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Hong Kong Budding Poets (English) Award - a Ying Wa Triumph!!!

5/28/2018

Yiding Song (2nd from the right) received his trophy from Ms Emily Lau Wai-hing, JP, along with his fellow GOLD Award winners.

Happy news from the 2017/18 Hong Kong Budding Poets (English) Award - our poetic boy Yiding Song 6C was awarded a GOLD Award for his poem "Curse of Existence", under his chosen theme "Me, the Earth, the Universe", at the Hang Seng Management College this afternoon.

Yiding was among the four prestigious GOLD Awardees, followed by 4 SILVER, 4 BRONZE and 8 Honourable Mention awards in the primary school category.

This competition is co-organised by EDB and Hong Kong Academy for Gifted Education. We regard it as one of the top poetry contests in Hong Kong for children as they attract esteemed schools to take part every year, producing excellent poems. We are very proud that we have been having an awardee for a few years in a row and this time, Yiding even earned the top prize! Congratulations! See his live performance of his poem below:

Yiding's poem on display

From left: Dr Lee, Yiding Song, Vincent Cheng, Matt Leung, Principal Cheng

To double the happiness, students from YWC, Vincent Cheng (S.3) and Matt Leung (S.2) received their GOLD and SILVER Awards respectively in the ceremony. Both of them graduated from YWPS and Matt, like Yiding, was in the P.6 enhancement class before he graduated!

Principal Cheng of YWC also attended the ceremony and was kind enough to ask for a happy selfie!

All the awarded pieces will be anthologized in the association's publication soon. Visit here to see our past and current awardees and their awarded poems, including Yiding's winning piece.

Congratulations to all again and let's keep our poetry achievements as a tradition!

Dr H C Lee

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Ying Wa Explorers Series: Dr Lee's Exploration 2 (Scotland Trip Sum-up)

5/14/2018

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For those of you who haven't explored all my previous posts for our Scotland Educational Trip (28 Apr - 5 May), here are the individual links (Click them!):

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, and Day 7

And for those of you interested in the ANSWERS to the QUESTIONS posted in each entry. Here you go:

Day 1:

Q1 - How do you make sense of this idiom "You may go further and do a lot worse"?

According to a staff member I talked to, the idiom is showing a sort of national identity. It asks the Scottish people NOT to go south for England as it will only do bring them bad fortune.

Q2 - I found these weird items for sale at a hidden corner at the Edinburgh airport. What are these?

They are a kind of mini toothbrush for chewing. One pound each, available in the lavatory.

Day 2:

Q1 - The tour guide said it was a good thing to see these fungi, can you guess why?

Fungi only survive in clean air. Having fungi growing all over the trees implies that the air in the location is very clean.

Q2 - whose room was it? And why do you think so?

It was Mrs Lam's room. I have no idea how you could guess it right but some of you did guess it right with very good reasoning!

Day 3:

Q1 - As far as you can see from this short clip, how does their maths lesson differ from yours at school?

In fact, all of your answers are sensible. I notice mainly the grouping and the use of the small board for each student. But you know your maths lessons better than I do.

Q2 - Are you always ready and comfortable to share with a visitor what you are good at?

This is a self-reflective question which can only be answered by yourselves. But I'm glad to see quite a few of you answering "yes"!

Day 4:

Q1 - Can you tell what was so special about this poster?

This one is super hard...The speech bubbles on the poster were actually sound devices. I pressed on it and it played a sentence which was prerecorded by a student. Those sentences were statements on children's rights.

Q2 - why did I go to Stirling today?

It was because I wanted to visit my old school - The University of Stirling.

Q3 - By the look of them, could you guess what they are?

Those are study pods for small group gathering for discussion and homework.

Day 5:

I didn't give any question this day. But I'm glad to answer yours.

Day 6:

Q1 - In the Chinese Booth of the fair, could you tell/guess which two activities were offered?

Surprisingly, some of you did give me the right answers...The two games were chopstick skills and Chinese calligraphy.

Q2 - Do you understand what sort of difficulties Keren needs to get through and what achievement she had got?

I appreciate those who attempted to respond to this as the audio in the clip might be too hard for some of you. Keren struggled with her deafness and that she had no language when she first moved to Scotland. Adjusting her life with hearing students in school was also a challenge. But Keren still managed to win a poetry award!

Day 7:

Q1 - Try to listen to him (Prof Mattieson) carefully (maybe several times) and see if you could understand what he said here! Try to sum it up!

Another good challenge here. Prof Mattieson summed up the relationship between the Scottish and London Government and said that the former could run their own education policies.

Q2 - Among the many moments I recorded in these travelogue articles for Scotland, which one do you think is my favourite and why?

There are in fact too many memorable moments that could be my favourite. If I must choose, my meeting with Prof Mattieson, interaction with some individual Scottish students, and tour in Stirling were among my top favourite parts of this tour.

* * *

To conclude, as I have shared with my students in the morning assembly, be a world explorer and bring back your learning to share with others in Hong Kong. The world is a huge classroom and everyone can be your teacher. As for our P.6 boys, another tour is upcoming, be prepared to dig deep!

Dr H C Lee

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YWPS Debate Team comes SECOND at the 5th Primary Schools Debating Tournament 2018

5/13/2018

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Award ceremony

Vincent won the "Most favourite Debater Award".

Congratulations to our English Debating Team for snatching the second place at the 5th Primary Schools Debating Tournament 2018, which was organized at St Joseph’s Primary School on 12 May (Sat). This time, our team sent out three members who are Luke Cheung (6B), Cayden Wong (6C) and Vincent Song (6C) to take part in this highly competitive tournament. They defeated two schools in a row and entered the final round against Marymount Primary School. Ying Wa has become the first school which can enter the final round twice in three years and that is an impressive record. In the end it was a very close match and our team was awarded the second place.

This year, 12 elite schools enrolled in this competition including Diocesan Boys’, Diocesan Girls’, Heep Yunn, Marymount, St. Joseph’s, St. Stephen’s, Canadian International, Choi Kai Yau Primary School and others. We competed against the Raimondi Primary School in the first round and the motion was “Competition is not necessary in the learning process.” We were on the negative side and our team won with 228 - 237. The adjudicator was impressed with our solid team line and powerful rebuttal.

We were against Diocesan Boys’ at the second round and the competition was fierce. The motion was “Homework should be prohibited during school holidays” and we were on the affirmative side. Both teams were strong in their argument and demonstrated excellent speaking skills. In the end, the match was a really close-call but our team managed to secure another win with only a one-mark difference, i.e., 229 – 228.

The whole team was thrilled when they found out that they had made it to the final match. Ying Wa faced Marymount Primary School and we were debating for the negative side of the motion “Competition is not necessary in the learning process.” Beyond any doubt, both teams performed their best and all three adjudicators were pleasantly surprised with the high quality of the match and said that the performance was of professional level. After a long deliberation, the judges gave the crown to Marymount but Vincent Song (6C) was voted to be the “Most Favourite Debater” in the competition. Ying Wa took home the second place and all team members were happy with the results and agreed that it was a wonderful experience.

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all the team members who have contributed to the preparation of the match. I hope that all of you have benefitted from our daily practice and mock debates. I would also like to thank all the parents who came to support the boys and help with the logistics. I hope all of you have enjoyed the competitions. Good luck to all the team members this year and I wish you can keep up the passion and pursue in debating!

Mr. Dennis Tam
Debate team coach

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Results of the P.6 One-min Show-and-tell Video Challenge (Part II) Poll

5/9/2018

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Thanks to our 414 voters and all our P.6 video-makers! Congratulations to Lin Chin Wing 6A, Joshua Ng 6C, Ian Wan 6D, Thomas Kwan 6D and Humphrey Yip 6E!!! Their videos are voted to be the top 5 favourite videos of this round of the challenge ^o^

Please find below the final poll results:

Again, we'll give subtitles to these five videos and store them in our video section as well as broadcasting them on this site and WA Square as the top 5 favourite clips chosen by you, boys, parents and teachers.

Thank you for your participation. It's so fun watching all of the boys' videos and seeing their creativity in English!

See you next time!

P.S. You may visit all the shortlisted videos here.

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Scotland Educational Trip 2018 - Day 7 (Closure)

5/4/2018

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Principal of Edinburgh U spoke to us.

Although in itinerary we do have a Day 8 when we will visit a garden, Day 7 is the closure of our official duties as a professional trip participants and therefore I think it serves as a proper end.

2014 at HKU

2018 at U of Edinburgh

To start with...who is this man next to me? Well, it's not really a question I'm asking you...I'm sure you can easily tell that he was the Principal of The University of Hong Kong, Prof Peter Mattieson. He left the university and became the Principal of The University of Edinburgh this year. We were thrilled to meet him and have the chance to speak to him this morning. Prof Mattieson was the one who conferred my doctoral degree to me in 2014. I am very glad to be able to thank him in person today!

Q1: Prof Mattieson spoke to us on different topics during the meeting. Try to listen to him carefully (maybe several times) and see if you could understand what he said here! Try to sum it up!

Final meeting

To end our professional trip, we had a discussion at a room at The University of Edinburgh to consolidate what we had learnt over the past week. We were asked 3 questions. And I'd like to briefly share with you my responses here:

1. What are the 3 things I have learnt in this trip?

Firstly, I learnt that we (teachers & students) should grab the chance to study overseas when the chance comes. It is true to a large degree the learning environment we admire here can only exist here. So, one must come to learn. Secondly, "excellence" may NOT be a necessity in school. For instance, some schools post students' work on the board regardless of their quality. Thirdly, somehow, we all learn a lot more from our fellow trip participants than from the Scottish schools because we are the frontline educators in Hong Kong and our sharing based on our own examples often stimulates our peers more directly. We take the Scottish examples as reference but seriously learn from our travel partners,

2. What are the 2 things I will bring back to school?

Present and souvenir. Just kidding...who cares about souvenirs? I'd like to bring the "entire" journey back to Hong Kong, at least in written form, and that is what you have been reading from this travelogue! The other thing I'd like to bring back (but I'm not sure if I can implement it well) is the spirit to help those who need a bit more time to catch up. Meeting students who might need more help in these visits reminds me strongly that there are different kinds of pupils we need to take good care of. After all, I wasn't a smart student myself when I was small.

3. What would I have done differently?

We didn't have time to reach this point during our formal trip-end meeting - to tell you what I think here, I feel that some schools lacked the sense of hospitality. Even Prof Mattieson hosted us himself - I wonder why there could be any school which didn't even host us with a deputy head. If I had the power to arrange reception for school heads coming to my school, I would not allow our visitors to feel that we look down to them. And that is why our school has been working so hard and professionally on our ambassador programme and Headmistress herself always takes care of our visitors personally. The school's attitude towards guests reflects a lot about what sort of value education they give to their students.

Q2: Among the many moments I recorded in these travelogue articles for Scotland, which one do you think is my favourite and why? (Tip: definitely NOT this Scottish dance!)

For those of you who haven't read my previous entries, I hope you will find time to go through them. I love reading all your responses and hope that more will come with creativity and intelligence. I will certainly give you the answers of all the questions I asked very soon. I will come back to Hong Kong on Sunday (6 May) and attend the concert on Monday! If you won't be there, I will see you when school resumes!

Last but not least, thanks to YWPS and Hong Kong Direct Subsidy Scheme Schools Council for this very prestigious learning opportunity; and thanks to you for reading and writing! You make this journey all the more meaningful.

Dr H C Lee

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Scotland Educational Trip - Day 6

5/3/2018

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At Glasgow Academy

Do we only teach for excellence? How would the curriculum be shaped like if it wasn't the case?

Today we were fortunate enough to have visited two brilliant schools in Glasgow which might not be the so-called traditionally elite schools.

Glasgow Academy impressed us with a campus filled with "human touch". The politeness of students, words of praise posted on boards, posters hand-drawn by students, or even the funny Christmas video the Headteacher showed us featuring a story written by their students and played by both staff and students...all these are examples of this school's supportive and friendly environment, which is a very happy feature of the school.

The ambassadors were very helpful and cheerful. But beside them, I grabbed the opportunity chatting with those having lessons as well. This boy on the left picture, Oliver, was happy with his "stylish" bottle painted by his sister. I wondered what bad thing he did to her to make her stain his bottle with such "toxic" ink! But Oliver didn't seem to mind at all!

Q1: We happened to witness the Glasgow Academy's International Week. In the Chinese Booth of the fair, could you tell/guess which two activities were offered?

The next school we visited was St. Roch's Secondary School, which is the only state (government) school that hosts us in this trip.

While the school might not be the wealthiest, their inclusive education policy touched us a lot. Especially, their "Deaf Education" is exemplary. The school takes in all students with sign language needs from Glasgow and as a result they have 30+ students with this need. It offers great challenge to the staff and many of them needed to learn the sign language so as to support these children.

Keren Mingole is one of the deaf children studying in St. Roch's. She was invited to share with us her learning experience in this school and how she fought her way to doing well in school. Watch the video to understand her background and her achievement.

Q2: The interpreter spoke with a Scottish accent which may be a bit tricky for Hong Kong students. Try to listen to him several times to get the idea. Do you understand what sort of difficulties Keren needs to get through and what achievement she had got?

I had a happy chat with Mr Donnelly, one of the deaf education teachers who helped Keren, and gave him a copy of my literary journal so that he could pass it to Keren. I'm glad I found two poetry lovers in two days!

In the end of the school visit, Mrs Lam gave each of those student ambassadors a "Snoopy" file for serving her well. All were happy in the end.

Getting back to the first question: Do we only teach for excellence? Well, the "love" I could sense in these two schools was already the "excellence" which every school should be working for.

Day 7 has something great to happen. Stay tuned.

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Scotland Educational Trip - Day 5

5/2/2018

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A quotation found at the Scottish Storytelling Centre

"Stories are told 'eye to eye, mind to mind, and heart to heart'". This is too well said. This evening, we left the Scottish Storytelling Centre feeling lost, perplexed, overwhelmed, tangled, and refreshed. These colours were nothing unlike the weather we had today.

The innovative music still lingers as I write this and somehow it wants to speak through the impromptu narration. I don't want to argue. I let it in...

The stage starts empty - not exactly - there is a drum set, an electronic piano, and a harp, each behind a square painting of some symbolic value - a woman trying to ignite a fire; an unlit fire; someone carries the moon (I am purely trying to name these paintings in my own imagination).

This echoes well with the artwork greeting us at the reception room of Glenalmond College we visited in the morning.

Angus Cheng stole the show by appearing out of nowhere. This YWPS graduate has grown taller and more mature yet keeping his humbleness. In his senior form he chose his own jacket as uniform - his outfit gave him a professional look, be it a business man, an educator, a manager, or an architect, I sense a lot of pride in the way he led us around the gigantic campus. He didn't recall hugely about YWPS, just that he played the violin, and he sang.

The harper starts. She sings a traditional Scottish lullaby about a mother looking for her lost baby in the dark woods, followed by a few more pieces telling stories of relationships. Mind to mind, heart to heart. The harp and her voice speak a universal language.

Woody Law (2nd from right) and his brother met Mrs Lam and Mrs Ho.

The world is in fact designed to be universal. Seeing Woody Law (graduate of YWPS) wearing a kilt as a student of Strathallan School gave us all a pleasant surprise.

Mrs Lam and Mrs Ho skipped part of the planned tour this afternoon to be involved in a more adventurous narrative as they hired a cab from Glenalmond College to ironically their competing school to meet Woody and his brother. To our Headmistress, this visit was the best so far. Stories should always have a surprise element, and she got hers.

The lead singer in red takes the floor and interacts with the drummer and the harper. The group incorporates poetry into painting, songs, music and videos. They call it "an audiovisual exploration of the 'inner child' concept through folklore song and film"; I see it as a daring journey in a dark forest, taming nocturnal creatures with equally mystifying and addictive voices. She is approaching the den where the baby is kept. She is drawing all the creatures nearer at the same time. There, she listens to the distinctive breaths from the occupied den. There, she hums a tune so low and echoing to build a unique connection.

She brings us vision and circumstances, characters and twists. I see life from the fusion of the music she creates, eye to eye.

After the show: Gift presentation and purchased!

I had been bringing a copy of my literary project in my backpack in case someone poetic would pop out during our visit - yet I hadn't met anyone of that kind. Tonight, I found this lady in red.

I thanked her for the stories she gave me through her creative performance. We do need more artists like her to keep arts alive and young. The show might not have had a lot of people in the audience, but each one of us was inspired as if we had read a book of musical poetry, listened to songs of innovative literature, danced a new dance in mid-air, with a glass of fine Scottish Whisky.

Mrs Lam discovered a story at the Scottish Storytelling Centre.

This was what she saw inside.

A journey becomes memorable when it is discovered and unfolded through improvisation and experimentation. I found a good story today.

Dr H C Lee

P.S. I don't have questions to ask today. Perhaps you should be the one asking...be inquisitive and explorative!

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Scotland Educational Trip - Day 4

5/1/2018

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Senior students of George Watson's College

Recess time! Seagulls waiting for the food crumbs!

Gorgeous weather kept following us on Day 4 of our Scotland exploration journey. This made the green greener, the red redder. George Watson's College gave us yet another great impression as a very fine school for those admitted to it and the teaching staff.

There are several things that stood out during the visit:

1. George Watson's College puts a lot of effort into teaching students "The Charter of the UNCRC" which states the rights for children. This forms part of the school's wellbeing education, which is a big teaching and learning element in Scotland. While posters concerning children's rights could be seen everywhere on campus, this particular poster of the subject offered something new.

Q1: Can you tell what was so special about this poster?

The Vice Principal told me that while students were not expected to recite these statements, students were explained in detail about these concepts so that they could understand their own rights and respect that of the others. This school is exemplary in promoting The Charter of the UNCRC.

2. Perhaps it was not a unique feature of this school, but I did notice how the classroom was arranged - the neat tablet storage boxes with chargers, the schoolbag hanging areas and water bottle areas etc. This maximises students' learning space and makes moving groups much more convenient.

3. In the P.5 Maths class I observed (yes, Maths again!), the teacher taught for half of the lesson and spared the other half for us visitors to interact with the students. Me and another tour participant explained to the children in class the background of Hong Kong and briefly on how our education system worked. These children were very excited and kept putting up their hands to ask questions. They asked us about school hours, language policy, animals in campus etc...All of the questions showed their curiosity and intelligence. And we were more than happy to respond to them.

Snacks in the afternoon

Memorable times kept coming, unlike the sunshine. In the afternoon, I made use of the free time we were offered to travel from Edinburgh to Stirling. Stirling is a peaceful little town with a long history. Not a lot of tourists would choose Stirling as a spot to visit but somehow I decided to go there (with my wife), and it was personally important. I went to a place which looked a lot like Royal garden.

The good weather didn't follow my train to Stirling and the town was typically cold and gloomy. Light rain disturbed the Airthrey Loch lightly but it was good for the wildlife. The happy sunlight was hiding and thus we could understand that beautiful things don't always stay - we need to appreciate good moments and embrace the less good as they always make us stronger.

Q2: But the question is, why did I go to Stirling today?

Finally, I discovered these spherical items between two buildings. I first thought they were large artwork for decorations only. But I should be wrong.

Q3: By the look of them, could you guess what they are?

That's all from me today. I love all your feedback and answers and responses so far to the previous posts. For those of you who haven't commented (hope that at least you have read the posts!), the discussion is still open. I will give you the answers altogether (if I know all of them at all ^o^) when I return. Souvenirs are of course reserved for those who read and responded well! But I do know that my students will not care about the souvenirs at all, they are just waiting for my return so that their English lessons could resume, that's the important thing, isn't it?

Write you soon for Day 5...

Dr H C Lee

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Hong Kong Budding Poets (English) Award - a Ying Wa Triumph!!!

Ying Wa Explorers Series: Dr Lee's Exploration 2 (Scotland Trip Sum-up)

YWPS Debate Team comes SECOND at the 5th Primary Schools Debating Tournament 2018

Results of the P.6 One-min Show-and-tell Video Challenge (Part II) Poll

Scotland Educational Trip 2018 - Day 7 (Closure)

Scotland Educational Trip - Day 6

Scotland Educational Trip - Day 5

Scotland Educational Trip - Day 4

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