Staff Development Plans
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Our staff development committee is responsible for drawing up the Staff Development Plan. The committee is
composed of the vice principal, who is responsible for evaluating the human
resources of the whole school, together with one senior teacher, responsible
for evaluating the different professional development needs of the staff, and
as assistant panel for coordinating different activities to foster staff’s
professional development in various aspects.
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Our
staff development plan comes with clear objectives to meet the development
requirements of the school and staff. It is formulated in line with the whole
school’s main development, and in response to the needs and concerns of the
staff expressed through previous questionnaires and evaluation on the staff
development programs.
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Our
staff development plan this year, is particularly intended to address the
teaching and learning effectiveness and to nurture the personality traits of
Tsung Tsiners: being thoughtful and self-motivated’. These have been made our
major concerns and included in our school development plan.
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All the staff
development activities are arranged for actualizing the staff development plan
throughout the year.
Workshops on teaching strategies and pedagogical practices for fostering students’
self-learning will be the core activities of various staff development days. Staff development activities such as
school visits and talks that are relevant to exploring different paradigms of teaching
will be organized for enhancing teachers’ efficacy. Teachers, regardless of
their teaching experience, will be invited to share their daily practices
regarding the enhancement of students’ learning strategies on the staff
development day. With the active participation of the staff, the objectives of
the development plan can be attained.
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The Staff Development Committee
reviews its plan annually to address the professional development needs of
teachers in line with school development plan. With the use of questionnaire at
the end of each academic year, together with the evaluation forms collected
after each staff development activity, the committee can collect responses from
the staff. In addition, all the panel heads are consulted for any area of concern
regarding the staff development during the Joint Panel Meeting at the end of
each academic year. The committee can make use of the review findings to
formulate the staff development plan for the next academic year and to raise
concerns in the school’s annual reports.
School support to the staff
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All teachers are free to utilize the
teaching resources in the teacher resources room (TRR). References like past
examination papers, educational journals and magazines, and resources in hard
copy or computer readable format are always available for loans or for
teachers’ references. In addition, our computer software has been upgraded to
allow the production of multi-media teaching aids. Teachers are encouraged to keep abreast of the latest
development in education as well as the latest information technologies in
education.
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Human resources are also flexibly deployed
and additional teachers are employed to conserve more capacity for teachers to
develop their own professionalism. Educational Executives are recruited to take
up the tedious duties like collecting reply slips and handling other administrative work to make sure there was reasonably
adequate time for regular teachers to
develop their curricula and to practise
collaborative teaching. There is also administrative support in the form
of timetabling that allows subject teachers in the whole panel or at least
those teaching at the same level to hold meeting during tied-up periods. The
common periods make possible better coordination (in terms of formulating
teaching plans, sharing resources and conducting progress check) across classes
and facilitate more sharing for collaborative teaching among teachers.
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Our school draws expertise from
external institution like the Hong Kong Institute of Education to conduct
lesson studies, to enrich teachers with better insights and methods that will
ultimately benefit our teachers’ professional development and students’
learning.
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Induction Programs are conducted in
mid-August before the first staff meeting. They are aimed at helping the newly
appointed staff to understand our school aims, and to get familiar with various
school policies and teaching practices so as to adapt to the school culture and
commit to our school aims.
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All the regulations and policies formulated by our school committees
have been explicitly and clearly documented in the Teacher Basic Law, which
provides handy reference for new teachers to mesh in with the school
environment.
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Our Mentorship Scheme is deliberately
designed for both newly appointed and inexperienced staff, who are aided by more experienced ones on the same panel or those
teaching at the same level as they are in a better position to address the
mentees’ training needs. In case of any new teacher teaching two
different subjects, he / she will have two mentors. The scheme not only allows
standard and harmonized teaching among teachers but most importantly allows
both experienced teachers and inexperienced teachers to exchange their views
and opinions for benefits of their own professional development.
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A well-established norm of collaborative teaching and mutual class
observation (that may be across different subjects) atmosphere is created in
our school. The present practices provide opportunities for teachers of
different disciplines and levels of expertise to share their pedagogical
practices and initiatives so as to build up mutual rapport and development in
teachers’ professionism.
The
objectives, system and functions of appraisal
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Our appraisal system is set, not merely to assist teachers in
assessing their own teaching effectiveness formatively, but also helps teachers
in evaluating their performance in non-teaching practices so as to foster their
professional development. As a wide coverage of assessment items are included
in the present appraisal system, the staff can have a better understanding of
their strengths and weaknesses as well as their training needs. Besides, it
helps the school formulate specific professional development plans geared to
the overall development needs.
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Being fair and just, our appraisal system conducted within each
panel and committee is two-way, in which each staff member can be evaluated by
his or her panel head or the committee chairperson, while reciprocally, the
panel head or the committee chairperson is evaluated by their fellow members.
In addition, both teaching and non-teaching staff member of our school can
evaluate the principal’s performance to maximize the principal’s
accountability. As an open system, the objectives, criteria for appraisal, executive
details and even the appeal procedures of the appraisal system are clearly
documented in the Teachers’ Basic Laws for teachers’ reference.
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An on-line appraisal system has also
been set up to allow students to evaluate
their teachers’ teaching performance so as to enhance teachers’ understanding
of the developmental needs.
The
review of appraisal system
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There is a mechanism established for
timely review of the appraisal system. All the teachers can give feedback to
the present appraisal system at the end of each academic year so that an appropriate
revision can be made in response to the development needs of the school and the
staff.