Pathlight School is the first autism-focused school in Singapore offering mainstream curriculum to students, aged 7 to 18, who are on the autism spectrum.
Pathlight School offers a unique blend of mainstream academics, leading to PSLE and GCE ‘N’ and ‘O’ level certification, as well as life-readiness skills. Its mission is to maximise the potential of every student in both academics and life skills.
As at January 2020, Pathlight School is operating in 3 locations and across 3 satellite partner schools:
Student Served
As at 31 Mar '20
of Students Assisted Financially
Financial Assistance Disbursed
Disbursed for one-time
"Back to School" Project
Pathlight was one of several Special Education Schools that reduced its school fees for Singaporeans from January 2020. This fee reduction is part of its efforts to ensure that quality SPED education remains both affordable and accessible to all Singapore Citizens. With this recent reduction, overall school fees have fallen by as much as 50% since 2013, from $500 to the current $250.
Enrolment in 2020 went up by more than 10%, from 1,450 in 2019 to 1,603 students. Altogether, 248 students were admitted in Academic Year 2020 for all levels, with the bulk of admissions for Primary 1 level.
Pathlight officially opened its first on-site inclusive worksite Professor Brawn Café in July 2019. As part of the school’s curriculum to build important transferable employability and life skills from young, Pathlight’s senior Secondary School and Vocational Track students will undergo structured training at the Café.
Ministry of Education unveiled its plans for Pathlight’s second and third purpose-built permanent campuses in July and November 2019 respectively. The second campus, which is slated to open in 2024 (subject to delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic), will be located in Tampines, while plans for the third campus will be revealed later.
These schools will enable Pathlight to serve more students on the autism spectrum who will benefit from an autism-focused holistic education. The new Pathlight campuses will be located close to mainstream schools to provide more opportunities for interaction and integration between SPED and mainstream students.
A total of 174 students took the various national examinations in 2019. These students achieved stellar results, with more than 90% eligible for progression to the next level of their education:
Eligible to progress to Mainstream Secondary Schools
Eligible to progress to next level of education and Institutes of Higher Learning
Eligible to progress to Institutes of Higher Learning
To help students achieve their Living, Learning and Working outcomes and ensure a seamless transition to post-school life, students were exposed to authentic employment training and community engagement programmes. These included internships and job shadowing stints in various sectors as well as community engagement activities that they can continue to enjoy even after they leave school.
Students doing
Employability Training at E2C
Students doing
Skills Training at E2C
Student in Sheltered Workshop
Student in Day Activity Centres
Other Arrangement
Pathlight past and present students did Singapore and Pathlight proud by showcasing their talents and abilities in hosting, singing, dancing and art to more than 1,700 participants from Singapore and 30 other countries. APAC 2019, organised by Autism Resource Centre (Singapore), marked the first time this conference was hosted outside of Australia since its inception in 2009. The conference was also billed as the single largest autism learning event ever staged in Asia Pacific.
Nathanael Choo Ming-De (Primary 6) attained the Gold award.
Bryan Tan Yi Xuan (Secondary 3) and Ng Yu Zhi Nedrick (Secondary 2) attained Silver in the Game-making category and a Certificate of Participation in the Animation category respectively.
Pathlight’s Dance Talent Development Programme (Youth) team made its debut at the Singapore Youth Festival (SYF) Arts Presentation and attained a Certificate of Accomplishment.
Jordan Lim Whey Cher (Lin Weizhe) (Primary 5) and Lim Kah Yi (Vocation Track Year 8) competed alongside students in the mainstream category. Kah Yi was placed fourth in the 50m Backstroke category.
Lim Kong Boon (Vocational Track Year 8) was one of 18 swimmers who represented Singapore and competed alongside 160 swimmers from 26 countries.
Lim Kah Yi (Vocational Track Year 8) attained 4 silver medals and set a personal best record when he represented Singapore at the International Sports Federation for Persons with Intellectual Disability (INAS) Global Games in Brisbane, Australia.
As student enrolment is projected to increase given the strong demand for Pathlight’s brand of education, both capacity and capability building issues remain critical. With the school’s expansion to include two more purpose-built permanent campuses, plans are underway to broaden and deepen leadership capability to run multiple campuses.
The school will embark on a transformation programme to further digitalise processes and capture institutional knowledge. This will help deepen Pathlight’s technical expertise to stay future-ready and ensure that the school’s brand of blended curriculum, high-quality educational programmes and its understanding of autism needs are codified and delivered consistently.
Pathlight School will continue to expand inter-disciplinary learning and build its eCampus to leverage on a range of online resources and platforms that will help develop students’ digital literacy skills as well as equip them with the tools and discipline to be self-directed lifelong learners.
Pathlight will continue to explore various initiatives to develop students’ strengths and talents. One of these areas is in uncovering students’ talent in music. The school will also continue to collaborate with the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) – Centre for Lifelong Education to offer more certification programmes and enable students under the Artist Development Programme to further advance in their art education through the attainment of:
Artist Development Programme (ADP) was initiated in 2011 to uncover the artistic talents in students and develop their potential. With ADP, student and alumni artists are coached and mentored by professional artists.
The student artist talents are exposed to numerous art media and genres and given opportunities to participate in public exhibitions. Where possible, their works are curated and incorporated into high quality merchandise sold under The Art Faculty Ltd. They earn royalties from sale of their artwork and merchandise.
Student Artist Talents
Exhibitions / Events
Pathlight collaborated with the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA)'s Centre of Lifelong Education to offer NAFA's certification programme to 7 selected ADP artists. The 16-week pilot programme, which began in January 2020, will lead to a Certificate in Fine Art (Introduction) and bring ADP artists to a higher level in art education.
ADP artist Irfan Bin Mus Effendi’s artwork of his mother was nominated as one of the 25 "Judges' Favourites" among over 300 works from around the world.
ADP alumni artist Glenn Phua held his first solo exhibition at Pan Pacific Singapore from 30 October 2019 – 30 January 2020. The exhibition featured 22 of his best artworks and showcased his skill at producing intricate and detailed architectural line drawings.
ADP artists’ artworks were showcased in the first of three art exhibitions at Far East Plaza from 26 February – 6 March 2020. The works showcased the artists’ attention to detail and the occasional delightful insight into Singapore’s fauna.
4 ADP artists contributed their talent to help raise funds for the President’s Challenge, from 31 July – 28 August 2019. The Singa figurine artworks reflect what kindness, graciousness and greatness in Singapore mean to the artists.
ADP artists participated in the showcase from 1 August – 13 August 2019 to encourage individuals to go beyond their comfort zones to serve disadvantaged communities and promote positive social change.
The artwork of ADP alumni artist Foo Thong Keen was featured on Chinese New Year 2020 greeting cards used by President Halimah Yacob.
The Information Technology & Design Academy (ITDA) is a school within a school. It provides students with meaningful and up-to-date IT and Design courses delivered by professional trainers using autism-friendly pedagogy. It aims to close the digital divide for students with special needs and get them to be work and future-ready.
ITDA trainers conduct courses as part of Pathlight School’s curriculum and oversee IT-related co-curricular activities and school holiday workshops.
In-class Courses
Online Courses
Students Served
Pathlight became the first SPED school in Singapore to partner Apple in piloting the SWIFT Accelerator Programme. Secondary School students who showed an aptitude for coding were selected for a rigorous 144-hour programme that was delivered by Apple-certified trainers. Among other skills, students were taught how to code and develop iOS apps.
Students from the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Club Co-Curricular Activity (CCA) presented several innovative prototypes which they developed to assist persons with special needs and their caregivers at the Tech for Good Festival 2019 on 2 November 2019. From a digital bingo game to a toy to engage children with special needs, Pathlight students confidently shared how their ideas were brought to fruition. One of the groups was recognised with the Judges’ Choice Award for their Toy Master prototype.
Learn for Life eCampus aims to provide 24/7 access to important life skills and engaging online courses for students, families and educators so that learning can be extended beyond school hours and school years.
It offers bite-sized modular content, which can be used by students for independent learning. Educators can design and plan the use of such content as part of blended learning and be facilitators of learning. Families can also access the same curated learning content as observers to support their child in areas of skills learning and acquisition.
Online Courses
Courses in Development
Enrolled Learners
In order to build the competence and confidence of students to do self-directed learning at home, Pathlight conducted a home-based learning simulated practice in school on 14 February 2020. Leveraging the Learn for Life eCampus platform, students were guided by teachers to follow a home-based learning plan for the day. Students used both digital as well as physical resources to achieve targeted learning outcomes. As part of the school’s emergency preparedness programme, both students and staff are being familiarised with home-based learning.
