Irrigating growth with love, enhancing happiness, and promoting students’ continuous learning

Wong Tai Sin Government Primary SchoolFor 65 years, we have implemented the concept of teaching without distinction, focusing on students’ whole-person development and promoting multiple intelligences. The teaching team works hard to discover students' strengths and potential and help them build self-confidence. As a government school, its education policy follows the policies of the Education Bureau, cooperates with the development of national innovation and technology, and cultivates students' interests and stimulates their potential through school-based STEAM education. The school carefully builds a caring culture, takes care of the needs of new students in the transition from kindergarten to primary school, cares about the mental health of different campus stakeholders, instills positive values, and hopes that students will grow up in a caring and encouraging environment. Principal Guan Yufen believes: "Students have self-confidence and have correct values ​​in different aspects, which will benefit them throughout their lives."

Assessment activities replace test papers to lay the foundation step by step

The school attaches great importance to the connection between kindergarten and primary school. In order to help primary school students relieve their learning pressure, the school designed the themed activity "Panda Study Tour" as the first assessment. There is no physical test paper and no scoring. Principal Kwan pointed out that the theme of choosing the panda was, on the one hand, considering that it is a national treasure and its appearance is very popular among students; on the other hand, it can echo the recent hot topics about the birth of a panda baby in Hong Kong and the country’s gift of a pair of giant pandas to Hong Kong. The activities will be based on the learning focus of the main subjects of Chinese, English, Mathematics, and Regular Studies, such as the structure of Chinese science and education fonts, English science and education greetings, etc., and various classroom activities will be carried out with pandas as the theme, and teachers will evaluate students' performance. She said: "The format is close to the theme-based learning in kindergarten, which can help students gradually adapt to the learning model of primary school." She also took the general knowledge activity "I brought a panda to Wong Tai Sin Kwong Primary School" as an example. By assuming the role of guiding the panda, students can learn to abide by the rules, improve their self-care ability, and pay attention to hygiene. At the same time, schools will use assessment booklets to provide feedback to parents, showing students' learning progress and providing QR codes to welcome their comments.

In order to further enable parents to understand their children's learning situation, the school holds parent-teacher meetings for primary schools, which focus on introducing the characteristics of the Chinese and English subject classes, and at the same time allow parents to feel the classroom atmosphere when their children are in class. The school also takes into account the family status of the students and hopes to use visits, study tours, etc. to allow them to get out of the classroom and gain different life experiences and practical opportunities.

In addition to curriculum design, the school's orientation activities started as early as June, allowing prospective primary school students to have early exposure to the main subject courses, increasing their sense of security and transitioning to primary school. In addition, an experience week will be held before the start of school in August. Several main subject classes will be designed and foreign English teachers will be arranged to teach. This will allow the new students to get to know the teachers and become familiar with the school system. At the same time, take them around the campus and introduce the locations and functions of different facilities one by one to prepare them for the start of school.

"Brain science and thinking-based" teaching strategy: more participation, more display, more appreciation

The school has implemented the teaching strategy of "Brain-based Learning" for more than 10 years, aiming to create a safe and comfortable learning environment for students; encourage more participation, more display, and more appreciation. Director Luo Cuiyin emphasized that teachers do not use the "I ask and you answer" format, but all students participate in learning activities at the same time, conduct discussions, reports, etc. Teachers allow students to make trials and errors and give them praise. They also encourage interaction and praise between students, thereby promoting students' self-identity and mutual appreciation, and building learning confidence.

Foreign teachers induce learning motivation and organically combine values ​​education

Foreign English teachers can help enhance students’ interest and confidence in learning English. Director Liu Jinzhu shared that our foreign English teachers have been serving the school for 12 years and are well aware of students’ strengths and weaknesses in learning English. She is very familiar with students' English proficiency and is able to adopt appropriate teaching methods, use activity-based teaching according to the focus of the topic, and add appropriate actions to teach vividly. In addition to teaching students attentively, she also knows how to stimulate students' learning motivation. Therefore, students like her English class very much and can fully devote themselves to every class. She encourages students to appreciate each other. For example, in group competitions, not only will the winning group receive sticker rewards, but other groups will also appreciate and praise each other and give silent applause, which can effectively motivate students to keep up their efforts. On the other hand, this foreign English teacher has fully integrated into the school culture and is able to integrate the school's values ​​education into the classroom and create a positive campus atmosphere.

Give full play to the advantages of government schools and transition to general knowledge subjects

In the next school year, the general knowledge subject will be split into "humanities" and "science", and will be piloted in primary one and primary four, and will be promoted to other levels year by year. Director Zhang Liqiang, who is in charge of STEAM and science subjects, shared that as a government school, with the full support of the Education Bureau, it has been intensively purchasing science subject equipment, planning curriculum, and training teachers. He explained that the science subject attaches great importance to inquiry-based learning, cultivates scientific spirit and literacy, and develops the necessary engineering design and innovative thinking, which means that the entire teaching model has changed. The school also takes advantage of the fact that government schools often communicate with each other and learn from each other to enhance professional energy. Through learning circles among teachers, the school learns from different school conditions, learns from each other's strengths and weaknesses, and designs school-based courses.

STEAM education has matured and the whole school is participating to inspire potential

The school's STEAM education is quite mature, allowing students with different abilities the opportunity to develop their potential and show off their talents. The curriculum is implemented in a three-tier model: the first tier covers all grades, is permeated into existing subject courses, and is promoted step by step. For example, last year, all students in grades four to six participated in the Jockey Club Computational Thinking Education Program, and some of them reached the finals in relevant competitions and performed well. The second level is a STEAM themed fun day, which allows students to master and apply relevant knowledge through hands-on activities, such as building micro:bit or Lego models. The third level is a STEAM top group, which teaches innovative technology, computational thinking, etc. in the form of extracurricular activities every week. In addition to absorbing new knowledge, students also have the opportunity to participate in competitions, such as last year's "General Knowledge - STEAM Exploration in Primary Schools", which is the largest STEAM exploration exhibition in Hong Kong's primary schools. In the process, students can apply what they have learned, broaden their horizons, and improve their self-confidence.

At the same time, the school will also take into account technological development trends when designing courses, such as the introduction of drone courses, open data applications, simulated flight driving equipment, etc., so that students with potential and talent can learn higher-level knowledge. In addition, in order to strengthen STEAM education for junior primary school students, the school will arrange for them to participate in different courses, exhibitions, etc. Director Zhang said that the school understands that parents may be worried about their children frequently using computers or being unfamiliar with programming, etc. Therefore, the school will promote parent education and organize parent-child STEAM workshops for parents and children to learn together.

Create a caring campus culture and promote physical, mental and spiritual development

In addition to the improvement of subject knowledge, Principal Guan hopes that students can learn to care about their families, as well as the people and communities around them, have a grateful heart, and contribute what they have learned to society, the country, and the world. In addition, the school actively creates a caring culture and has won awards in caring campuses for many years. Director Cen Yanshi shared that in order to help students return to campus after the summer vacation, the school has set up a special adaptation week in the first week of school. The whole school only needs to attend for half a day and there are no classes. Class management is used to allow students to establish close contact with their class teachers. Primary 1 students will finish school earlier than other levels this week to gradually adapt to the full-time schedule. Principal Guan added that the school also arranges senior primary school students to accompany new students during their transition, and visit their classrooms during recess to help solve problems and create a campus culture of mutual help.

This year, the school launched two school-based training programs, emphasizing the cultivation of law-abiding awareness and positive thinking. It also set up 8 moral education themes and used the Multiple Intelligences class every Wednesday afternoon to arrange activities, such as holding a birthday party every three months to teach students to be grateful; inviting external theater troupes to perform at the school to help students understand the diversity of learning and learn to be considerate of others through drama; and conducting workshops on making lanterns and rocket launch devices to cultivate national identity.

In addition, the school also participates in the "4Rs Mental Health Charter" to achieve the four goals of promoting rest, interpersonal relationships, relaxation and resilience, covering whole-school activities, such as adding spine-protecting exercises to the physical education department. The school also invites external organizations to plan a year-round mental health plan, including holding teacher lectures; arranging professional social workers to teach students how to face difficulties during the orientation week at the beginning of school; and conducting diverse activities in positive education experience classes to cultivate positive thinking and character. Principal Kwan revealed that the Mental Health Day in January will cultivate students’ positive living habits and attitudes through lectures and booth games. In order to comprehensively care for the needs of different stakeholders, the school also organizes parent-child workshops so that parents can learn ways to relieve their emotions and promote mental health.