Happy learning, inspiring multiple intelligences, enriching experience, and building an English campus

Toi Shan Association Primary SchoolAdhering to the spirit of the school motto of "Diligence, Sincerity, Courage and Perseverance", we cultivate the balanced development of students' five educations, focus on cultivating a healthy body, mind and soul, and promote the development of students' multiple intelligences. Principal Tang Minyi leads the teaching team to create a happy and energetic campus. The school adopts a twin campus design with a vast area and complete equipment. It has a total of 30 classrooms and multiple special rooms. The auditorium, playground, library, visual arts room, and music room are all doubled. In addition, there are STEM rooms, play rooms, etc., giving students greater space for development. The school focuses on students' biliteracy and trilingual abilities, as well as whole-person development. Starting from curriculum planning, activity policies, etc., it pays attention to each student's growth and learning situation, understands their strengths and weaknesses, and provides targeted guidance to learn in a pleasant environment.

Immersive English environment, highly interactive learning model

The school is well aware of the importance of English for children's future development, so it is committed to building an English campus. Three foreign teachers will play games, tell stories and other activities with the students during recess, and through daily interactions, they can enhance the students' English listening and speaking skills. Foreign teachers will also participate in activities and teaching in sports, art, etc. Principal Tang said: "Foreign teachers have rich teaching experience in their professional fields. They not only provide students with professional guidance and training, but also help to establish a broader international perspective and enhance cross-cultural communication skills."

The school also has an English room, where students are led by foreign teachers to engage in activities such as singing, dancing, painting, etc. This can play a leading role in making the English learning atmosphere richer and comprehensively creating an international English context. In addition, the school regularly launches English activity days, such as "Global Appreciation Day", to build an international perspective and understand cultures around the world while learning English; "Odd Sock Day" allows students to wear different styles of socks, learn to accept different people, encourage mutual respect, and achieve campus integration.

In terms of teaching, the school's English courses use book teaching to improve students' expression skills and learn English through STEAM, drama, singing, art and other classes, making English teaching more interesting and preparing students to enter English-speaking middle schools in the future. The school also offers free school-based Cambridge English courses for first-year students to help them consolidate their English vocabulary and make them more comfortable learning deeper English in the future.

Launch the "Star Sparkle Project" to inspire the development of multiple intelligences

Principal Tang said: "Every child is unique. In addition to academics, we also value the diversified development of our students." Therefore, the school launched the "Twinkle Star Project". In terms of time arrangement, the school will use the morning period for core academic courses, and in the afternoon, it will arrange multiple intelligence classes, all-round learning activities, etc. for students to provide a rich learning experience. The Multiple Intelligences course covers the eight major intelligence development needs of students, with diverse and rich content, including fencing, harp, cycling, basketball, volleyball, Mathematical Olympiad, darts, English musicals, etc. The school will also invite experts to take classes to provide students with professional guidance and achieve all-round development.

In addition to multiple intelligence classes, the school also has more than 60 free extracurricular activities for students to choose from, such as Western band, fancy rope skipping, English puppets, theater troupe, etc., allowing every child to explore their interests and develop their personal potential through extracurricular activities. At the end of the semester, the school will organize a "Leap to the Stage Performance" for students, arranging students to display their learning achievements so that parents and teachers can appreciate their progress and talents, gain a sense of success and build self-confidence.

Promote STEAM education and lay a solid foundation for scientific innovation

Innovative technology brings unprecedented convenience to life and development opportunities. The school keeps pace with the times and promotes the development of STEAM education, teaching students through applied learning models such as hands-on experiments and project studies, and cultivating their problem-solving abilities. In terms of curriculum, there are programming classes for grades one to six, which teach relevant programming principles step by step, lay a solid foundation for scientific innovation, and promote the development of logical thinking. For top students with potential in STEAM, the school arranges top-notch courses for them, such as drone courses, 3D printing courses, etc., so that they have greater room for development in science and technology innovation. In terms of teaching hardware, the school’s newly built STEM room has a competition venue, allowing students to practice the knowledge they learned in the STEM room after learning programming in the computer room, such as taking robotics courses and learning to control machines to play football. With its excellent innovation and technology education, the school has also cultivated outstanding alumni such as "Son of the Star" Chen Yixi.

Cultivate correct values and discover students’ character strengths

Values education is an important element of whole-person education. It cultivates students' correct values ​​and attitudes, which will help them face various challenges in future life. The school attaches great importance to service learning and adopts the strategy of one person, one service. In addition to the duties of each class, there are a total of 13 service teams in the school, such as Scouts, Community Care Ambassadors, Environmental Protection Pioneers, etc. Principal Tang hopes that through service, students will develop a sense of responsibility and learn to serve their classmates and the school. In the future, they will know how to serve society and the community, and become a caring and empathetic pillar.

At the beginning of each semester, the school provides students with different adventure activities. Principal Tang said: "In addition to good class management, we also hope to take this opportunity to bring positive cultivation." Through adventure activities, children can develop and explore their character strengths step by step from the primary school stage, and train perseverance, teamwork and problem-solving skills to better equip themselves to meet challenges. In addition, the school will also arrange various exchange groups to Sichuan, Beijing, Chongqing and other places to look at the motherland, understand the local customs and culture, and cultivate cultural connotations. Principal Tang revealed that he plans to take students to Singapore and other places in the future to strengthen their English learning.

Open up learning space and enrich learning experience

Principal Tang believes that learning has no boundaries and that any place can be a place for learning. The school launched the "Children's Journey 3S Course" to cultivate students' abilities in self-care, self-study, and self-reflection. Each grade has a different theme. For example, the first and second grade have the theme of "Children's Walk in the Forest" to let them understand the natural ecology, so that they can appreciate, be grateful and care for nature; the third grade has the theme of "Children's Walk in the Community" and participate in community projects, such as serving the elderly; the fourth grade has the theme of "Children's Walk in Hong Kong" to let students understand the people, things and things in Hong Kong; the fifth and sixth grade have the themes of "Children's Walk in the World" and "Children's Walk in China" respectively. Throughout the course, students start from their surrounding environment and community, then come into contact with society, and then go out of Hong Kong to face the world and understand the broader sky.

Pleasant learning environment to meet learning challenges

Every parent hopes that their children will grow up healthily in body, mind and soul. To this end, the school actively creates a happy campus to ensure that students learn and read happily at school. The school arranges one day every month as "Joyful Day" to hold school-wide activities, such as Chinese Culture Day; and holds birthday parties for students who have birthdays every month. At the same time, the school also has an "energetic lunch break" time, allowing students to participate in different activities on campus after lunch. Earlier, the teaching team specially arranged three physical education classes for the students, hoping to take this opportunity to allow them to exercise more, maintain a healthy physique, and be in the best condition to meet different learning challenges.

Comprehensive bridging measures to care and support primary one freshmen

The school attaches great importance to the transition to primary school and provides sufficient support to primary school freshmen to make them feel cared for. In July and August every year, the school arranges bridging courses to help them adapt to the primary school curriculum. Orientation camps and welcome parties will also be held to give primary school freshmen the opportunity to get to know their teachers and classmates. During the summer vacation, the school also allows prospective primary school students to use school facilities, which means that they can already enjoy school resources, such as borrowing books from the library, before enrolling in school. The school also has a special playroom with wave pools, stuffed animals and other toys. Principal Tang said: "In addition to studying, I hope children will find school fun and happy."

In order to help primary one freshmen adapt to primary school life as soon as possible, the school immediately launched the "Big Hands Holding Little Hands" program after the start of the school year, in which senior students teach primary one freshmen to write handbooks, lead them to understand the campus, and cultivate a sense of belonging to the school. In terms of classroom teaching, there are three class teachers in the first grade, one of which is a foreign teacher, ensuring that students can be taken care of comprehensively and increase their opportunities to communicate in English. There are no exams throughout the first grade. Progressive assessments, growth gifts, and achievement exhibitions allow parents to understand their children's learning progress. In addition, the school will also carry out practical assessment of students. The assessment methods are diversified. For example, packing school bags and reciting poetry are also one of the assessment criteria. It is not limited to academic studies, but also assesses the abilities of primary school freshmen in other aspects such as self-care.

At the same time, the school has the "Hong Kong Taishan Chamber of Commerce Scholarship" to reward students' academic and physical performance, the "Chen Zhongwei Teaching Scholarship" to reward students' physical performance, the "Hong Kong Taishan Chamber of Commerce Nursery Fund" to reward primary school students' achievements and talent performance, and the "Diligence and Thrift Encouragement Scheme" to encourage primary school students to study hard. It is worth mentioning that starting from the 2024/25 school year, each first-grade class will have three head teachers, one of whom is a foreign teacher. The school also provides free homework tutoring classes and after-school care services to fully cater for students’ needs.