Love and Grow in Green Pasture           

Plant a Seed for the Future

Happiness in Green Pasture Kindergarten

How time flies! It is the 25^th anniversary of Cumberland Presbyterian Church Green Pasture Kindergarten. On behalf of all the school staff and teachers, I would like to express my gratitude to the founders, the previous school supervisors, school managers, principals, teachers and school staff. Thank you for all their contributions throughout the years which have made Green Pasture Kindergarten a better place for all our students. As one of the schools in Tung Chung, we strive to nurture the children’s faith and love in Jesus Christ, and to spread the gospel to everyone in the community.

Walking with God for the Past 25 Years

Cumberland Presbyterian Church Green Pasture Kindergarten was established in 1997, when Tung Chung had just developed into a new area. At that time, there were very few families with young kids in Tung Chung, and only several students graduated from our school in the first graduation ceremony. With the continuing development of Lantau Island, and the contributions of the previous school supervisors, school managers, principals and school staff, who had built a positive school spirit, the number of students had been increasing from tens to hundreds throughout the years. The graduates in the early years have already been utilizing their talents and serving the community in different fields. Looking back at the old days over the past 25 years, we would like to thank God for looking after Green Pasture Kindergarten at all times. 

Optimizing the Curriculum and Planning Various Learning Activities

Every teacher of our team is committed to providing our students with a well-rounded education as well as showing love and care wholeheartedly for each child and family. Despite the rapid changes in the pandemic, we have been endeavouring to provide children with diversified learning supports to fit their learning needs. With the parents’ support and encouragement, the school will continue to optimize the curriculum and provide students with rich learning experiences.

Improving the School-based Visual Arts Curriculum as Priority

Our school has been striving to improve the learning curriculum, especially the visual arts curriculum in recent years. Besides stimulating children’s curiosity through thematic exploratory activities and cultivating positive values through character education, aesthetic activities play an important role in helping children express their thoughts freely and boosting their creativity. In order to enhance the teachers’ knowledge and skills in teaching art, a wide range of training activities have been organised. We invited professionals to share arts-related knowledge in the teachers’ development day and encouraged the teachers to further study art education courses. We also invited the core teachers of the programme “Mainland-Hong Kong Teachers Exchange & Collaboration” to lead us in reviewing and planning the visual arts curriculum.

Aesthetic activities are conducive for nurturing children’s sense of beauty, imagination and creativity. A wide variety of art activities have been held for our students, including parents-child design competition, outdoor sketching activity, and visits to the local art museums. Immersion in these art activities not only can foster an interest of art in our children but also broaden their perspective of creative arts. As children who perceive learning as enjoyable will look forward to more opportunities and discoveries about the things around them, our teachers spare no effort in providing them with diversified art activities, bringing them to enjoy the fun of art creation and enriching the school environment.

Sharpening Teachers’ Skills in Teaching Chinese and Developing Students’ Interest in Learning Chinese

With the school-based support services provided by the Education Bureau, our school has participated in the programme “Effective Learning and Teaching of Chinese and Smooth Primary School Transition for Students”. The participation of this programme aimed at enhancing our teachers’ pedagogical knowledge and skills in teaching Chinese to local and NCS students, and encouraging them to use the related strategies into their classroom teachings. As we believe that learning from one another is an effective way to grow together, we invited the core teachers of the programme to share the professional skills in teaching Chinese with their colleagues in the in-school exchange activity.

Apart from the teachers’ sharing, a workshop about learning through picture books and enhancing language curriculum has been held for our teaching team at school. The teachers have learnt skills and strategies to help children develop literacy skills and build an interest in learning Chinese through the picture-book activities. We will continue to create a productive learning environment, establish language-rich classrooms, and design diversified learning corners, in order to help children expand their vocabulary and improve their Chinese language proficiency.

Home-School Cooperation to Raise our Future

Green Pasture Kindergarten has always held great importance in home-school cooperation. During the pandemic period, we are still committed to the development of parental education and have implemented a variety of home-school activities. In order to educate parents on how to discipline their children and to understand and manage children’s emotions, we have organised online parent seminars and invited our social worker to hold parent-child activities for all grades.

In addition to organising various parent-child activities, the principal and the religious educator have also established a parent support group in school. This is to allow parents to increase their sense of belonging through group activities, and to let parents understand family and character education, share experience of raising children and tips to maintain a healthy marriage, and pray together.

During the first term of this school year when the pandemic situation eased slightly, the school has arranged a face-to-face course “Love, Intimacy & Families” for the members of the parent support group. The course helped parents understand the ways to build stronger relationships with their spouses and children in their home life. In order to cultivate children’s positive life values and character traits, as well as maintaining a close home-school connection, the school will continue to organise home-school character education activities, children’s worship, and celebrations for different festivals.

Faith and Hope

I always believe that every little bit of a child’s learning and growth in their kindergarten stage sets the foundation for their future, just as said in our school motto, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6) For every single child that I have met in Green Pasture Kindergarten, I hope that they can always hold an optimistic and positive attitude in life and stay enthusiastic, confident, perseverant, brave and patient when facing any challenges. During the two years of the epidemic, school education has undergone great changes due to the pandemic situation. In the days of class suspension, it has taught us that even if we are unable to make any changes in difficult times, we can still be patient and rely on our heavenly Father, as mentioned in the Bible “rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer.” (Romans 12:12)

During the three years of kindergarten life, the children not only gain a wide knowledge and skills for life, but they also learn the teachings from the Bible, establish important character traits, and live a life with peace, joy and hope. I am really looking forward to the end of the pandemic, so that the teachers and students can return to normal school life. May all the teachers, students and parents always show love, confidence and hope in God, and stay positive when facing adversity.

Last but not least, I would like to thank all the wonderful parents for their support, and look forward to continuing to work closely together to create a better childhood for our children. Green Pasture Kindergarten will continue to adhere to the teachings of Jesus Christ, to nurture whole-person development in children, and to build a professional team of teaching staff to achieve a high quality of education that every child deserves.

Leung Lai Shan

Principal