Sha Tin Methodist College

20th School Anniversary Logo

25th School Anniversary Logo

Sha Tin Methodist College (沙田循道衛理中學), abbreviated as STMC, is a government subsidised secondary school founded in 1983, which is sponsored by the Methodist Church, Hong Kong to serve the local community together with churches and service centres in Sha Tin parish.

School features

Class structure and admission

The school has adopted a symmetrical class structure. There are five classes in each form for F.1 to F.5, and three classes for F.6 and F.7. There are no school places in F.4 and F.6 allocated to students from other schools.

Teacher qualifications

Mr. Vincent Lau Yam Fat, BSc(Chem), M.Phil and PGDE. A chemistry teacher at STMC.

The school currently has 68 teachers, of which 66 (97%) hold university degrees; 25 (37.3%) hold higher degrees; 63 (93%) have completed teacher training programs. Education psychologist and social worker are also employed to support the school's work. All teachers in the school are eager to enrich themselves by further study and regular sharing. Classroom observation has long been practised in the school. Moreover, all teachers of English Language and Putonghua have met the requirements of the Language Proficiency Assessment.

Religious education

The school practices Christian education. The school actively promotes education on Christianity. through classes on religious education, morning assembly, weekly assembly, Christian fellowship, Girl's Brigade, gospel camp, sports events, cell groups, prayer groups and crusade. The Shatin Methodist Church works closely with the school on holding various activities and camps to nurture students' spirituality and leadership. Youth music worship is held every Saturday.

Education

Since the implementation of School Management Initiative in 1992, the school has been drawing up plans according to the school administration cycle. Representatives of teachers, parents, alumni and local community are among the school managers.

The school received funding from the Government's Quality Education Fund on a number of creative education projects. These include: Green School Campaign, Multi-media Language Lab, Chinese Orchestra, Western Orchestra, General Education on Chinese Medicine, Digital Music and Creative Art Workshop, Millennium Multi-media Classrooms, General Education on Chinese Medicine and Resource Centre, Campus TV, to provide a platform for enhancing teaching effectiveness. With the support from the SAR Government, the Church and the community, the school has in recent years organised study tours to Beijing, Sichuan, Yunnan, Sanshui, Lianshan, Zhaoqing, Xian and Macau, Singapore as well as to Korea. To tie in with the objective of broadening horizons, the school has set up a student grant on overseas studies, so that all students have the opportunity to enrich their learning experience.

A number of seed programmes have been carried out in collaboration with the Curriculum Development Institute of EDB in recent years, with a view to introducing curriculum that enriches learning experience. A number of teachers have been seconded to EDB to take part in the development and optimisation of the curriculum on Gifted Education, Science Education, History Education, Integrated Humanities and Liberal Studies. The curriculum so developed was implemented in the school and the experience applied to other schools in Hong Kong.

In addition, the curriculum on Integrated Humanities at HKCEE level has been implemented in the school since 2003. A number of electives are available at senior secondary level, and AS level subjects of Liberal Studies, Computer Application, Mathematics and Statistics are offered to broaden students' horizons.

Apart from general subjects, the school implemented a formal curriculum on Moral and Civic Education to nurture civic awareness among students. Culture experiential activities and reading day are organised from time to time. The school also set up the first Chinese Herbal Medicine Learning Center in Hong Kong to provide learning opportunities in Chinese herbal medicine. A curriculum of general education on Chinese Medicine is incorporated in regular classes in F.2.

In 2002, the school was elected to be one of the twenty outstanding schools and a Resource School to share its experience with fellow schools in Hong Kong. Apart from three to four sharing sessions on different themes held every month, an open forum was held on 13 June 2003 and a journal was published. Another Knowledge Fair was held in November 2008 to celebrate the school's 25th Anniversary and to serve as a platform to share the school-based curriculum projects with the other schools.

In 2006, the school was invited to be a pilot school under the Professional Development Scheme, School Support Partners Scheme, and Partnership for Improvement of Learning and Teaching project to further enhance quality education and share its experience with other schools.

In 2004, EMB conducted a comprehensive External School Review to the school. The assessment covered fourteen items in four main areas, for which the school obtained grading of "Excellent" or "Good".

Education on Information Technology

1CAL, one of the Computer-aided Learning Rooms in STMC.

In recent years, the school has secured funding from Quality Education Fund for the improvement of school facilities and provision of gifted education. The funding on IT project alone amounted to $2.2 million, which helped to set up the Multi-media Learning Centre, the Millennium Multi-media Classroom and the Digital Music and Creative Art Workshop. The school also set up a Campus TV station on production of videos and clips, which is welcome by students.

The new Campus TV production center is equipped with the hypothesized background, analogy shade effect and class broadcast system which provides each classroom with live broadcast video and 24 hours x 7 days access through the Intranet.

The recent External School Review report highly praises the school's IT facilities. The overall provision of IT facilities in the school was excellent.

Public examination results and further studies

The students of the school perform well in public examinations.

Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education

Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination

Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination

Hong Kong Advanced Supplementary Level Examination

There are three classes of F.6 and F.7 students, each containing more than 90 students. In the past years, 2004 to 2008, the average percentage of students being admitted to universities (both local and overseas) was over 80%, of which about 50% were offered degree programmers in the University of Hong Kong, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Science and Technology. Students being offered degree courses, associate degree courses, high degree courses are more than 90%. Students' performance and prospects are good.

Networking

The school provides opportunities for every student to develop his potential. The curriculum is so revised as to immerse the elements advocated by gifted education in teaching and learning. Apart from this, students are encouraged to excel and take part in high level learning activities. These include the government's gifted training programmes, IIISP, study tour on Chinese herbal medicine by the Institute of Chinese Medicine, Chinese University of Hong Kong and learning activity held in the Chinese Herbal Medicine Gallery by the School of Chinese Medicine, Baptist University of Hong Kong.

The school took part in a global study project with the Chinese University of Hong Kong by installing the Cosmic Ray Telescope in the campus. Students had the opportunity to research and study with scholars from the world. The project was completed successfully.

Visiting experts and scholars in recent years include Professor Liu Ruihua (Guangzhou Institute of Geography), Professor Wu Jialin, Dr. Zhao Zhenzhong (School of Chinese Medicine, Baptist University of Hong Kong), Mr. Tam Siu Cheung (antique map collector), Professor Liu Wenxia (Inner Mongolia Normal University), Professor Cong Chunyu (former Director of Gansu College of Traditional Chinese Medicine) . EMB has on several occasions arranged visits of mainland professional education bodies to the school. Both teachers and students greatly benefited from these academic and professional exchanges.

See also

• List of Secondary Schools in Hong Kong
• Education in Hong Kong

External links

• Sha Tin Methodist College Official Website
• Sha Tin Methodist College Parent Teacher Association Official Website (Chinese)
• Sha Tin Methodist College Student Union Official Website (Chinese)
• Sha Tin Methodist College Alumni Association Official Website (Chinese)
• Sha Tin Methodist College Facebook Group