JASMS Manila Today

JASMS Manila provides a caring educational environment to ensure that all students receive substantial attention from their teachers. Classes are kept manageable at no more than 25 students in each class. This allows teachers to become familiar with the individual needs of each student and to make sure that these needs are met and enhanced. The educational program is designed to achieve excellence while providing a well-balanced, healthy, inclusive, and positive school experience.

JASMS is the pioneer of the only progressive education approach original to the Philippines which is known as learning to be free. The school combines this heritage in educational innovation with the K-12 DepEd curriculum by enriching academic classwork with vivid experiential activities in and outside the classroom and school. For example, students participate in nationwide programs organized by respected institutions and have technology-driven educational experiences in school.

Updated Faculty

Faculty participate actively in workshops and seminars in the effective use of technology in teaching, progressive education techniques, and other fields to improve the ways they can help their students become lifelong learners.

The PWU School of Music, a Center of Excellence of the Commission of Higher Education, has fielded some of its best music education teachers in JASMS Manila to teach music using the Kodály method. The experiment proved very successful and the students have been learning musical concepts, notation, and rhythms with great joy and ease.

Enhanced Activity Program

JASMS Manila has a very strong co-curricular program which has produced national champions. In 2015, the PWU JASMS Rondalla (est. 2007) was the National Champion of the National Music Competitions for Young Artists (NAMCYA). In 2014, the school produced multiple national champions in badminton at the Palarong Pambansa, in addition to competing in sports tournaments abroad. Students are also active and have received foreign and local recognition in such programs as Rotary Club (Binondo)’s Interact (High School) and Early Act (Elementary School), UNESCO’s Mondialogo School Contest, YMCA’s annual student conferences, and the Children’s Museum and Library Inc.’s (CMLI’s) annual student conventions.

The school also provides students with a choice of classes in anklung, cello, choral singing, guitar, kulintang, painting, piano, theater, storytelling through video, violin, as well as clubs in cooking, dance, handicrafts and hobbies, journalism, reading, and sports.

PAASCU Accredited

The JASMS Manila Grade School was granted Level II re-accreditation by the Federation of Accrediting Agencies of the Philippines (FAAP) for 2013-2018 after the school successfully met all the requirements of the Philippine Accrediting Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities (PAASCU).

The PWU JASMS Manila High School (which is co-educational) is the result of the integration of the co-ed JASMS Manila High School with the all-girl PWU High School (est. 1930) in 2014. In 2017, JASMS Manila Basic Education (Grade School and High School) was granted PAASCU re-accreditation for 5 years up to 2022.

Programs Offered

JASMS Manila today offers the following education programs:

• Preschool
  • Nursery - 3 years old to 4.5 years old
  • Junior Kindergarten - 4.5 years old to 5.5 years old
  • Senior Kindergarten - 5.5 years old to 6.5 years old


• Grade School/Elementary School
  • Grade 1 to Grade 6 - 6.5 years old to 12.5 years old


• High School (PWU JASMS Manila)
  • Junior High School
    Grade 7 to Grade 10 - 12.5 years old to 16.5 years old
  • Senior High School
    Grade 11 and Grade 12 - 16.5 years old to 18.5 years old
         Academic Track
    • • Accounting, Business, Management (ABM) Strand
    • • General Academic Strand (GAS)
    • • Humanities and Social Sciences (HUMSS) Strand
    • • Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Strand
    
         Technology-Vocational Livelihood Track
    • • Information & Communications Technology (ICT)
    • • Home Economics Strand
      • ◦ Bread and Pastry Production
      • ◦ Cookery
      • ◦ Food and Beverage Services
      • ◦ Tourism/Promotion Services
    
         Arts & Design Track
    • • Visual & Media Arts
    • • Dance
    • • Music

Location

The Preschool and Grade School are located in the JASMS building at 1984 Pilar Hidalgo-Lim Street, Malate, Manila. The High School (Junior High School and Senior High School) are located on the 2F and 3F of the Leon Guinto Wing in the main campus of the Philippine Women’s University on Taft Avenue in Malate, Manila. The entrance to the High School is on Leon Guinto Street corner Nakpil Street.

Admission Requirements

• • 2 photocopies of birth certificate (show original)
• • 2 ID photos 1×1
• • Original copy of report card from last school attended signed by principal (if applicable)
• • Complete application form (from Admissions Office)
• • Diagnostic test (scheduled by Admissions Office)
• • Test fee (except for Senior High School)
• • Interview with Principal and/or Guidance Counselor
• • Medical clearance (PWU Medical Clinic)

Historical Timeline of JASMS Manila

The Jose Abad Santos Memorial School (JASMS) is the outcome of the many years of work that Doreen Barber Gamboa had with children. She was greatly inspired by Francisca Tirona Benitez who was a co-founder and then President of the Philippine Women’s University (PWU), the first college for women in Asia (est. 1919).

1933	Nursery class opens for children 18 months to 3 years of age under the Elementary and Training Department of the PWU at A. Flores Street in Ermita, Manila
1936	Kindergarten expands into the Child Development Department headed by Doreen Gamboa
1938	Boarding nursery is set up for children whose parents were working or not in the city
1941	Experimental Grade 1 is opened when parents asked that the child development approach be carried on into the grade school The class is abruptly closed by the onset of WWII but Mrs. Gamboa sets up a kindergarten and ungraded primary classes in an old house at the corner of Taft Avenue and Tennessee (now Malvar Street) in Malate, Manila.
1944	PWU building was burned during the war Quonset huts, left over after the liberation of Manila, were utilized to house the kindergarten and elementary by day and to serve as a dormitory by night. Fronting PWU, these huts were located at the site of what would later be referred to as the JASMS Annex. Other big houses undamaged by the war became the classrooms of the children. One such house was owned by the late Chief Justice Abad Santos, once PWU board chair, who was executed by the enemy during the war.
1949	Doreen Gamboa leads the rebuilding of the preschool and elementary department following the principles of child development; the school is named the Jose Abad Santos Memorial School (JASMS), after the late Chief Justice who was chairman of the PWU Board of Trustees at the time of his martyrdom.
1950s	JASMS Manila opens at a new site along Indiana (now Pilar Hidalgo-Lim) Street in Malate but still maintains the (Annex) Taft Avenue facilities for younger children
2004	JASMS Manila opens a high school for boys and girls with a class of 8 boys from JASMS Grade VII graduates
2010	Preschool to Grade III classes are moved to the Unlad Building near the old JASMS annex
2012	JASMS Manila and the PWU High School are selected by DepEd to model the Grade 11 curriculum
2013	Preschool to Grade III classes move back to Indiana Street
2014	JASMS Manila High School and the PWU High School are merged in the Leon Guinto Wing of the PWU Main Campus on Taft Avenue; the High School is renamed the PWU JASMS Manila High School

Regina T. dela Cruz

In JASMS, we believe that the true essence of learning is not only confined withinin academic training and the pages of a textbook. We teach children not only to learn, but to love what they learn and put these learnings into practice. As we face this coming school year, let us challenge ourselves to work hand in hand to meet our common goal which is to bring out the holistic development of our students as they grow and develop into responsible and productive members of our society. After all, let us remember that these children-each unique in their own way-have their special places in this world. Let us help them explore and discover where they belong.

The legacy of our founder Doreen Barber Gamboa will live forever. This is JASMS! The school we love the best!

ADMINISTRATION AND NON-TEACHING PERSONNEL

PRESCHOOL/ELEMENTARY

HIGH SCHOOL