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Educational Framework

ACTIVE Education

Introduction

Throughout the years, our school has been adhering to the motto “All are Educable, All can Succeed”. We are committed to provide quality education for all. We establishing a “Holistic Education” framework and provide a wide range of curriculum and extra-curricular activities in order to create an “active” learning environment for students and enrich their learning experience, to enable them to master “active” knowledge.

“All are Educable” is to enable students of different aptitudes and strengths to show their potential talents so as to achieve “All can Succeed”. We should not just “select the best” to teach, but we should strive to “teach everyone to excel”.

“ACTIVE Education” has to be led and implemented by “Authentic Leadership”. “Authentic Leadership” is based on personal deep values and beliefs. Authentic leaders lead with their hearts to gain the team members’ respect and trust, turning teaching to “teaching partners”. They collaborate with their teachers to achieve the vision and mission of the school, and build an “authentic school”, to provide quality education for each student, so as to achieve “All are Educable, All can Succeed”.

The target of school education is “people” and educational duties goals are also practised by “people”. Therefore, the structure of educational institutions must be “people-oriented”; implementing the principles of fairness, justice and openness. The rights and interests of teachers and students and other stakeholders must be respected so as to build a campus of mutual trust and love, eventually leading to a “successful school”.
  • Self-directed Learning
    Teachers abandon the traditional single-way teaching. We emphasize on self-directed learning and promote “flipped classrooms” teaching strategy. Students’ learning is the focus of the teaching process, teachers are mentors and learning partners of the students. Through classroom interaction and sharing, we develop students’ high-order thinking, arouse students’ learning interest and creativity, and nurture them to be “active learners” to build up their knowledge.

  • Boundless Learning
    In addition to classroom learning, we emphasize authentic learning. We encourage students to step outside the classrooms, and even step outside Hong Kong to explore the world. In the six years of school learning, students have the opportunity to visit different places, such as Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, Europe, the United States, New Zealand and Australia for different theme-based exchange experiences. They will transform what they see and hear into their knowledge, attitudes and skills.

  • Experiential Learning
    In addition, authentic learning emphasizes more on the opportunities that the students are connecting and interacting with the society. Through our school-wide social service programs, students will strengthen their understanding and experience of the operation and the needs of the society and build up positive values through engagement, communication and understanding of the community. We are also committed to promote local and international events and competitions such as English Musical, STEM Learning Fair, Flash-Fiction Writing Competition and The Asian Student’s Drama Performance. All these programs and activities help broaden students’ reality experiences in the society and enable them to learn about the latest social development.

  • Inquiry-based Learning
    Teachers arrange students, through data collection and analysis, to conduct theme-based research for recommendations, observations or conclusions on the subject matter. This learning model can nurture students’ ability to collaborate, solve problems, organize and develop high-order thinking, and enhance students’ sense of ownership on their knowledge.

  • Cross-curricular Learning
    Nowadays, the school curriculum is divided into different subjects and different grades, knowledge is then fragmented. Therefore, our school actively promotes interdisciplinary learning to ensure that the students can master the holistic nature of knowledge.

  • Generic Skills
    Generic Skills are crucial in the 21st century. Therefore we bring in drama lessons in the formal curriculum and a variety of school-based as well as joint school extra-curricular activities for our students, such as inter-school debating competition, joint-school overseas exchange tour and joint-school leadership training camp. Together with the aforementioned exploratory and experiential learning, students are able to develop. collaboration, communication, problem solving, creativity, high-order and critical thinking skills. They are able to understand themselves better, so as to develop their full potential.

  • Social and Emotional Intelligence
    Teachers and students in our school come from different sectors of the society and thus construct a micro-society. Through the above-mentioned self-oriented learning, flipped classrooms and diverse activities held both inside and outside school, we have created opportunities for complex interactions between and among teachers, students and the society, so as to foster students’ positive social and emotional intelligence.

    • School Leadership
      School leaders advocate caring culture in school management. The essence of caring culture is the establishment of networked caring structure, covering teaching staff, students, parents and the community stake holders, in order to build a “caring campus”.
    • Teaching and Supporting Staff
      At the teacher level, the school is dedicated to create a caring working environment. Over the years, we have implemented a mentorship program to build a mutual trust relationship between a senior teacher who leads three to four teachers to care for and support their needs at work. Every year, there is a joint-school teacher appreciation program to encourage teachers to appreciate and praise each other. In addition, the school also provides hospitalisation insurance for teachers. We have also recruited a number of administrative and teaching assistants to assist teachers in their non-teaching tasks so as to relieve their workload.
    • Students
      At the student level, the school adheres to an all-round and multi-faceted strategy to care and support students in the domains of emotional and academic development as well as resource needs.
      Over the years, the school has been implementing a “through-train” support program for all students from S1 to S6. Before the start of their first academic semester, the school arranges a three to four-week summer program to help Secondary 1 students adapt to the secondary school life so as to reduce their anxiety about the new learning environment and thus can enjoy learning thoroughly.
      In addition to the school social worker, we have also recruited three mentors and increase the teachers to students ratio so as to strengthen the teachers’ care and concern for every student in our school. The “nursery programme” and the “young arch programme” are implemented through one to one or small group interaction between teachers and students. This will strengthen the teachers’ academic support and care for their students in various domains. In the end, it will help students understand themselves better. Together with the “Life Education” course which has been conducted for years, it helps to nurture students’ spirit of self-care.
      Moreover, the school also provides financial support to our students, including the tuition fee remission scheme, activity allowances, overseas visits and education loans, so that students will not lose their learning opportunities due to financial deficiency.
    • Caring Relationship Between Students
      The school’s caring culture also includes the support, sharing and encouragement among classmates. The caring atmosphere in school has created a harmonious campus culture in which students care for each other. A number of measures have been set in place, such as Secondary One Summer Bridging Program，the Big Brother and Big Sister Program and small group learning so as to nurture students the spirit of caring and respecting each other and at the same time set up a vertical and horizontal support network among their school mates.
    • Parents
      Our school also emphasizes the relationship with parents, extending the caring network to the parents level. We organize regular parent gatherings, parent meetings, sunshine phone calls, Whatsapp group etc., to build a close relationship between school teachers and parents in order to support the school caring culture, so that school teachers and parents would become “pastoral partners”, building an important pillar supporting and nurturing the growth of our students.
    • Community
      The school is a crucial unit in the society and needs to be connected with and integrated into the community. In addition to promoting community service in the school social service program, we work closely with social organizations and individuals to form “community partners” to promote the development of community and social services, turning the school into the “centre of learning community”. Programmes such as the Academy for Parents, the Academy for the Elderly and Talents Across Ages funded by the Community Investment and Inclusion Fund are successful examples of how our school has promoted the culture of caring in the community and endeavours in building a “learning community” We also uphold the concept of an “open school”, we welcome the community to use our library and share our resources. This helps spread our culture of caring from the school level to the community level.
    • STEM
      To meet the needs of the development of science and technology in today’s society, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) is practised on the basis of information technology in our school in order to equip our students to become the 21st century talents. In addition to the integration of Mathematics and Science in the school curriculum, we also practise the concept of “hands-on makers”. We arrange students, starting from Secondary one, to learn through the model of hands-on learning. Students carry out different types of experiments in the innovative Science period after school. They combine their knowledge with daily life needs and create specific products to achieve the ultimate goal of STEM education.
    • High Tech Campus
      In order to support the school-wide information technology learning approach, we must progress with time and create a high-tech campus. The WIFI network has covered the whole school for a number of years. We have a number of advanced interactive technology classrooms, including GEO LAB (Earth Lab), My Dream Studio, ACTIVE Learning Center together with the latest IT equipment such as VR virtual reality, Hologram Viewer, AR sandbox, 3D printing and iPad. Each classroom is installed with Apple TV. Students are exposed to different learning experiences through a boundless learning space and master the world development trends through the latest digital equipment.
    • Holistic Management
      When planning the school management framework, other than having the school management, school development, student development, academic development and IT & innovation development departments to take care of all aspects of the school affairs, we have also set up a Quality Assurance department to monitor the performance of various departments and provide information for reflection. More importantly we want to ensure that the school’s learning and teaching activities are in line with the school’s philosophy. The school also organizes various training for all sectors of administrative staff, so that the management philosophy and practice can be passed on so as to ensure the school’s sustainable development.
    • Innovative Execution Power
      A team of dedicated and innovative executives is required to execute the school’s vision and mission. Apart from selecting talented executives through an open, fair and just selection system, we value the development of innovative management thinking of our administrative staff. We organize a number of joint-school administrative training every year, and we gather senior school administrators every week for a joint-school advisory meeting to discuss institutional and school developments. We have also sent administrators overseas to gather the latest information on education and management, in order to lead the school’s development and to strengthen the innovation and execution of the executive team, so as to plan the appropriate educational experiences for the students’ future.
    • Innovative Teaching
      Our school encourages teachers to practise lifelong learning, to broaden their horizons and to improve the school learning and teaching development with the latest trends and ideas. We have systematically established the teacher’s training structure and objectives at school-based, joint-schools, local and even overseas level. The school establishes various training networks to support teachers’ innovative teaching mindset. Apart from the teacher development days and education value-added series, we also encourage teachers to participate in off-campus training courses. In recent years, we have created more opportunities for teachers to share and exchange with other schools, to meet different teachers from different schools to enhance knowledge exchange. We also arrange overseas exchange programmes for teachers and administrative staff on a regular basis to acquire the latest foreign teaching and learning information, to create a “learning school” atmosphere and promote innovative school learning and teaching. Together with the various caring measures and plans for our school staff, teachers and non-teaching staff are empowered to fully actualize their capabilities, so as to ensure each of our school staff will be “Able to Leave, Happy to Stay”.
    • Innovative Interactive Learning
      Students’ learning process should include interactive, collaborative and innovative elements to cultivate their innovative thinking. The school encourages innovative “self-directed learning” pedagogy and promotes the Flipped Classroom. With the innovative teaching equipment and interactive platform (Power Flip), teachers can create short films on their teaching materials, so that students can preview them before class at home. This helps to enrich the classroom interaction, discussion and reflection, and transform the class learning into student-oriented, thereby enhancing students’ communication, collaboration and critical thinking skills as well as the spirit of self-learning.
    • Innovative Curriculum
      The school is earnest in developing STEM education, to cultivate students’ creative thinking and potential. We will enhance students’ ability to integrate and apply knowledge and skills in different disciplines through different learning strategies, including systematically integrating curricula in Maths, Science, Technology and Mathematics Education Learning areas. We teach students to create Apps, 3D Printing and digital games, and provide them with more than 400 online learning platforms and various school-based digital games as well as other learning resources. We are emphatic that students” learning process should be life-like, socialized and thought provoking. We also encourage students to participate in different types of activities such as the inter-school debate competitions, STEM Fair exhibitions, project-based learning activities and Hong Kong / international competitions. Students will apply their knowledge into practices, and thus train up their high-level thinking, critical thinking and innovative thinking.
    • Innovative Advanced Facilities
      In order to cater different innovative courses, the school must constantly optimize the campus environment and facilities. We actively cooperate with different companies, such as HP, Microsoft, Google, etc., to create the above mentioned multiple science and technology classrooms, so that the creativity of students can be fully developed through the most advanced and comprehensive equipment.
  • Moral Education
    Young people need different nutrients to grow, including “value education”, civic education, sex education, etc., in order to nurture them to be good citizens with upright character and healthy body and mind. We emphasize “people-oriented” education. Apart from infiltrating these nutrients into the daily learning and activities of our students, we also implement the “Holistic Education” course in regular class hours. We spend one afternoon every week carrying out different themes and types of “life education” classes. Students will be able to fully acquire such knowledge and develop positive attitudes towards life through the S1-6 formal and informal curriculum. We have been implementing a school-wide social service program and each student’s social service hours is essential for their promotion and graduation. We hope that through participation in social services, our students will have their horizons broadened and life experiences enriched. This can help nurture them with “individual, social and worldwide” values, and grasp the important values of honesty, justice, compassion and rationality. The caring atmosphere, holistic education, social services all add up to nurturing students’ sentiments of passion towards life., to showcase the kindhearted nature of mankind as well as the innocent heart of a child, leading to the manifestation of one’s bright virtues and ultimately live a meaningful life.

  • Successful School
    Building up students’ self-confidence is the ultimate goal of the school education and the benchmark for a “successful school”. Graduates who are self-confident are able to strive forward and develop a bright future. Even in the face of setbacks and obstacles, they will not give up, but hold firmly onto their “sincere mind” and “positive heart” and move towards their life goals.


  • Self-esteem
    The school adopts a “positive” strategy. On one hand, it develops the students’ moral, intellectual, physical, social and aesthetic aspects through the numerous interactions and active learning experiences taking place inside and outside school. On the other hand, it creates successful experiences for students. Working together with the school-wide reward programs, such as “Reaching for the Stars of Truth, Goodness and Beauty”, “Sun Award Scheme” and Inter-School Competition Award Scheme, students would develop a “sincere mind” , “positive heart” and self-confidence, and the will and behavior to improve and be kind.


Conclusion

ACTIVE Education focuses on student-oriented “humanistic education”, practise the education philosophy of “Education is Life” and “Life is Education” under the motto of “All are Educable, All can Succeed”. It cultivates students to establish a positive, perseverant, and self-confident self-image, learn to be kind to oneself and others, treat others with sincerity and commit to the community. Students also master the generic skills needed in the information technology era enabling them to unleash their respective strengths to overcome the challenges of the future changing world, thus becoming talents in the twenty-first century , emanating positive energy in the society.

The philosophy of “All are Educable, All can Succeed” shall be pursued through developing a “Successful School”, with a “people-oriented” approach to implement “ACTIVE Education”, and using “Holistic Education” as the development framework to provide an “active” learning environment and “active” knowledge so that students with different aptitudes and talents can achieve excellence through appropriate learning and teaching.

“ACTIVE Education” has to be led and implemented by “Authentic Leadership”. “Authentic leadership” refers to the leadership based on personal deep values and beliefs, leading with true heart and develop “teaching partners” with teachers and work together to achieve the vision and mission of the school.

    • A – Through exploring and experiencing self-directed learning and the new learning concept of “Flipped Classroom”, we enable teachers to become students’ “learning partners”, guiding them to be “active learners” through “cross-disciplinary” and “boundless” learning activities, to cultivate their generic skills and positive social and emotional intelligence.
    • C – Our school builds a “network-based” all-round, multi-perspective caring structure, providing students with emotional, academic and resources support, to foster their self-caring spirit. At the same time, we also take care of the needs of different stake holders, building a caring and support network between teachers and students, among students themselves as well as between school and parents. We form “pastoral partners” with parents to support students’ growth. In addition, our school actively promotes and participates in community collaboration and establishes a community partner network, constructing a “caring campus.” In addition, we also endeavor to develop the school as the “centre of the learning community”.
    • T – We construct a high-tech campus to support the school-wide IT learning approach. We promote STEM teaching and learning, and further implement the “Makers” and hands-on learning concept, to integrate technology and daily life.
    • I –Our school adopts an all-round management perspective. The Quality Assurance Department has been set up to enhance peer reflection and ensure that the mission and vision of the school is maintained. At the same time, we are also actively training administrative and teaching staff to enhance the execution and teaching effectiveness.

      Further, our school adopts an innovative, interactive and diverse curriculum and teaching model. We construct a “Learning School”. by way of encouraging teachers’ lifelong learning, professional growth and sharing. Under the atmosphere of a caring school, teachers and non-teaching staff are empowered to fully actualize their capabilities and they will be “Able to Leave, Happy to Stay” in order to ensure the sustainable development of the school.

      With regard to teaching, our teachers emphasize on life-like, socialized and thought-provoking learning experiences, so that students can integrate and master the knowledge, and acquire high-level innovative and critical thinking skills.

    • V – Through school-wide social services and whole person education courses, we administer life education to foster students’ moral and emotional values, and broaden their horizons and life experiences. We nurture students to embrace the important values of honesty, justice, compassion and rationality. Our ultimate goal is cultivate students’ values at all levels, the individual, the community, and the global and eventually achieve the state of “manifesting one’s bright virtues “.and live a meaningful life.
    • E – The ultimate goal of a Successful School is to build students’ self-confidence, and the strategy must be “positive”. In addition to providing students with “active” experiences and fostering students’ all-round development, we must help students to gain successful experiences and build up a positive self-confident life.

      If educators can fully implement the philosophy of “education is life; life is education”, students will have a positive attitude towards self-confidence and have the courage to face social challenges, thereby becoming successful professionals in the 21st society.

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