1 CASUARINA PRIMARY: Science teacher Chia-Kay Cheng Hong uses puppets and cartoons in science classes to encourage pupils to speak up. Mrs Chia-Kay found her pupils more ready to respond to those devices, which they saw as peers, while she was a figure of authority.

2 CORAL PRIMARY: Primary 1 and 2 pupils stage concerts once a year as part of their English language lessons. Parents can see how their children are doing at public speaking, and from the acting, singing and dancing, they can assess the children's level of self-confidence.

3 TEMASEK PRIMARY: Concepts like fruit and seed dispersal are taught through role play and dance. Pupils also visit nature reserves to reinforce what they learn in the classroom.

4 PUNGGOL PRIMARY AND DA QIAO PRIMARY: Pupils write stories from imagination and personal experiences and draw the pictures to accompany the stories. They work in groups with a teacher as facilitator and learn to cooperate with one another.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on January 28, 2009.