I. Strengthening values education (including moral and civic education, and Basic Law education)
One of the updated learning goals according to EDB is for every student “to become an informed and responsible citizen with a sense of national and global identity, appreciation of positive values and attitudes as well as Chinese culture, and respect for pluralism in society”. To fully achieve this goal, values education, variously delivered in the form of moral and civic education, Basic Law education, life education, religious education, values across different KLAs/subjects are given utmost prominence at STMC.
Essential learning elements relevant to Basic Law education can be found in different subject curricula at the junior secondary level.
- The PSHE KLA of STMC enables JS students to acquire fundamental knowledge necessary for further study about the Basic Law at the SS level;
- F.1 Life and Society subject enables our students to understand the importance, ideas and concepts of the Basic Law;
- Specifically, positive attitudes, perseverance and gratefulness have been identified as the STMC Annual School Plan priority values and attitudes. These values and attitudes are infused into the learning and teaching of all KLAs as well.
II. Reinforcing the learning of Chinese history and Chinese culture
- STMC offers Chinese History as an independent compulsory subject for students in Junior Forms to gain a systematic understanding of Chinese history and Chinese culture;
- In parallel, the learning elements of Chinese culture are inherent in the Chinese History curriculum on the one hand, and are covered in the Chinese Language Education KLA on the other , Chinese music and arts in the Arts Education KLA.
III. Extending “Reading to Learn” to “Language across the Curriculum”
STMC makes effective use of a variety of texts, including non-fiction texts, on various themes and topics, and engaging students in deep reading to help connect their learning experiences, broaden their knowledge base and enhance their language skills.
- STMC Students of F.1-5 shall read in two morning reading sessions every cycle, leveraging on electronic reading resources with multimodal features to enhance students’ understanding of texts and enjoyment of reading;
- The implementation of Extensive Reading Scheme, Reading Time and Reading Day (whole day activity comprising talks, reading, sharing, book exhibition and Reading Week) at STMC, all fosters reading habit and develops interests on reading among students, as well as broadens the horizons for students;
- From 2015-16 onwards, two selected books of Chinese and English subject are assigned by the Reading Group to each Form (F.1-3) respectively. The duration of the fixed-book reading is at least for one term of the year in the reading periods of Day 4 and Day 6.
The teacher-librarian has devised a holistic plan to enhance collaboration between different stakeholders, including the parents, in promoting reading and allocating time, both within and outside lessons, for cross-curricular reading.
In addition to reading to learn, STMC implements “Language across the Curriculum” (LaC) through English.
- The English subject panel takes the initiative to see the needs and LaC is promoted through enhancing collaboration between different KLAs with English language teachers focusing on the development of language skills essential to different KLAs and non-language teachers providing opportunities for students to apply their language skills in the KLA contexts.
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IV. Promoting STEM education
In STMC, STEM education is promoted through the Science, Technology and Mathematics Education KLAs.
- Teachers of the mentioned KLAs collaborate in planning the whole-school curriculum and organising learning and teaching activities that help promote STEM education. STEM Week is launched in April every year to cultivate students’ interest and curiosity in science and technology.
- The STEM subject is formally introduced in STMC in F.1 and F.2 to strengthen students’ ability to integrate and apply knowledge and skills, and to nurture their creativity, collaboration and problem solving skills, as well as to foster their innovation spirit as required in the 21st century.
- Hands-on and minds-on activities that may be theme-based or problem-based are introduced and recommended for students to solve problems and produce designs through scientific investigation, computer programming (coding), mathematics modelling, design and make, etc. in the formal lessons and extra-curricular clubs and the Robot gifted program;
- STMC students have also participated and won awards in local, national, and/or international competitions related to STEM in recent years to cater for their interests and abilities and to unleash their potential.
V. Information Technology for Interactive Learning: Towards Self-directed Learning & Promoting Information Technology Education
In response to the development of Information Technology in Education (ITE) and the launch of the “Fourth Strategy on Information Technology in Education” (ITE4),
- STMC has started incorporating e-learning into the school curricula, and developing and trying out e-resources such as education apps, online learning and teaching resources as seen in our school development plans;
- Hardware: The Multi-media Learning Centre, the Millennium Multi-media Classroom and the Digital Music and Creative Art Workshop have been set up to facilitate learning and teaching. The school also set up a Campus TV station on production of videos and clips. The Campus TV production center provides each classroom with live broadcast video;
- All classrooms and special rooms in the school are equipped with interactive TVs, projectors, computers with sound systems, visualizers and wireless microphones. All teachers of the school have attained comfortable and competent levels of IT competency required by EMB. All teachers are allocated computers to facilitate teaching.
Computer is used extensively in school administration, such as computerized library and web-based school management system. The External School Review report as early as in 2009, highly praised the school’s IT facilities. This was a show of recognition of the school’s effort in IT construction in the past years.
- From 2019-2020 onwards, F.1 students started to Bring their Own Device (BYOD), i.e. iPad to learn during the lessons. iPads are used as a learning tool to facilitate self-learning, peer learning and quick feedback. In the year 2022-23, all students are entitled to bring their own device to learn at school.
Information Technology in Education
Information technology (IT) is a powerful tool to unleash the learning capability of students. With the advancement of technology and its application through innovative pedagogies in all KLAs, STMC students’ capability in information literacy (IL), self-directed learning and other 21st century skills such as creativity, problem solving skills, collaboration skills and computational thinking skills are enhanced.
Strategies on IT in Education such as formal computer Literacy subject, informal workshops, talks and activities are formulated at various stages to enable our students to learn and excel through realising the potential of IT in enhancing interactive learning and teaching experiences.
VI. Fostering an entrepreneurial spirit
As economic growth is increasingly driven by the ability to create and innovate, fostering an entrepreneurial spirit across our society becomes all the more important for enhancing our global competitiveness. Development of an entrepreneurial spirit is not confined to teaching students to start and run new businesses. It focuses on developing knowledge, generic skills, positive values and attitudes which will benefit students in their personal development, as well as future endeavours as business owners, managers of social enterprises, project team members, employees, freelancers or innovators.
- In STMC JS education, F.2 and F.3 Life & Society subject at STMC provide meaningful contexts for students to acquire foundation knowledge in entrepreneurship.
- Through cross-KLA collaboration, STMC organises life-wide learning activities such as running a ‘Fair Trade’ sales bazaar every year to widen students’ exposure and provide opportunities to apply what they have learnt in authentic contexts with a view to adding value to the community.
- Through case studies or classroom learning activities in the two subjects, namely Economics subject and Business, Accounting & Finances Studies subject, our students have a better understanding of entrepreneurship through the lens of basic economic principles, such as opportunity recognition, types of organisations and growth of firms, market structure, competition and product differentiation.
VII. Project Learning (PL): Towards Integrating and Applying Knowledge and Skills across Disciplines
- Project Learning, which is enquiry in nature, is a powerful learning strategy to promote self-directed, active and self-reflective learning. It can be contextualised within and across KLAs and beyond.
- PL is complementary to the learning and teaching of subject knowledge. It provides alternative learning experiences to engage students in the learning process.
- PL is different from a subject-based curriculum. It is open and always conducted in the context of KLAs, and the stages of development may not follow a fixed sequence.
- PL is a good vehicle for fostering students’ development of all the nine generic skills, i.e. collaboration skills, communication skills, mathematical skills, problem solving skills, self-learning skills and self-management skills.
In STMC, Interdisciplinary Project Learning is promoted in F.1-3. Here are the details:
(a) STMC F.1-3 Project Learning Themes:
F1 Tracing our Roots尋根探源 : The goal is to help students develop a thorough understanding of themselves, their community and their country.
F2 Exploring our World探索世界 : The goal is to help our students develop a multifaceted and comprehensive understanding of our present world.
F3 Transforming our Future改變未來: The goal is to help our students construct, reconstruct and visualize a better self, a better city and a better world based on the prerequisite knowledge.
(b) STMC 2122 Interdisciplinary Projects:
Forms |
Projects across Discipline |
Subject panels |
F1 Tracing our Roots |
STEM Project |
STEM, Computer, Design & Technology subjects |
“We are Global Citizens’ Project” |
All subjects |
F2 Exploring our World |
STEM Project |
IS, STEM, Mathematics subjects |
PSHE Project |
PSHE KLA |
Creative Showcase/Digital Story Project |
ENG, Music, Visual Arts subjects |
F3 Transforming our Future |
Better City: HK Cultural Tourism Project |
Chinese History, History, Computer, Chinese, English subjects |
VIII. Stepping up gifted education
Gifted education (GE) should not be interpreted as educational provision only to serve a small number of highly able students. Rather, it is to serve the needs of all students to fully realise their potential. We believe that every student is a gift from God and our students are all gifted.
According to the concept of giftedness by J. Renzulli, gifted students possess above average intelligence, sense of task commitment, and creativity. To us, all STMC students get such ‘gifted behavior’. Therefore, the school has adopted the Three-Tier Implementation Model of Gifted Education, i.e. three levels of engagement, including school-based whole-class learning (Level 1), supplemented by school-based pull-out enrichment and extension programs (Level 2), and off-site intensive support services (Level 3).
Refer to “Stepping Up Gifted Education”