Forward-looking teaching strategies inspire future elites and enable students to shine

S.K.H. Yautong Kei Hin Primary School is committed to promoting the all-round development of students, by creating a pleasant and inspiring learning environment, nurturing students to grow in a pleasant atmosphere, realize their potential, and pursue their personal dreams. The school implements the educational concept of "GoFun with higher scores". In addition to helping students pursue academic excellence, it also focuses on cultivating their positive attitudes and core values, helping students master common abilities and effective learning methods. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the school. Principal So Wing-si has formulated the learning theme of "Think deeply, seek goodness in all directions, and be proactive in all directions" to encourage students to continue to deepen their learning in the four major areas of "academics", "physical arts", "character" and "living life". By optimizing the school-based curriculum and designing diversified learning activities, combined with the 4A learning method, the school allows students to continuously reflect and grow in practice, actively equip themselves, lay a solid foundation for future development, and move towards their ideal goals.

Implement learning into daily life and lay a solid foundation in English

The school is committed to improving students' language skills. A solid English foundation can enhance competitiveness, expand horizons, and promote communication with the world. The school has introduced the Phonics curriculum and the school-based English reading curriculum (Learn to Read) from the junior primary stage, teaching pinyin skills and Guided Reading in the lower grades. It encourages students to read through a variety of activities, allowing students to master basic reading skills and improve their interest and confidence in learning English. In addition, through interdisciplinary reading texts in senior grades, students' reading strategies are improved, students' higher-order thinking is cultivated, and students become lifelong learners (Read to Learn).

In addition, the English Department implements the school's concept of "learning for life and applying it in life" and collaborates with three foreign teachers to implement diversified all-round English learning activities inside and outside the classroom, allowing students to use English in real contexts, improving their motivation to learn English and their confidence in using English. For example, in the "Appreciation of English Culture Tour", foreign teachers lead students to visit the century-old building - St Andrew's Church, to learn about Gothic Revival architecture and Hong Kong history; the "Legislative Council English Tour Experience" uses English to guide the Legislative Council and simulated legislative debates, allowing students to extend classroom learning and understand the legislative process and identity; "NETSCAFE" and English ambassador activities promote cultures from different English-speaking countries; students are allowed to participate in life-oriented learning activities, making English learning more interesting and meaningful. The school is committed to creating an English atmosphere on campus, laying a language foundation, and opening the door to communication with the world.

"4A Principle" encourages self-study and "Three Highs" classes improve participation

The school uses the "4A Principles" to encourage students to gradually construct knowledge and apply it flexibly during the learning process. Principal Su emphasized: "Our activities are centered on practice, allowing students to first set goals for themselves (Aim), then put them into action (Act), constantly reflect and adjust during the action (Adjust), and finally optimize their works and apply the knowledge they have learned (Apply)." Through this cyclical learning process, students can grow and develop an attitude of pursuing excellence in every link.

In order to integrate the 4A learning method into daily learning, the school implements the "Three Highs" model in regular classrooms - high interaction, high thinking, and high presentation. This classroom model not only encourages students to actively participate and enhance the vitality of the classroom, but also encourages them to apply what they have learned through in-depth thinking and presentation, truly transforming the knowledge they have learned into application abilities, and deepening their understanding and mastery of subject knowledge in practice.

The "STEAM WEEK" held every year by the school is also a key practice platform for the 4A learning method. The school-wide participation model allows students of all grades to carry out innovation and technology activities and experiments to varying degrees. Through hands-on operations and brain thinking, they can constantly adjust and improve their works, construct knowledge from them, and cultivate creativity and self-growth abilities through independent exploration.

In order to further strengthen practical applications, the school's innovation and technology team actively participates in curriculum training and academic competitions, winning numerous awards and being widely reported and recognized by the media. These rich activities not only verify the results of the 4A learning method in cultivating students' practical abilities, but also highlight the school's achievements in STEAM education, allowing students to become true future elites through practice and challenges.

In addition, the school also provides a variety of resources and communication opportunities to expand students' horizons. For example, the school organizes students to visit STEAM laboratories and ecological parks, and takes students to Tokyo to participate in the "Tokyo Maker Faire". At these international innovation and technology events, students not only have the opportunity to showcase their STEAM works, but also closely observe innovative technological achievements from around the world, inspire new creative thinking, and gain new learning experiences.

Character education integrated into daily life, diverse practices inspire care

The school is committed to cultivating students' empathy. Through a series of activities with the themes of "Empathy Forest", "Empathy Deep Sea" and "Empathy Deep Space", they can learn to imagine and empathize with others, establish deep emotional connections, and become caring and responsible people. In addition to designing a variety of group games and personal reflection activities, the school also encourages students to take action, such as leading students to visit animal shelters, allowing them to witness the selfless dedication and caring of volunteers, and discuss issues such as abandonment and animal protection. These experiences help students realize that every life deserves respect and sow the seeds of love and empathy in their hearts. Principal Su said: "After the visit, we used the 'Little Designers' activity to allow students to make small bags and give them to volunteers, expressing their gratitude with practical actions and transforming empathy from cognition to concrete actions. In addition, the school also guided students to observe the needs of others in the school environment. For example, some students noticed the hard work of workers cleaning the playground, so they proposed to design small vehicles to assist in cleaning to reduce the burden on workers and improve cleaning efficiency."

Empathy activities have also been extended to other design creations. For example, at sports meets, students designed sun hats with fans so that teachers can feel cool even in high temperatures; during the epidemic, students also made touch-free alcohol sprayers and incorporated them into artistic beautification designs. In recent years, schools have put more emphasis on teaching information literacy, deliberately adding online situations into activities to remind students to pay attention to their words and deeds in the virtual world and social platforms, and to cultivate their values ​​of thinking about others and serving society. Through a variety of practical activities, the school deeply ingrains empathy in the hearts of students and becomes an important value cornerstone for their growth.

Cultivate and shape leaders with the whole person and strengthen the spirit of self-discipline and service

The school not only attaches great importance to students' academic achievements, but also devotes itself to character building, with particular emphasis on the cultivation of leadership skills, self-discipline and service awareness. The school is determined to cultivate student leaders and has established a leadership training program to cultivate students' leadership and sense of responsibility in stages. Starting from the third grade, the selected trainee leader students learn from the formal leader students under the guidance of the teacher. They are responsible for maintaining order and assisting the teacher in managing class affairs. In the fourth grade, trainee leader students with outstanding performance will be promoted to official leader students, and outstanding students will even be elected as captains, responsible for division of labor, collaboration and job arrangements, and enhancing organizational and management capabilities.

In order to further strengthen the sense of responsibility and leadership of the leading students, the school held a solemn swearing-in ceremony for the new leading students to formally assume responsibility. This is not only a public commitment, but also makes them aware of the importance of observing norms and helping others, thereby mastering basic leadership skills and improving interpersonal communication skills. The school actively uses resources to promote the growth of leadership students. It launches the "Mentors and Friends Program" every December to enhance students' communication skills, self-confidence and leadership abilities through team activities at the trainee leadership training day camp. For students with potential, the school also sets up an elite leadership birthday camp to train them to become team leaders through advanced training and enhance their ability to cope with challenges.

In order to ensure that leading students are comprehensively cultivated in safety awareness and discipline, the school also cooperates with the local police district to regularly organize safety education training for leading students, such as social fraud identification, etc., to help students establish self-discipline, law-abiding and self-protection awareness. Through diversified team training and practical activities, the school allows them to learn and grow in unity and cooperation, and cultivates them to become future talents with leadership qualities, caring for others, and service spirit.

Comprehensive support strategy to meet learning challenges with confidence

When kindergarten moves to primary school, children will inevitably encounter adaptation challenges. In order to help new students quickly integrate into primary school life, the school will hold a "parent-parent meeting for prospective primary schools" in July, inviting children and parents to visit the campus and get a preliminary understanding of the operation of primary school classrooms. Through a series of experiential activities, children can gradually become familiar with the campus environment and be mentally prepared. In August, the school further carried out adaptation courses and once again invited parents to participate to enhance parents' understanding of the school's educational philosophy, curriculum and activity features. Home and school worked together to guide children to confidently cope with learning challenges. Principal Su shared: "We have observed that this year's new students can quickly adapt to the school's schedule and show good self-discipline during lunch. They can open lunch boxes independently, use tableware and develop the habit of washing hands. It can be seen that the joint efforts of parents and schools can speed up the children's adaptation process." The principal emphasized that parents are important partners of the school. The more familiar they are with the school's operations, the more they can understand the school's care for their children, further promoting home-school cooperation.

After the start of the school year, the school uses multiple support measures to create a caring campus atmosphere. The head teacher and deputy head teacher take care of the different learning needs of each student. The school also plays inspirational songs on campus to make children feel the fun of learning. In addition, the school arranges "sunshine brothers and sisters" to accompany the new students during recess and lunch breaks, providing guidance and support to help them build self-confidence. The school has specially arranged a social worker and two full-time counselors to proactively interact with first-grade children and provide psychological support, so that the children can feel all-round care and support as they grow.