Wah Yan College, Hong Kong

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Wah Yan College, Hong Kong
Motto	In Hoc Signo Vinces (Latin for "In this sign you shall conquer")
Established	1919
Type	Grant-in-aid
Principal	Mr George S. P. Tam
Founder	Mr Tsui Yan Sau Peter
Students	948 (Sep 2006)
Grades	F.1 - F.7
Location	Mount Parish, 281 Queens Road East, Hong Kong Hong Kong, China
District	Wan Chai
Yearbook	The Star
Newspaper	The Starlet
Religion	Catholic
Governing Body	Society of Jesus
Sister school	Wah Yan College, Kowloon
Website	http://www.wahyan.edu.hk

Wah Yan College, Hong Kong (WYCHK; Traditional Chinese: 香港華仁書院; Simplified Chinese: 香港华仁书院; Pinyin: Xiang1 gang3 hua2 ren2 shu1 yuan4; Cantonese Yale: Heung1 gong2 wa4 yan2 syu1 yun2; demonym: Wahyanite, pl.: Wahyanites; colloquilly known as Kong Wah "港華") is a grant-in-aid secondary school in Hong Kong. It was founded on December 16, 1919, by Tsui Yan Sau Peter (徐仁夀, 1889-1980). It is a Roman Catholic secondary school for boys run by the Society of Jesus. Fully subsidized by the Government of Hong Kong, WYCHK is a grammar school using English as the medium of instruction. It has an enrolment of approximately 1,000 with about 50 teachers and some Jesuit Fathers. The present principal of the college is Mr. Tam Siu Ping, George.

Contents 1 History 1.1 The beginnings 1.2 Wah Yan under the Jesuits 1.3 Wartime Wah Yan 1.4 Post-war development 1.5 Queens Road East era 1.6 School Development Project 2 List of Principals since 1919 3 Campus 3.1 Classroom Block 3.2 Laboratory Block 3.3 Administration Wing 3.4 Chapel 3.5 Hall 3.6 Gordon Wu Hall 3.7 New Annex 4 Class Structure 5 Curriculum 5.1 Forms 1-2 5.2 Form 3 5.3 Forms 4-5 5.4 Forms 6-7 6 Houses 7 Extracurricular Activities 7.1 Group A 7.1.1 School Organizations 7.1.2 Clubs and Societies 7.2 Group B 7.2.1 Catholic Organizations 7.2.2 Sport Teams 7.2.3 Other Organizations 8 Achievements 9 School Song 10 Notable Alumni 10.1 Politics/Civil Service 10.2 Law 10.3 Health 10.4 Entertainment 10.5 Commerce 10.6 Others 11 Transportation 12 References 13 See also 14 External links

[edit] History

[edit] The beginnings

The College was founded by Mr Tsui Yan Sau Peter on December 16, 1919 on the 2nd floor of 60 Hollywood Road. On the first day of lessons, there were only 4 students. In the few years that followed, the College had alo used 54A Peel Street and 33 Mosque Junction as campuses. As the number of students continues to arise, the College moved to a new campus at 2 Robinson Road (the present site of Bishop Lei Int'l House and Raimondi College) after Lunar New Year, 1921. On October 1, 1922, the College was listed as a Grant-in-aid school. In 1924, a new branch school of the College, now known as Wah Yan College, Kowloon, was established. A hostel in Wah Yan opened in 1927. In the same year, the first Irish Jesuit father, Fr John Neary, came to Wah Yan as a teacher of Religious Knowledge.

In the early days of Wah Yan, the grades were not named as Forms 1-7, but Classes 1-8 instead. The "classes" were numbered in reverse order: Class 1 was equivalent to present day's Form 6 (the equivalent for Form 7 did not exist at that time), Class 6 was equivalent to present day's Form 1 and Class 8 was equivalent to present day's Primary 5.

[edit] Wah Yan under the Jesuits

In 1932 the College was gradually transferred to the Society of Jesus, after a long series of negotiations between the original administration and the Jesuit fathers. The transfer was completed on December 31, and Fr Gallagher, S.J. replaced Mr Lim Hoi Lan as the headmaster. The school was also given a new name: College of Christ the King.

In 1933, the College published its first volume of its yearbook, The Star. House system was introduced in 1934. In 1940 the hostel was closed down.

[edit] Wartime Wah Yan

Japanese troops invaded Hong Kong in December 1941. Classes were suspended as a result. Fr Gallagher and Fr McAsey were interned by the Japanese.

During the War, Wah Yan continued operations in Macau for a period of time.^[1]

There was another Wah Yan set up during the occupation (called "Wah Yan Chung Hok", meaning Wah Yan middle school) which was closed down shortly before the War ended, due to the reason that the school "was the worst in the lack of teaching of the East Asia spirit".

[edit] Post-war development

After the Japanese troops surrendered, the College reopened on September 8, 1945. Later in the year, Wah Yan Middle School was re-established as the Chinese stream of the College. In March 1946, the organization of the Wah Yan Dramatic Society, mainly consisted of alumni from the college and Wah Yan College, Kowloon, was commenced, and officially formed next year. Its first production was "The Thrice Promised Bride".

A night school was started by the College on February 17, 1948. In the next year, an afternoon school was also opened. In 1950 the Chinese stream of the College was closed down.

In 1951, the classes were renamed as forms: Class 1 into Form 6, Class 2 into Form 5, and so on. Class 7 and Class 8 were renamed as Primary 6 and 5 respectively.

In 1952 the afternoon school was also closed.

[edit] Queens Road East era

In 1954, construction for a new campus at Mount Parish, Wan Chai started. On September 27, 1955 the new campus was formally opened by Sir Alexander Grantham, then Governor of Hong Kong.

The school newspaper, "Starlet", was established in 1964. In 1971, the Jesuits took over the then Pun U Primary School. The primary school was renamed Pun U Association Wah Yan Primary School, and was establishd as the primary branch of the College.^[2] The night school was closed in 1984. The streaming to Arts and Science was started in Form 4 in 1986.

On April 12 1987, the Gordon Wu Hall to the north of the main building was opened. In the same year Wah Yan got its first "10 A" in the HKCEE.

On May 8 1992, heavy rainfall caused a severe landslide to occur at the junction of Kennedy Road and Queens Road East. It killed a driver passing by in his car. The landslide caused the Laboratory Block to sink. Cracks were all over the playground, and a worsening crack in the Classroom Block even had to be covered up with stainless steel plates. In the same year Wah Yan got 3 "10 As" in the HKCEE. Six classrooms (2H, 2K, 4H, 4K, 6S2, 7A) were demolished in 1993 due to the landslide. They were rebuilt and were reopened in 1998. ^[3]

The website of the school was first prepared by Dr Ashley Cheung in 1994. In 1997, the Parent-Teacher Association was established. In 1998, all classrooms were installed with air-conditoners.

[edit] School Development Project

As the campus of the College starts to age, there had been plans to redevelop the school since 1995. However, the initial plans were aborted due to lack of funds and local law restrictions on architecture. In 2001 the Education and Manpower Bureau planned to upgrade all existing schools in Hong Kong to millenium standard, and the College successfully applied for part of the necessary funds for redevelopment. The School Development Project (SDP) was formally launched on January 26 2003, and works were officially started on May 25 2003 with the demolition of the old music room block.

The original aims of the School Development Project were to:

• Upgrade the school campus to millenium standards
• Provide extra classrooms required by the "through-train" education mode (this had been proved unnecessary since the school has decided not to adopt the "through-train" mode, mainly because of the declining academic standards of the students entering the College directly from Pun U Association Wah Yan Primary School)
• Construct a new assembly hall that can accomodate all students at the same time^[4]

The total cost is estimated to be HK$103.72M. It consists of 3 phases:

• Phase 1, which involves rebuilding the existing music room into a 6-storey multi-use complex. The cost was HK$38.9M.
• Phase 2, which is an extension of Phase 1. The cost was HK$4.82M.
• Phase 3, which involves rebuilding the hall. The cost is estimated to be HK$57M.

Funding for Phase 1 is by the Hong Kong Government's Quality Education Fund and the School Improvement Programme. Funding for Phases 2 and 3 are by fund-raising campaigns hosted by the school.

Phases 1 and 2 (New Annex) have already been completed and formally opened on January 31 2006 by Mr Donald Tsang, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong. Phase III consists of a new school hall annex with a much larger hall that can accomodate all the students in the school. The annex will also house five extra classrooms and a lecture theatre. Phase III was originally estimated to be complete by December 2006; however the lack of funds had greatly delayed the completion time. Works for Phase III had not started yet and fund-raising is still in progress.^[5]

[edit] List of Principals since 1919

Name	Period
Mr Tsui Yan Sau Peter	1919-1926
Mr Lim Hoy Lam Andrew	1926-1932
Fr Gallagher, S.J.	1932-1940
Fr Bourke, S.J.	1940-1948
Fr Cooney, S.J.	1948-1951
Fr Carroll, S.J.	1951-1956
Fr Barrett S.J.	1956-1962
Fr Foley, S.J.	1962-1968
Fr Alfred J Deignan, S.J.	1968-1970
Fr Barrett, S.J. (2nd time)	1970-1982
Fr Reid, S.J.	1982-1985
Fr Baptista, S.J.	1985-1988
Fr Coghlan, S.J.	1988-1996
Mr Tam Siu Ping George	1996-

[edit] Campus

The current campus at 281 Queens Road East, Wan Chai is about 20,000 m² (220,000 square feet) big, located on a small hill known as Mount Parish. It was originally designed by the late Professor Gordon Brown, the founder of the Architecture Faculty of Hong Kong University.

Completed in 1955, the school has 7 main buildings:

• Classroom Block (partly reconstructed after a landslide in 1992)
• Laboratory Block
• Administration Wing
• Chapel
• Hall
• Gordon Wu Hall (completed in 1987)
• New Annex (completed in 2005 as phases I and II of the School Development Project)

They contribute towards a total of 26 classrooms, 14 special rooms, a hall, a tuck shop, a chapel (previously 2, with one demolished prior to the school development project (SDP)), 3 playgrounds and 2 squash courts.

The Classroom Block, Laboratory Block and Administration Wing are linked together.

Since the campus' completion in 1955, it has undergone three major changes: the addition of Gordon Wu Hall in 1987, the reconstruction of six classrooms from 1992-98, and the School Development Project launched in 2003.

[edit] Classroom Block

The Classroom Block is a 3-storey building which was originally constructed using red bricks. However, replacements for red bricks became unavailable and gradually the red bricks were replaced with hand-painted bricks. The wooden window frames had also been gradually replaced with aluminium ones.

In 1992, a severe landslide caused a part of the block to be reconstructed, and was reconstructed with concrete. Brick wall patterns were painted on the walls to blend in with the original parts of the building.

The Classroom Block houses 24 classrooms (all classes except 7S1 and 7S2) and 4 toilets (3 male, plus one female for guests).

[edit] Laboratory Block

The Laboratory Block is also a 3-storey building which is linked to the Classroom Block. It houses the classrooms of 7S1 (a physics lectural theatre) and 7S2 (a chemistry lectural theatre), the physics, chemistry, biology and intergrated science laboratories, geography room, an intergrated humanity centre (IHC), sports office, a canteen, a tuck shop, a prefects' room, and a scout room. It also houses a prayer room, a Multimedia Learning Centre (MMLC), an english corner, and 2 store rooms in the basement.

[edit] Administration Wing

The Administration Wing is dedicated to Mr Wu Jieh Yee by Patrick Wu who donated HK$5,000,000 for the School Development Project. It houses the principal's room, the rooms for the two assistant principals, the supervisor's room, a store room, the school office, the reception (which is rumored to be haunted), 4 meeting rooms, a Parent-Teacher Association room, three toilets (2 for the staff, 1 for the disabled), the school secretary's office, an archives corner, and a Father's Quarters.

[edit] Chapel

Like the Classroom Block, the chapel was originally built with red bricks but gradually replaced with hand-painted ones. The Stations of the Cross in the chapel, unlike most other churches, are made with mosaic tiled on the brick walls. It belongs to the St. Magarets Parish.^[6] There are daily mass for students who are interested, and there are also Sunday mass for the general public.^[7]

[edit] Hall

The hall is a concrete building which is painted in yellow. There are seats for about 500 people. Due to its current capacity, the hall is unable to accomodate all the students at the same time, and monthly assemblies had to be done twice, one for senior forms and one for junior. The school is planning to rebuild the hall into a multi-storey complex, with a much larger hall which will be able to hold all the students at the same time.

[edit] Gordon Wu Hall

The building is named afted Sir Gordon Wu who donated a sum of money to the school in the 1980s. It has 5 storeys. It was completed in 1987, and houses a transformer room, a squash court, a store room, a Past Students' Association room, a Campus TV room, an art room, a kiln room, a ceramics studio, a visual arts office, two computer rooms, a Careers and Further Studies room, a Moral and Civic Education Working Committee room, 4 Interactive Learning Rooms, a Discipline Board room, the education psychologist's room, the social worker's room, a counselling room and two gent toilets for the staff. It also houses the Wah Yan College Cats' cathouse on the roof.

[edit] New Annex

The New Annex was built as Phases 1 and 2 of the School Development Project. It was officially opened in 2006, though part of its facilities were used starting from September 2005. It is a 6-storey building which houses a conference room, a staff room, a library, a staff common room, a creativity laboratory, a Computer Assisted Learning Room, a music room, a music training area, a Student Association room, a student activity centre (SAC), and 10 toilets (3 gents, 2 ladies and 5 disabled).

The music room was a replacement for the original music room which has once been burnt and torn down in 2003. During the construction of the New Annex it was temporarily placed at today's prayer room.

The library was dedicated to Mr Ma Ying, who sponsored renovation works completed in 1974. Before the New Annex was built, the library was situated at the present day's geography room and the IHC.

[edit] Class Structure

There are a total of 26 classes in Wah Yan College, Hong Kong.

The names for classes from Form 1 to Form 5, "W", "Y", "H", "K", stand for "Wah", "Yan", "Hong" and "Kong" respectively.

[edit] Curriculum

[edit] Forms 1-2

English, Chinese, Mathematics, Art & Design, Chinese History, History, Intergrated Science, Geography, Music, Computer Literacy, Physical Education, Putonghua, Religious Studies.

There is no streaming in Forms 1 and 2. Students are equally allocated into W, Y, H and K classes.

[edit] Form 3

English, Chinese, Mathematics, Art & Design, Chinese History, History, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography, Music, Computer Literacy, Physical Education, Religious Studies.

There is also no streaming in Form 3. The top 40 students are placed in one class (3K as of 2006), and the other students are equally distributed among the other three classes.

[edit] Forms 4-5

Students are streamed into either science or arts streams.

	4W/5W (Science)	4Y/5Y (Science)	4H/5H (Science)	4K/5K (Arts)
Core	English
	Chinese
	Mathematics
	Religious Studies
	Physics			Chinese History
	Chemistry			Economy
	Biology			Principle of Accounts
	Additional Maths
	Physical Education (non-HKCEE)
Option (choose one)	Chinese History
	Computer and IT
	Geography
	History
	Economics

Students may also take Music, Physical Education (as HKCEE subject), Putonghua or Visual Arts as an extra subject.

[edit] Forms 6-7

	6S1/7S1 (Science)	6S2/7S2 (Science)	6A/7A (Arts)
Core	Use of English (AS)
	Chinese Language & Culture (AS)
	Ethics
	Physical Education (non-HKAL)
Options (choose one from each row)	Physics (AL)	Physics (AL)	Principle of Accounts Chinese History (AL)
	Chemistry (AL)	Chemistry (AL) Economics (AL)	Economics (AL) Geography (AL)
	Biology (AL) Pure Maths (AL)	Pure Maths (AL) Computer Application (AS) Liberal Studies (AS) Maths & Statistics (AS) L.S. + M&S C.A. + M&S	Computer Application (AS) Liberal Studies (AS) Maths & Statistics (AS) L.S. + M&S C.A. + M&S

[edit] Houses

As of 2006 there are 4 houses in Wah Yan. Each house has their own representative colour.

Students entering Wah Yan College, Hong Kong are allocated into the 4 houses equally.

[edit] Extracurricular Activities

In Wah Yan College, Hong Kong, extracurricular activities (ECAs) are divided into two main groups: A and B. Group A contains school organizations and clubs/societies operated by students. Group B contains Catholic organizations, sport teams and other unclassified organizations.

Each student may participate 4 Group A activities at most. The maximum number of Group B activities that a student may join is left to the discretion of the teacher advisers and parents concerned.

The list of ECAs in the college are listed below.

[edit] Group A

[edit] School Organizations

• Audio-Visual Support Team
• Chinese Orchestra
• Moral and Civic Education Working Committee
• Concert Wind Band
• Health and Sex Education Working Committee
• Hong Kong Awards for Young People (HKAYP)
• Intermediate Choir
• Interact Club
• Junior Choir
• Librarians
• Photography Team
• Prefects' Board
• Red Cross (Youth Unit 34)
• Scouts (15th Hong Kong Group)
• Student Association
• The Star (editorial team for the yearbook with the same name)
• The Starlet (editorial team for the school newspaper with the same name)
• School Orchestra

[edit] Clubs and Societies

• Animation and Comic Club
• Chess Club
• Chinese Society
• Computer Club
• Drama Society
• Geography Society
• Mathematics Club
• Music Society
• Ocean Club
• Orienteering Club
• Photography Club
• Psychology Club
• Science Society
• Student English Club
• Sports Association
• Transportation and Logistics Society
• Visual Arts Club

[edit] Group B

[edit] Catholic Organizations

• Catholic Association
• Altar Society
• Apostleship of Prayer (AOP)
• Caritas Bazaar
• Catholic Choir
• Christian Life Community

[edit] Sport Teams

• Athletics Team
• Badminton Team
• Basketball Team
• Cross Country Team
• Fencing Team
• Football Team
• Swimming Team
• Table Tennis Team
• Tennis Team

[edit] Other Organizations

• Chinese Chess Team
• Chinese Debating Team
• Chiense Verse Speaking Team
• Club of Graduates
• English Debatng Team
• English Verse Speaking Team
• International Chess Team
• JASERs
• Wah Yan College Cats (an organization which aims at taking care of cats in the college)

[edit] Achievements

• In 2007 the student organisation of the college participated in the Lunar New Year Stall Competition co-organized by Shell and the Hong Kong Youth Federation, and won the grand prize of $10,000.^[8]
• The Red Cross cadet group of the college has secured first place in the annual drill competition for 5 years consecutively since 2003.

[edit] School Song

The school song was composed in about 1960 by a Filipino, Sister Carmeia, one of the best musicians in Hong Kong of the time. The lyrics were written by Fr. Patrick McGovern S.J. who was a teacher in Wah Yan and a member of the Legislative Council at that time.^[9]

[edit] Notable Alumni

[edit] Politics/Civil Service

• Donald Tsang Yam Kuen GBM JP KBE (Chinese: 曾蔭權), Chief Executive of Hong Kong SAR
• Joseph Wong Wing Ping, Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology of Hong Kong
• Michael Suen Ming-yeung GBS, JP (Chinese:孫明揚) Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands of Hong Kong
• Stephen Lam Sui-lung JP (Chinese:林瑞麟), Secretary for Constitutional Affairs of Hong Kong
• Andrew Wong Wang Fat JP, the last president of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong during British rule
• Anthony Cheung Bing Leung BBS, JP, member of the Executive Council of Hong Kong

[edit] Law

• Mr Justice Patrick Chan (Chinese:陳兆愷法官), Permanent Judge of the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong
• Patrick Yu Shuk-siu, barrister-at-law, the first Chinese Crown Counsel and Life Member of the Hong Kong Bar Association

[edit] Health

• Anthony Wu JP, Chairman of the Hong Kong Hospital Authority, former Chairman of Ernst & Young Far East and former Chairman of Ernst & Young Hong Kong/China
• Ho Siu-wai, former CEO of the Hong Kong Hospital Authority

[edit] Entertainment

• Hacken Lee, Hong Kong singer-songwriter-actor
• Michael Wong, Hong Kong singer-drummer
• Jaycee Chan, Hong Kong singer-actor
• Ben To, Hong Kong singer
• Joe Nieh, Hong Kong writer, DJ and founder of "Yes!" magazine

[edit] Commerce

• Sir Gordon Wu, founder of Hopewell Holdings Limited (合和實業有限公司)
• Stephen Ng Tin-hoi(Chinese:吳天海), Deputy Chairman and Managing Director of Wharf Holdings Limited(九龍倉集團有限公司); chairman, president and chief executive officer of i-CABLE Communications Limited (有線寬頻通訊有限公司); deputy chairman of Wheelock and Company Limited(會德豐有限公司); director of Joyce Boutique Holdings Limited and Modern Terminals Limited(現代貨箱碼頭有限公司); chairman, president and chief executive officer of Wharf T&T Limited(九倉電訊有限公司)
• Philip Chen, CEO of Cathay Pacific

[edit] Others

• Yip Kam-haw Paul, winner of HK$250,000 in the TV game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"
• Charles Peter Mok, chairperson of Internet Society Hong Kong Chapter
• Au Lok Man, Hong Kong writer

[edit] Transportation

• By bus: (get off at "Li Chi Ho Primary School" station for eastbound, or "Wah Yan College Hong Kong" station for westbound)
  • Citybus:
    • 5S
    • 6
    • 6A
    • 6X
    • 10
    • 61
  • New World First Bus:
    • 15
    • 66
  • Cross Harbour Tunnel bus service:
    • 109
    • 113
• By Green Minibus (GMB) service:
  • 28
  • 35M
  • 56
• By MTR: 10 minutes walk from Wan Chai MTR station

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Wah Yan College, Kowloon
• Education in Hong Kong
• List of buildings and structures in Hong Kong
• List of schools in Hong Kong

[edit] External links

• School Homepage
• Wah Yan International Network
• Wah Yan (Hong Kong) Past Students Association
• Pun U Association Wah Yan Primary School
• 15th Hong Kong Group Scout
• Ricci Hall, University of Hong Kong