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