Tai Po Old Market Public School

We visited Tai Po Old Market Public School on the 21st of May. A primary in the new territories serving a local area. It was a thoroughly enjoyable session, staring off with their orchestra playing for us – they were great – some of them were so young their feet didn’t yet reach the ground from the chairs they were playing flutes etc on.

They have close links with several schools internationally including St George’s in Edinburgh. Their principal said the best way to learn about a school is through the students so after an initial session with the principal and other staff some of the young people showed us round the school in small groups. We watched a video about the school where there was a clear emphasis on the respect and trust they build with students. Their motto is “We are never content with the best we always strive to do better.” They have great links with the community through e.g their “farm” where the elderly are involved with planting etc. They believe each child is distinct and can develop their potential. Some of the things they have developed are making the school very open to the public, work on multiple intelligence and the use of praise. There are a wide variety of extra curricular activities. Over time they have worked closely with Archie McGlynn who was an HMIe looking at areas such as co-operative learning, problem solving etc. The school is very well resourced and has recently had a swimming pool built.

The school was established in 1964, starting as a small village school, they moved to the current new build 7 storey building in 1986 when the current principal was appointed. In 2002 the afternoon section moved to the present campus to become a whole school. They emphasise all round education, striving to provide each and every student with the most ideal environment to nurture the students’ moral, intellectual, physical, social, aesthetic, effective, spiritual growth.

The school is a neighbourhood school and recieves many applications for places but the system is that the ed bureau oversees the placements holding ballots etc. There is a wide range of student ability.

They often video conference with other countries. This year visitors from 6 countries have come to the school. In June a group of students from Ohio will be visiting the school.

The school emphasises two dimensions – the students learning and teachers professional development. There is an emphasis on improving learning, staff moving to facilitators to motivate pupils inside and outside the classroom with lots of self learning. They want to involve everyone in the school community to learn and share with each other.

Why the teacher professional development?

1. For school development

2. Enhance professionalism

3. Familiarise selves with the latest  teaching development

4. Broaden teachers horizons

5. Be the students role models

In terms of attainment the students do well but they feel they can never be complacent.

Annually teachers go oversees for professional development opportunities eg to Taiwan and Singapore.

They mentioned a Chinese saying they like

“Education is to be a role model and love”

The following are foci for teacher development work

• Consider the schools areas of concern
• Aim at improving learning and teaching
• Aim at developing a learning culture
• Arrange school visits and invite guest speakers
• Consider the budget

This year they had done a lot of work on brain based programmes with an expert giving input to staff.

Staff do proffessional development for 2 or 3 days each Summer holiday, on Friday afternoons and during school development days during school session.

200-300 students from the school stay behind for the extra curricular lessons provided.

New teachers have mentors in the school who observe lessons, and give feedback etc

Some have been involved in lesson studies (based on variation theory) see a previous post. They felt this was a lengthy process but very beneficial and that the proffessional support provided by the Education Insititute during lesson studies helped co-operative planning. When doing this staff will discuss areas which are difficult to teach and through the process look in depth at how students learn.

During the session some teachers will help peers by giving demo lessons eg on questioning skills. At times they will invite in experts to evaluate the lessons going on in the school and they also invite parents in to observe lessons.

The Education Bureau asked them to become a profession development school in 2004 as a pilot. There are now around 7 or 8 of these schools in Hong Kong. A supply teacher is porvided to the school and one of the school’s staff goes out to 3 nearby schools and helps with their curriculum development work.

The school is a theme based sharing school and teachers from other schools visit weekly to share with the teachers in this school. Last session the foucs was on meeting individual pupil needs.

The visitors to the school last year in terms of numbers were huge 80-90 oversees visitors last year alone.

The principal felt the impact of staff development has been:

• Teachers have the same focus/goal, common targets and direction
• The school culture minimizes differences of teachers
• Professional growth
• Construct a professional learning culture
• Strengthen the development of a learing community

The staff and principal worked long hours – the principal worked from 7.45 to 10/11pm daily. Most teachers working till around 8pm daily.

Exams are very important to the primary and teachers often worry that students won’t get into a good secondary and this means they may have poor life chances

Currently they have a fund for staff development which they fundraise for and have sponsors, last session this was around £80000

She felt that developing a learning school has no end point it is

always developing and quoted Elmore

“Improvement is a function of learning to do the right thing in the setting where you work

Back home

So we returned about 7.30 am Saturday morning, all exhausted, swollen feet and a bit bloated from all the indulgence in Chinese food! However back to normal after a good sleep and some fruit and veg… Johnny in the Chinese restaurant next to my flat asked me if I thought the food in Hong Kong or his was better when he spied me in the street, I avoided that question! So over the next few days write ups/notes/photos of the various visits we made will appear here and then hopefully our reports over the next few weeks. Lots to tell. Its been a fantastic opportunity for reflection over the past week and in many ways also a reaffirming experience for our values and beliefs that we show in our daily work here at home. We’ve learned a lot about ourselves, Hong Kong and how things are done there, reflected on how we go about things in Scotland and its been one of those life changing experiences which will start to impact on us as we think and reflect over the next few weeks. We also learned how well students learn English in Hong Kong. On the last day I was talking to one if the hotel porters who said his English needed work. It seemed pretty good to me, so asking what the problem was he said “I need to work on my joining words and prepositions.” Prepositions? I speak English all the time and I’m less articulate then he was in my native tongue…
Nice link here to TCPD. Thanks for that Con

Thursday

Another really interesting day. Visited a primary in new territories. A school which serves the neighbourhood with a mixed catchment which has high attainment. The school is embracing new teaching methods and is vibrant, bright and a joy to visit. We started there listening to the huge school orchestra (some of the members wee feet didn’t reach the ground when in their seats) and it was just magical. In the afternoon we meet with some reps from a University talking about teacher education and how they are working alongside establishments to challenge and support them. And as we’ve found all week – we talk the same educational language – active learning, collaborative working, distributed leadership – we could go on. In the evening another quick turn around and despite averaging about 4 hours sleep a night here we set off to jump on a ferry and watch the evening light show on the ferry.
Off now to the education bureau present some of the good practice we idientified from our own authorities back home and then for a sharing/question/answer session.

More on Wednesday…

An inspirational visit to a Band 3 secondary today, where inspirational work was being undertaken by staff to meet the needs of pupils with additional support needs. Tears were shed when on arrival we were handed a booklet of pupil art work.. Hard to explain how touching this was. The devolved leadership in action was a credit to the principal, as ever we’ll write more once we’ve time to catch our breath in the UK!
Nick Morgan is worried about excess baggage on our return journey, by that we think he means excess body weight due to the eating, and he may be right!
This evening its 11.30 and we’ve just finished preparing the presentation we will be giving at the Education Bureau on Friday which will be followed by a sharing practice dialogue session. We did manage to squeeze in a visit to the Peak after returning from our visit and doing our presentation work. What a view, the kind of thing which made us all stop breathing for a few seconds. As we watched clouds rolled in over the water at high speed, something pretty special to watch. The tram ride back down was breathtaking – the whole world was a different angles from the tram, needless to say the queasy count was high when we got out.

Wednesday

Lots to add here when we get home and have time to write up what we are seeing. Yesterday was fascinating – early years, primary and then time with a professor who works with student teachers. Today we go to a neighbourhood secondary which our hosts tell us will be a completely different experience. Yesterday we were seeing innovative/cutting edge schools within the Hong Kong system which were relatively newly opened – about 7 years. They were based in the new territories. There are various questions we are starting to get from comments etc here, which we’ll answer on return when we’ve had time to reflect and digest. we’re just at the moment trying to understand/make sense of what we are seeing. Yesterday we had a really interesting talk about variation from the lecturer at the college – again there wa a huge amount of information which it will take us some time to digest.
Speaking of digestion – another wonderful meal last night – we hosted a small dinner for those we are working with and it was great getting the time to sit and talk in depth about life here. Anyway the bus is waiting for me – we’d write more but the computer here in hotel is available during working hours so we can only really update this before we nip off at 8.30am and then by evening its closed.

Monday

What a great day! We were warmly welcomed by Ruth Gee, Director of the British Council Hong Kong and heard about the history of the transition between colonialism and Chinese rule -a 50 year transition period which has already seen many changes and parallel ecconomic, legal, governmental and other processes which run simultaneously in this period. It was interesting to hear about some of the work the British Council supports and facilitates. Their offices next to the British Consulate are not dissimilar to LT Scotland Optima Building -very high tech, bright and welcoming. Katherine Forrestier, Director of Education , Science and Society had given us a most comprehensive written briefing about education reform in Honk Kong prior to our arrival and talking to Katherine in person presented a great opportunity for us to as inumerable questions which her brief had raised for us. We felt very well prepared to meet our senior colleagues at the Education Bureau after mouth watering Dim Sum lunch at a nearby restaurant (I hope the photographs upload properly……..do check out the vast selection of culinary specialities our Hong Kong colleague, Terry Chau selected for us……..mouthwatering!).
Mr Tam, Principal Education Officer and his colleagues were so very welcoming -they told us about Early Years, Primary, Secondary and Tertiary education in Hong Kong and we were struck by the similarities in our curriculum reform aspirations and were keen to explore more where we found our approaches differed. Mr Tam and his colleagues felt as we did , that the exchange had very much been a two way process and we each had learned a great deal from the other. We gifted Mr Tam with a 3.5 kg printed version of CfE (we know that because that’s how much luggage allowance it took to bring it over!). Later learning about Teacher Education and in particular ‘probationary’ support was fascinating. Similar to our own approach but with less actual teaching hours in the year however, a very reflective, mentored approach to support which is looked upon as a CPD opportunity for both mentoree and mentor mirrored our own process. Continued teacher development is very much at the discretion of Hong Kong teachers (a number of whom have had no teacher training before taking up post). If a teacher has not undergone training by the end of 5 years teaching their salary is capped.
After our afternoon at the Education Bureau we went immediately back to the British Council as we had been invited to a reception for British Scholoarship students where we met many confident, successful and effective young people together with key colleagues from the host universities…….Joanne’s daughter may now have inadvertently secured a fashion design and international business placement for her third year at University. Now there’s a great by product of our visit! By this time we were close to passing out with tiredness from our long journey the previous day and the pain of sore hot feet combined with strappy sandals -not a good combination for this heat. However, fear not, after happy hour back at the hotel some of us had a second wind and hit the nearby shops for a few hours………we’ll compare notes on the booty bought in the morning when we meet at 8.30 to begin our second day of visits. Some folks, the early risers among us are either going for a swim in the rooftop pool or heading to Victoria Park across the road to participate in Tai Chi……..we hope the locals don’t mind if we join in!
Joanne
Update – 7.00 am Tai Chi watching in park… Jet Lag is a marvellous thing as sleep deprivation lets you see more in the morning than usual! There’s a park just minutes from the hotel and in the morning its packed – people playing basketball, lifting weights, jogging and doing Tai Chi. However the other thing to see at this time is all the young people on their way to school – they start early in the day here… There’s a senior school across the road from the hotel and there are children out and about there, taking part in PE from 7.00am onwards. Late nights too, they take part on a lots of after school study work and the lights were still on until lat in the evening.
Now today we’re also on the look out for “superstar” teacher names on the back of buses where we were told teachers are mentioned – after school study is an improtant part of education and adverts for teachers who assist in producing great results can be seen!
The city is full of many contrasts – 70% of Hong Kong is open space with 40% of that national parks. We are in Hong Kong Island and hope to visit Kowloon and the new territories at some point too. The Hong Kong environment has a very particular culture which can be felt everywhere. It’s an exciting and vibrant place to be.
Andrea
We’re off to see schools today and after yesterday’s briefings are looking forward to this.

Arrived

So after a long flight we arrived yesterday. We arrived about four in the afternoon Hong Kong time. A little sleepy and worse for the wear but here nonetheless! Yesterday evening time for a bite to eat and now better rested we have a busy day ahead. We will be met this morning by Terry Chau from the British Council and will meet Ruth Gee the Director of the British Council Hong Kong for orientation and greeting. In the afternoon we will be going to the Education Bureau to be briefed on the Hong Kong education system and curriculum development. As in Scotland Hong Kong is at the moment in the midst of major educational reform. Interestingly one of my favourite writers Michael Fullan is seen here also as a leader in thinking and assistance in leading change within education.
We will be meeting with Mr K C Tam the principal education officer and other attendees include MrS Chan Siu Suk-Fan the external liason senior education officer and Ms Sarah Ngai K C chief curriculum development officer for Kindergarten and Primary. We will later have a briefing in teacher development by Ms Y S Chan chief professional development officer and will meet with Mr Cheung Pak Hong chairman of ACTEQ and Principal of Munsang College. After that we will be attending an evening event at the British Council with a reception by Scholarship for Excellence.
During our meal yesterday we met a lovely family who were celebrating an eighteenth birthday. What a small world…. the lady had previously worked with some of those we are meeting with today. What struck us all was how engaging and keen to speak with us the young man was. CfE principles in action!
During our meal we seemed to be there for some time, nearing the end of the marathon we thought after about 15 courses it was finished and asked for the bill – only to discover there four more “small” courses to go – noodles, crispy duck, buns, cake and finally a whole water melon each – luckily that was a slight misinterpretation – a whole slice just….Some of us walked back to walk off the meal, others on their last legs from flight opted for the taxi option. After a good night’s sleep , bright eyed and bushy tailed for today!

Hong Kong Education reforms

Briefing on HK education and reform[1]
The link above contains a briefing on current Hong Kong Education reforms and systems

Programme

So we’re all busy packing and preparing for our trip to Hong Kong on Saturday 16th May. Our programme includes the following:
Mon – briefing by British Council and visit EDB
Tue – visit kindergarten school and HK Institute of Education
Wed – visit Secondary School (in Tai Po, New Territories)
Thu – visit primary school and Chinese University of Hong Kong
Fri – briefing and round table meeting with EDB
Sounds like a busy week, which will be very informative. We’ll meet each evening to debrief and update this blog.

Hong Kong Education System

The Education Bureau website contains a very helpful overview of the Hong Kong Education system. For further information on the OECD programme for international student assessment visit their site which details the most recent reports on  all participating countries. Those of us going next week are spending some time briefing ourselves on relevant information on the education system. Information on the weather is here on the Hong Kong Observatory site. Lot of interesting information there too – with increasing numbers of schools joining the site and fascinating real time photos. We’ve been gathering some small mindings to take with us, and its always great to see what others help you with and provide from postcards, pens, keyrings etc to a beautiful quaich bowl which New Lanarkshire Limited provided, celebrating the Internation Children’s games to be held in Lanarkshire in 2011. The tunnocks tea cakes and chocolate logs may become a bit squished on the way,but no-one from Lanarkshire can visit abroad without paying a nod to Bothwell’s finest!