Making It A Home Sweet Home For Boarders

Being older and more senior than most of his other colleagues, Lead Boarding Mentor, Lee Siak Keong, is often seen as a stern, no-nonsense, father-like figure. However, this does not stop him from building a strong rapport with boarders as he is always empathetic and puts himself in their shoes when attending to their needs.

“Our work is very student-centric. We attend to a wide range of areas pertaining to student-athletes’ needs, such as their physical health, socio-emotional well-being, as well as handling administrative and other boarding matters,” shared Siak Keong.

In recognition of his hard work and commitment in nurturing Learned Champions With Character, Siak Keong was awarded the Boarding Mentor of the Year.

A typical day at boarding includes attending to student-athletes who are feeling unwell or mentoring student-athletes who are facing problems through pastoral care and guidance. Other administrative and boarding matters include processing leave requests, planning boarding activities, taking care of meals at The Arena, managing student-athletes’ Supervised Self-study Time (SST), checking on attendance, instilling good hygiene and living habits through the Hygiene and Housekeeping (H&H) checks and etc. Occasionally, Boarding Mentors may also need to wake up during the wee hours to attend to unwell boarders. They also work closely with General Managers, Coaches, Academic Mentors and Head of Year to support them holistically.

The work for Boarding Mentors is inexhaustible, but Siak Keong who has been on it for seven years, still feels energised and motivated to see student-athletes develop holistically from an adolescent to a young adult.

“I have seen many of our student-athletes excel in many aspects of life. Many have brought pride and honour to our country in their sports or have excelled in other aspects of their lives. It is always nice to see some of our past student-athletes return to Sports School to serve as full time or temporary staff, with passion and as a role model,” shared Siak Keong.

Through the work that he does as a Boarding Mentor, Siak Keong hopes to nurture student-athletes who have strong sense of self-discipline and are self-driven to be always "hungry" to get better each time in all aspects of their lives.