The academic year in SOTA commenced on 3 January 2017. To start off the year, students at SOTA participated in the Borderless Learning Units (BLU) programme, a week-long school-wide orientation programme.

Held from from 3 January to 6 January 2017, the BLU programme was purposefully planned so that students in SOTA were able to transit easily into the new classroom environment; define their educational purpose for the year and to find out about opportunities and expectations for the coming academic year. The activities in BLU were experiential with a focus on getting students to construct knowledge based on what they observed and who they interacted with.

The learning experiences were crafted to follow these broad themes; Year 1 and Year 2 students explored issues of Identity and Heritage of SOTA; Year 3 and Year 4 students explored issues of Leadership and Service in relation to the course work that they will undertake in their studies in SOTA; Year 5 and Year 6 students explored issues connected to developing the necessary habits to be successful IBDP and IBCP students.

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