Professional teaching team helps students achieve great results repeatedly and elite talents emerge in large numbers

Valtorta CollegeAs the first group English secondary school in Tai Po District, we are committed to designing a diverse and distinctive school-based curriculum and creating an immersive English learning environment so that students can develop their potential, expand their international horizons, and become outstanding talents in society. The school strives to enhance students' knowledge, skills and positive values ​​through effective teaching methods and individualized support. Principal He Miaozhen advocates cooperative learning and peer exchange, improves teaching standards through collective lesson preparation, and leads the teaching team to work with students with love and empathy to enrich their learning experience and set learning goals. Therefore, in the 2023 Diploma of Secondary Education Examination, the proportion of students obtaining Level 4 or above is much higher than the Hong Kong average, and the JUPAS bachelor's degree admission rate is as high as 80%.

Pay attention to the effectiveness of the teaching team and jointly formulate educational policies

Parents have ardent expectations for the growth of their children, so they pay great attention to the school's curriculum development, educational environment, home-school cooperation and other aspects, so as to enable their children to achieve their academic and personal development goals. Principal He is committed to providing high-quality whole-person education, responding to students' learning needs and parents' expectations, actively mobilizing the enthusiasm of the teaching team, and leveraging their professional capabilities: "The smooth implementation of education strategies requires comprehensive and all-round development and formulation. After the school's middle managers and vice-principals formulate the strategies, they discuss them with all directors, teacher representatives, and teacher managers in the executive meeting, and listen to the opinions and voices of many parties to make the most appropriate teaching arrangements."

The school understands the needs of students from multiple perspectives and recognizes that they are all unique and have different gifts and talents. Principal He added: "The school is a big family, and every teacher is the surrogate parent of the students. When we imagine that the students are our own children, we can naturally consider their needs in terms of knowledge and skills in depth, and then maintain a correct educational attitude. Even during the epidemic, the school did not interrupt examination assessments and promote students to continue to Review, control your own learning progress, and keep learning with a calm mind. Therefore, we are very grateful to the students for their good academic performance and successfully admitted to the university of their choice; we are also grateful to the middle managers for their role in leading other colleagues to effectively and quickly implement teaching work, and create a learning environment for students to inspire their potential.”

Diversified English teaching and rich learning resources

The school provides a variety of English courses and learning resources, such as rich reading, writing, listening and speaking materials, as well as online learning platforms, to meet the different learning needs of students and comprehensively develop their English abilities. Through a variety of learning materials, students can practice and apply the English knowledge they have learned in different situations. The school will submit excellent articles written by students to the South China Morning Post and publish them on the school's official website to enhance students' writing interest and enthusiasm, and give them recognition and a sense of accomplishment. Earlier, some students joined the "South China Morning Post Reporter Team" to provide top students with opportunities to develop their personal strengths.

English situational teaching Practical application of language knowledge

Authentic learning situations help students apply their language knowledge. The school actively encourages students to participate in different English competitions and activities, such as English speech competitions and English debate competitions, to improve their oral expression and debate skills. The school also organizes English drama and English movie appreciation activities to enrich students' English learning experience and broaden their knowledge through drama performances and movie viewing. Students can not only learn English immersively, but also apply the knowledge they have learned in daily life. English teachers will lead students to the cultural center to learn about the history and knowledge of drama, observe how others perform in English on stage, feel the strong cultural atmosphere, and increase their exposure to English.

Teacher Zou Xiaoxi, the head of the English Department, said: "The school also has a pilot course cooperation plan with the University of Hong Kong. University lecturers will lead Form 4 students to conceive and write articles around different themes. They will be taught how to use advanced equipment to record and edit short films, and then do their own dubbing. The students all enjoy it and are very involved. Among them, it is found that English can be widely used in different aspects to enhance learning interest. At the same time, the school plans to arrange for students to participate in guided tours at the University of Hong Kong to provide them with learning motivation and further study goals, and to prepare themselves in a planned and early manner, in conjunction with the school’s comprehensive teaching policies, to help students improve their personal competitiveness.”

The school is also committed to improving students’ biliteracy and trilingual skills, especially in English, through various co-curricular activities. For example, the daily morning meetings are all hosted by student organizations (including the Catholic Alumni Association, the Student Union, the Four Clubs, and leading students, etc.) in English. In the weekly meetings, good book promotion and short lectures on moral values ​​are permanent projects. In recent years, students are often responsible for sharing, so that students can become accustomed to using biliteracy and trilingualism for public speeches. Extracurricular activities are also actively supported. For example, a student stood out and was selected as the "Student Cultural Ambassador of the Hong Kong Palace Museum" and served as a biliterate and trilingual tour guide. In terms of STEAM, Secondary 2 students learned to give presentations in English under the guidance of English teachers, introducing their design concepts and product features. All these are aimed at creating a good language environment for students and preparing them for joining the society in the future.

Individualized language support to develop independent learning abilities

Individualized support allows students to focus on their own learning needs. For this purpose, the school has an English corner and an English tutor group to provide one-on-one learning guidance to answer students' learning questions and difficulties. Vice Principal He Shichang pointed out: "The school provides personalized English learning and hires English tutors to provide students with one-on-one or group learning guidance to consolidate students' knowledge base. The tutors will work with students to help them develop personalized learning plans to overcome different learning challenges and improve their English abilities."

In addition, the school has established a learning strategy group to teach students effective language learning skills. It arranges for class teachers to share different learning strategies, such as grammar knowledge, note-taking methods, etc., and encourages students to make good use of online learning platforms and resources to improve their English ability through independent learning. Assistant Vice-Principal Yuan Jiabao said: "The school also arranges students to participate in the Spelling bees spelling bee. Through a relaxed and enjoyable learning mode, students can deepen their vocabulary and demonstrate their spelling skills, thereby cultivating them to become independent and reflective learners who can regularly review their learning results." Afterwards, teachers in the English subject group will select appropriate reading articles and materials for students in the reading class based on their different learning levels to help students collect and accumulate words in different categories and improve the effectiveness of cross-subject learning.

Orientation course from Primary 6 to secondary school to lay a learning foundation for the future

Transition planning to middle school plays an important role in the transitional stage for students when they first enter middle school. The school has specially designed an orientation course for students from Primary 6 to middle school, which is jointly developed by English, science, history, geography, life and social studies, in order to help first-year students successfully adapt to the new learning environment, strengthen their sense of belonging to the school, and master the learning model of middle school. Vice President He added: "The orientation courses cover different learning areas such as scientific experiments, historical inquiry, geography, and life and social sciences. It improves students' English proficiency at all levels and adapts to the interdisciplinary learning model, thereby cultivating their learning ability and self-discipline, laying a solid foundation for future study, and becoming global citizens with excellent morals and academics."

Flexible biliteracy and trilingual policy Learn professional English vocabulary

As a well-known English-speaking middle school in the region, in addition to Chinese, Chinese history and social studies, all other subjects are taught in English. The school is committed to improving students' language skills, laying a good learning foundation for different subjects, and extending and absorbing knowledge in different areas. Teacher Li Mingshan, director of the history department, said that the school's English learning is divided into two parts. One is General English, which involves general abilities and daily use of English, such as the expressions of commonly used words and phrases, or the indicative vocabulary that appears in test questions; the other is professional vocabulary used in subjects, such as the Renaissance, the fuses of the world wars, and some Chinese nouns that most students are familiar with, but have not been exposed to English expressions. The school's clear division of English vocabulary teaching can formulate appropriate teaching strategies based on students' learning progress and personal characteristics.

At the same time, in order to allow students to explore learning methods that suit them, cultivate a spirit of independent learning, and integrate different knowledge points, the school splits the classroom content. Taking biology as an example, the teacher will break down different types of English words such as human body, living things, plants, etc., and then lead students to conduct relevant scientific explorations and experiments to understand the diversity and complexity of biological sciences. In this process, students need to design their own experimental procedures, collect and analyze data, and write up experimental results. Not only can students apply the knowledge they have learned in different situations, but also implement the concept of interdisciplinary learning, broaden the knowledge level, and cultivate students' good biliteracy and trilingual abilities.

Use e-learning model and make good use of big data analysis

As a pioneer in the electronic teaching model, the school has achieved school-wide WiFi coverage by laying optical fiber networks throughout the school, and each classroom is equipped with an electronic whiteboard. Teacher Qiu Lifang, head of the Information and Communication Technology Department, pointed out: "E-learning has enhanced the interactivity of the classroom, for example, by integrating information, real-time Q&A, etc. to present a rich and diverse teaching content, deepening students' absorption and understanding of knowledge. During the epidemic, we also made good use of online platforms to conduct online teaching, allowing students to master the teaching materials more easily and promoting their active learning."

Big data analysis can help formulate personalized learning plans and teaching strategies for students. The school implements the teaching policy of "score tracking" and creates a performance progress chart for each student to record the rankings of different subjects, thereby helping students control their own learning progress. Teacher Yang Dazhi, director of the data analysis team, said that the school will make a competency assessment list to understand the different needs of students and the learning difficulties they may face, and specifically present the students' learning progress through score and data analysis. Different from other electronic teaching, the school makes good use of technology and data to bring warm care to students and is committed to providing appropriate learning support.

In addition, the school has introduced an artificial intelligence robot called VC Buddy to communicate with students in English. The robot has speech recognition and language processing capabilities. It can understand students' questions and answer them in fluent English, helping students improve their oral expression and listening skills. VC Buddy will walk around the library and auditorium on weekdays, providing real-time English practice opportunities and creating a creative English learning atmosphere. Students can interact with VC Buddy in their spare time. The robot's instant feedback can help students improve their pronunciation and language sense, and enhance their learning motivation.

Innovative English Learning Project Diversified Learning Environment

The school combines different innovative educational concepts and launches a variety of English learning projects, striving to create an immersive learning environment for students. Through the introduction of F2 STEM project study, science, technology, engineering, mathematics and English are organically combined, and students' high-level thinking is inspired through the inquiry process, including logical reasoning, analysis, synthesis and other abilities. Students will give an English report in the last project study session to demonstrate what they have learned. At the same time, the school also cooperates with the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups. Institutional mentors will come to the school to conduct collaborative teaching with school teachers to promote the development of students' design and creative thinking. They are required to submit a complete report at the end of the project and conduct a report in English.

In addition, the school has also set up a "Let's Art" exhibition corner for students to learn English in different subjects. Vice President Mo Mingwei said: "The exhibition corner displays students' works in different subjects and provides relevant English resources and information. The exhibition corner regularly changes themes, such as design, history, science and other fields, so that English learning is not limited to the classroom, allowing students to understand English words in different knowledge areas "When the theme of the exhibition corner is design, the exhibits will contain students' creative design drawings, models or works of art, with corresponding descriptions and explanations in English, so that students can appreciate the talents and efforts of their peers by viewing, reading and discussing the exhibits, and can also develop their interest in different knowledge in English learning.

The Department of Communities cooperates with mainland inspections to comprehensively develop language skills

In addition to building a solid knowledge base, it is also very important for students to develop common skills in expression, communication, analysis and other aspects. The school promotes collaborative teaching in different subjects, cooperates with school-based curriculum and diversified exercises, and focuses on cultivating students' thinking and organizational skills. With forward-looking and outstanding educational concepts, Mr. Wong Ka-leung, head of the Civics and Social Development Department, even won the Chief Executive’s Excellence in Teaching Award (Personal, Social and Humanities Education). Principal He added: "Community subjects cover different teaching topics such as national education, information literacy, and technological development. We also actively arrange for students to go to the mainland for study tours and exchanges, so that students can better understand Hong Kong, the country, and the world as a whole, and strengthen their knowledge base. At the same time, by strengthening the connection between communism subjects, Chinese history subjects, Chinese subjects, and English subjects, we will promote students' more comprehensive language development and cultivate professional talents for the society."