Pasir Ris Secondary School
390 Tampines Street 21
Singapore 529400

21st July 2008

Minister Mah Bow Tan
Minister of National Development
Member of Tampines GRC

Suggestions on how Playgrounds in Tampines can be Improved

Dear Minister Mah,

Tampines is a home and place for everyone to live in and enjoy, particularly the playgrounds around the neighbourhoods, where children of all ages come together to make friends with children of different races, religions and communities. Friendships start at a young age and are influential in their life.

However, children who are terminally ill may also be shunned as they have a 'contagious disease' and concerned parents are worried their children might get infected, thus resulting in these terminally ill children feeling lonely or left out.

My class has done a class project for literature, and we have researched on playgrounds for the terminally ill around the world, and we have found ways to make playgrounds more accessible to these children. We also have realized that most playgrounds in Tampines are not very user-friendly to the terminally ill, and this led us to think that the playgrounds in our neighbourhoods can be modified for the benefit of these children, and expose them to more things.

The playgrounds in Tampines are catered more for normal children, but
from a handicapped child's point of view, it is inconvenient and hard to play in. The playgrounds are also sometimes vandalised and dirty, with cigarette butts and litter. Some children run around playgrounds barefooted, and stepping on a cigarette butt may cause burns to their feet.

I suggest that the playgrounds get cleaned up more often, so as to avoid mishaps like the matter mentioned above. The playgrounds nowadays are more brightly-coloured and cheerful, and it is ideal that all playgrounds are like that as it is more interesting for little kids to interact with. But certain areas are high up, and sometimes children may be careless and fall, hurting themselves in the process. Playgrounds are intended to be child-friendly and the height of certain play areas and the cushioning should be adjusted for safety reasons.

My group and I have also noted that few playgrounds in the Tampines region are sheltered, and as a result, most children are unable to access the playgrounds even when it is raining. Even when the rain has stopped, children still cannot use the playground equipment as it is still wet and slippery from the previous shower earlier in the day. If the playgrounds are sheltered, children are able to go to the playground as often as they want, without any worries.

I sincerely thank you for taking time to read my proposal, and I hope that you can consider making these changes and improvements to the playgrounds in Tampines to suit the children in the neighbourhood. Thank you, I look forward to your reply.

Yours Sincerely,
Tay Xinyi
Student of Pasir Ris Secondary School

Pasir Ris Secondary School
390 Tampines Street 21
Singapore 529400

21 July 2008

Minister Mah Bow Tan
Minister of National Development
Member of Tampines GRC

Dear Minister Mah
Feedbacks and suggestions on the playgrounds in Tampines
Being a home to many families, Tampines has many facilities and the playgrounds are one of them. Although the different types of colours and the degree of safety can be seen, there are some activities that are not suitable for some children. The children I am talking about are the children with terminal diseases. Normally, the playgrounds are built for healthy and active kids so the playgrounds often have things like monkey bars which are unsuitable for the terminally ill children
My group and I have created a playground that is suitable for all children, whether they are ill or not. The theme of the playground is ‘forest’. Using this theme, we have created an indoor playground with the things found in a forest or near it.
In the middle of the playground, a lake will be painted and a small bridge will be constructed to give the children the impression of entering another world. A few marine animal toys are also placed on the lake and in case the children have an allergy, the material used to make the soft toy cover prevents bacteria and mildew from growing on it.


A tree house will also be built and a couple of toys will be placed in it. There will be about three trees in total. One of them will have a ladder where they can climb up and slide down a slide leading to a huge amount of coloured plastic balls and another ladder leading to another tree. The tree that it leads to is the one with a house on it. It also has a television installed under the tree and benches placed all over it in case the children and tired and want to rest or the parents want to wait for their children. The last tree will be located on the other side of the lake, where a swing will be attached to it, allowing the children to rest on it and look at other children play and have fun. An interesting feature our playground has is a tambourine as not many playgrounds have it. The tambourine is located at a corner of the indoor playground so it does not block the way of the children and adults. A see saw that have seats that are specially made in the shape of a discus fish will also attract the children’s attention.


As safety is always our first priority, we make sure that even if the children falls down, they won’t get hurt as the floor is made of soft material, cushioning the fall of the kids. This playground will also serve as a place where children can relax so the walls will be painted with animals and such to attract attention.
Thank you for taking time off to read my proposal and I hope you consider my suggestions as on how to upgrade the playgrounds in Tampines.

Yours truly,
Lim Yu Hui
Student of Pasir Ris Secondary School

Labels: Yuhui (8)

Pasir Ris Secondary School
390 Tampines street 21
Singapore 529400

July 21, 2008

Minister Mah Bow Tan
Minister of National Development
Member of Tampines GRC

Dear Minister Mah,

Feedbacks and suggestions on how to improve the playground

Tampines is an area surrounded by a lot of families with children therefore I have decided to build a playground in this area for the children to enjoy. I’ve heard of all the things you had done for the neighborhood and thus, you are well respected by all of the residents. To make the playground a more interesting place for the children to play, I have gain feedbacks and suggestion from the neighbors as to how we can modify the playground.

In this project, we are supposed to make a model of the playground with recycled materials. And, we are to build a actual playground with a budget of 999k. We found
A theme to build our playground and that is, forest. To link to the book, Bridge of Terabithia, our playground must have certain areas which are similar to that of the book. And, this playground is to cater to the needs of the terminally ill children. We found materials to built the playground and we have found the cost prices of these materials. The total cost of the materials does not exceed the budget of 999k. With feedbacks from our literature teacher, we have also found ways to improve the current playground.

To improve the playground, we gathered feedbacks from the residents and our teacher. From the feedbacks, the playground is very safe for the children to play. However it is not attractive enough and it does not carry the mood of our purpose ----- to build a playground that makes the terminally ill children feel happier. Thus, we are only graded average for our playground. We have also gathered this feedback that the playground has too little things for the children to play. Thus we gotten suggestions to improve the playground.

We have decided to add pictures to the playground to liften the mood of the playground. We will also make more facilities in the playground so it can be a better place for the children to play. As we know that you would want all the best for the residents in this area, we hope that you could consider our suggestions and make changes to the playground. Thank you.

Yours faithfully,
Ngo li ting

Pasir Ris Secondary School
390 Tampines Street 21
Singapore 529400
21st July 2008

Minister Mah Bow Tan
Minister of National Development
Member of Tampines GRC

Feedbacks and suggestions to improve the playgrounds in Tampines

Dear Mr. Mah,

Tampines being a place surrounded by families need to have facilities like playgrounds to cater to the need of the children. Under your expert leadership, Tampines has thrived and more and more families are moving here.

Being a neighbourhood surrounded by families with children, we should also have playgrounds that are built specially for terminally ill children so that they will not feel left out and lonely when the other children are playing as the parent of the children might not want the terminally ill children to play with their children as the are afraid the terminally ill children will pass on their “disease” to their own child.

Therefore, my group and I have come up with a model of a playground that are built especially for the terminally ill children to cater to their needs and to also brighten up their lives and make them happier. The playground model that my group has come up with is filled with a variety of bright colours to cheer up the children and also to attract them to the playground.

As safety is our first priority, the materials we have chosen to make our playground are all safe and soft so that it will not hurt the children, like for example the floor of the playground could be made of rubber instead of concrete as it increases friction so that the children will not fall and hurt themselves when they fall on the rough and hard concrete floor it will also not injure the children when they fall as it is soft.
Thank you for taking some time off to read my letter. I hope you will consider my suggestions for the improvement of the playgrounds here.

Yours truly,
Loong Yun Xian
Pasir Ris Secondary School

Labels: Yun Xian ( 9 )

Pasir Ris Secondary School
390 Tampines Street 21
Singapore 529400

21 July 2008

Minister Mah Bow Tan
Minister of National Development
Member of Tampines GRC

Dear Minister Mah

Letter on improving playgrounds in Tampines and feedbacks about it

As a student in Pasir Ris Secondary School, which is located in Tapines, we have discovered that there are a wide variety of playground in Tampines, from the materials used to the kind of people which are able to play the playground. The playground in Tampines can be found everywhere, the different types of colours and the degree of safety can be seen.

From our research, we found that there can still have rooms of improvements so we comes up with how the playground can be improves to make them more Need-sensitive so that even children with non-contagious but with terminal illnesses can go out to have fun and have fun while they have the ability to. We also found out that some of the playground could have theme so that it can looks more creative and attractive. In the research, we are going to focus on having a playground which could cater the special needs of children with non-contagious but with terminal illnesses. We decided to have a theme of forest as it could look interesting and creative.

In the research, we found that most of the playgrounds are for children who have no illness, but the children with illness are same as the other children. They need fun and also want to enjoy themselves just like you and me. Because of their illness, they are unable to play in the normal playground, so we have come up with the design of playground which are suitable for them, colours which will brighten them up, in the same time, they can enjoy themselves.

The playgrounds in Tampines are sometime unsafe because after a period of time the paint will start to peel of and the facility are not in good conditions. This will results in the decreasing degree of safety. There is a swing, why not has a protective swing mat to prevent fall of the children. Instead of using metallic material, why not use strong, durable rubber material. The colours should be bright and not dull so that the children will feel happy upon visiting the playground. We plan to have the playground outdoor so that they can have more fresh air. The design of the playground can be improve to be more creative.

Thank you for taking time off to read my letter. I hope that you will consider on my suggestions.

Yours truly,
Kwok Ying Wei
Student of Pasir Ris Secondary School

Labels: Kwok Ying Wei (5)

Pasir Ris Secondary School
190 Tampines Street 21
Singapore 529400

21st July 2008

Minister Mah Bow Tan
Minister of National Development
Member of Tampines GRC

Feedbacks and suggestions on improving the playgrounds in Tampines

Dear Minister Mah,

As a student of Pasir Ris secondary school, i grately thank you for giving time to read my letter. Recently, my group was researching on playgounds for the terminally-ill children for our literature project. Researching on the best playground for the children was not such an easy job. We had to follow the rules on following our theme which was forest.The materials we used had to be eco-friendly and our playground concept had be linked to the novel, ~Bridge to Teribithia~. The playground design had to meet the special needs of the children. Our group had gone through thick and thin. Eventually we managed to think up of the best playground.

After this project, we have learned the imporantance of a playground and its purpose. Through researching, we have looked through playgrounds in Tampines. They are of well condition and the design is most suitable for the children of the neighbourhood.

However, playgrounds in Tampines do no meet the expectations of many. Having gone through a project on playgrounds, suggestions and feedbacks were thought of to build better and safer playgrounds for the neighbourhood children.

Firstly, safety is the number one priorty of a parent for his or her child. To improve the safety of a playground, it must build out of safe materials. Instead of hard metal materials why not safe rubbery material instead. Floors of playground could be made of the same material as a running track instead of a hard, cold, marble floor. The material helps cushion a child's feet, and running would not be a problem.

Choice of colours is important for some children can be fussy on choosing which playground to play in. The choice of colours must be of a vareity, especially bright colour as it helps to brighten a child's feelings.

The design of a playground can also be unique. Some playgrounds can be shaped like a castle. This will interest any child on whether to venture through the castle shaped playground or just have fun in it.

Playgrounds does not necessarily have to be build outdoor to bring more llfe to the children. Indoor playground too can be filled with fun. Walls and floors filling the indoor playground can be painted of different themes. Think of a child's interest in fun, having this idea can help imporve the design of the playground to be more fun and interesting.

Thank you for taking time off to read my letter. I hope that you will consider my suggestions on improving the playgrounds in Tampines.

Yous truly,
Charissa Chia Jia Hui
Pasir Ris Secondary School

Labels: Charissa (1) .......

We've done our best for our model
And it turned out great.

We had some bad times


but things turned out ok for our meeting
We had a group pic