

We are a relatively new school, opened in 2005. In that year, the Department of Science and Health Education felt that the first foot forward was to educate her pupils in taking care of their environment. The Happy Toilet School Education Programme focuses efforts on providing a clean and green environment in one of the most essential facilities – the toilets. The programme started with a belief – “The place where we do our toilet should be a place of cleanliness and even of enjoyment”. Keeping our toilets clean is a reminder that all should help to keep the school a clean and green place.

In that pioneer year of 2005, the small band of pupils and staff painted 6 toilets on the second floor of the school, based on the theme of “this garden is mine”. This was a deliberate attempt to “align” the pictures according to the land we live in. The ground floor shows the sea and all its creatures. The second floor - the garden and the things in it, the third floor – things that fly in the sky and the fourth floor, outerspace.

In 2006, we painted another 8 toilets on the ground floor and third floor about balloons, clouds and aeroplanes. We proudly held our toilet doors open for visitors at the school’s inaugural Open House on 24 June 2006. What was also special in 2006, was that the small band of pupils and staff expanded to the involvement of the whole school. All levels participated in the Happy Toilet School Education Programme. The approach was to invite parents, through the pupils at Primary 1 to 3, to sponsor cans of paint. There was even a match of parents’ preference for certain paint colours. In May 2006, we managed to obtain about 90 cans of paint of many colours. Parents in Fernvale were generous; one parent gave 10 cans of paint from her paint vendor. The department only needed paint brushes, turpentine, black and white paint. About 40 pupils from Primary 4 to 6 were selected to be painters alongside with some 30 teachers.

Our school also received visitors from other schools as part of the tour of Happy Toilets by the Restroom Association ( Singapore).

In May 2007, the staff and a group of pupils painted another 6 toilets on the topmost floor of the school, completing the theme of outerspace. This was in time for the official School Opening on 7 July 2007.

In the past three years, the Happy Toilet School Education programme has been organized on a community involvement effort. One of the key messages in the school’s mission is to nurture a child with a heart to serve. The Happy Toilet School Education Programme supports that message through a very hands-on approach involving many parents, pupils and staff members.