Shortly after the new semester began, YK Pao Primary School held a series of Curriculum Understanding and Hand-on Sharing sessions to help parents better understand YK Pao Primary School‘s curriculum. This Wednesday’s presentation included specialist subjects of art, music, sports, ICT. Pastoral care and mental health counselling program were also presented to a packed audience.
Pao School has long attached great importance to the academic development and has also worked hard to ensure that students are emotionally healthy, develop the correct values, and conduct themselves properly, whether in social settings or independently. This is a central part of Pao School's pastoral care program. "We hope to promote whole-person education through the delivery of pastoral care to our students," said Nectar Wang, Director of Lower Primary. Pastoral care at YK Pao Primary School is divided into four major areas: character education, behaviour management, safeguarding and health, and special education.
Our character education curriculum at Pao School uses the government-issued "Moral and Legal System" textbook, which encompasses many of the fine traditional Chinese virtues. At the same time, we also speak to practical applications, such as how to respect others and how to protect privacy. By combining theory and practice, Pao School hopes to give the students a comprehensive foundation of character education.
In terms of behaviour management, Pao School adheres to the concept of "positive discipline", emphasizing on treating students with firmness and compassion. With the idea of "positive discipline" in mind, the Primary School ended practices that focus on punishment and rewards, as such practices only have a short-term benefit for students and do not positively impact their behaviour in the long term.
Nectar Wang, Director of Lower Primary says,
"The ultimate goal of our positive discipline is to cultivate a child's sense of ownership, teaching the child to think twice about each decision, and take responsibility for his or her actions, including any consequences that may result from them. "
In order to better implement the positive discipline philosophy, Primary School appointed a Positive Discipline Facilitator Ms. Evans since the beginning of the school year. She will provide teachers with regular advice on how to manage student conduct, and help organise various activities.
Character Education Posters
To provide professional support for the mental wellness of the students, Pao School has also created a new counselling program led by Jennifer Jost. Jennifer served as a Special Education teacher in America and worked as an international school counsellor previously.
Students set their own progress goals for the meetings with Jennifer. They are engaged in the design of specific activity for each session. Once the sessions are complete, students discuss the results with Jennifer, focusing on how they reached their goals, or what challenges they still face in reaching them. Any counselling services provided to students are communicated to parents through a counselling progress report.
Jennifer emphasizes she is available for many different counselling services that the Pao School community may need, from providing support for parents interested in practising positive discipline at home, to talking with students about how to cope with the loss of a family member or friend. She is also working on holding related workshops on Professional Development days for teachers. “Overall, for parents and students, it's important to think about mental health the same way we think about physical fitness. We exercise regularly to maintain a healthy body, maintain good energy levels and prevent physical health problems. We also need to maintain our mental health and can't expect to do so without taking any action.” says Jennifer.
At the Curriculum Understanding and Hand-on Sharing session, Siobhain Allum, Primary Principal and Head of Wuding Campus, noted that Pao School already held a series of workshops about positive discipline for parents during the previous academic year. Additional workshops will be offered this school year to parents who are interested.
Speaking about Pao School's counselling programme, Ms.Allum says that the programme exists to make sure every child has a positive, healthy emotional state and can make necessary adjustments at school. She believes "it will make a huge difference in supporting students' mental well-being”.
