SAP as a means of providing assistance to struggling Chinese-medium schools. Under the SAP, key subjects such as mathematics and science were to be taught in English, in line with the rest of the nation, while some other subjects such as music and art could still be taught in Chinese. Tooh also turned his focus on raising school morale, and chose the poem "Whole River Red" (满江红), written by the famed general Yue Fei, to be sung by the school population. During Tooh's tenure, TCHS emerged as the dominant force in the school track-and-field scene. In most years, TCHS was able to sweep both the 'B' and 'C' divisions of the track-and-field competition, and was often the only school to send all its students to the National Stadium to support school athletes. In 1987, the school was granted the status of an independent school by the Ministry of Education and proceeded to implement changes to its curriculum that were unprecedented in other Singapore schools. The changes include the abolition of mid-year examinations in favour of camping trips for the school, as well as the introduction of numerous enrichment programmes in place of lessons. In the early 1990s, the school underwent an extensive renovation, which saw the construction of a new hall, named after the school's founder, a gymnasium, a renovated clock tower block and new classrooms. A Drama Centre was also constructed, catering to the school's performing arts groups. In the late 1990s, the school embarked on a consortium scheme to improve the quality of education for students. It started with the establishment of the Quest and Aphelion consortiums, followed by ProEd and Radix. In 2000, the iSpark consortium was set up for students in the Gifted Education Programme (GEP). In 2002, Quest and Radix merged to form the Ortus consortium. On 19th March 1999, the school's clock tower was gazetted as a national monument to mark the significance of the institution as the first Chinese medium school to be built in Southeast Asia to cater to the education of overseas Chinese. Two days later, on 21st March, the school held a large dinner in front of the Clock Tower in celebration of TCHS' 80th anniversary of founding. At the dinner, which was attended by alumnus and then-President Ong Teng Cheong, a statue of school founder Tan Kah Kee was erected. The same year, Tooh retired as the longest-serving Principal