CREATIVE PRIMARY SCHOOL was founded in 1985, with a vision to create and offer the choice of an all-rounded quality education service for young students in Hong Kong.

Integrating the best of both western and Chinese educational ideas and ideals, the school strives to develop its own uniquely effective child-centered curriculum. The school aims to lay a firm foundation on which a child's future success is built during the most crucial stage of his/her development.

Vision, Beliefs and Goals

Our vision ...

We see ourselves as a high quality, forward thinking and inspirational learning organisation - students, teachers and parents share in the joy and fulfillment of learning and achieving excellence together. With emphasis being placed on the 'education of the whole person', we provide an ideal and happy learning environment that best promotes academic achievement fosters high values and where all students are encouraged to reach their full potential

It is our profound belief ...

• that every child is unique and special in his / her own way.
• that a child brought up in a compassionate environment learns to deal with the world positively with an optimistic attitude
• that trust, encouragement and support is the foundation for building up a child's self-respect, self-worthiness and self-confidence, this in turn are the very basis for all effective learning.
• that a child's development is a summative series of breakthroughs in his/her learning process.
• that a child's successful and happy development is based upon his/her confidence in facing challenges, ability and persistence in problem solving, courage in accepting failure, and an accumulation of successful experiences in achievements.
• that during a child's primary phase of education and development is of critical importance. Individual abilities and specific needs should be properly recognized, and the most suitable level of guidance and support should be given. Opportunities should also be constantly created for the child to experience achievements and successes.

Therefore, we strive to provide our students with ...

• a compassionate school environment and through a culture of care, trust, encouragement and understanding, our students learn the ways to appreciate and to gratify. With self-respect and self-worthiness, they themselves become compassionate and learn to aspire to their own ideals.
• the highest standards of well-rounded care throughout the school and ensuring that our student's physical, cognitive, emotional and social developments are attentively looked after. Healthy, energetic, optimistic and confident, our students are professionally guided to reach their full potentials.
• a stimulating learning culture with a uniquely developed quality curriculum reinforced by a happy and fulfilling learning environment. Assisted by a comprehensive range of information technology facilities, our students' perpetual learning habits, global out-looks, intellectual capacity, and cultural aspirations are shaped and enhanced at an early stage of their development.
• an effective multi-faceted teaching approach which is constantly brought in line by the latest teaching theories and research. Students are inspired to develop keen interest in learning and to be proactive in the exploration of new knowledge and experience. Open-minded and far-sighted, they are encouraged to think creatively and critically at a young age.
• maximum opportunities to realize own abilities and interests with an aim to unlock and expand all aspects of innate potentials of our students. Through both academic and extra-curricular activities, students are constantly given chances to discover their special interests and individual abilities, to challenge themselves in pursuit of excellence, and to experience the satisfaction of realizing their own aspirations and ambitions.

As a pioneer in providing quality child-centred education in Hong Kong, Creative Primary School ("CPS") has a tradition of viewing students as the most important stakeholder in making school policies, designing curriculum and implementing programs in the school. Students' best interests have always been the top priority of the school.

The ideals of the school (rather unique in the cultural setting in Hong Kong, especially during the inception of the school in the early 1980s) attracted not only parents and students, but also teachers and staff who share the same philosophy. As a result, school directors, administrators, teachers and menial staff all share the school's mission and thus work together towards the common goals of the school. This has enabled the school to enjoy high reputation for its happy, caring and proactive approach to education since its establishment in 1985.

Students of CPS enjoy their school lives very much and have a strong sense of belonging. Moreover, its graduates are known for all-roundedness in their achievements as well as their cheerful, passionate and self-confident characteristics.

The school is blessed with a team of passionate professionals who are not only loving and hardworking, but are also very keen to learn and to innovate in order to improve the way students are to be educated. In fact, in the 20 years of its history, CPS has never stood still in it continuous enhancement of its approaches and methodology.

 

The Inception of Invitational Education

An important spark for a new level of development came in 1999 with a talk by Professor William Purkey and Professor John Novak who came to Hong Kong for an Invitational Education Training Program. We attended the talk and were extremely excited to realize that ideals of the school could be further realized through Invitational Education. What impressed us were not only the concept of Invitational Education (which is a perfect fit with the founding philosophy of the school), but also the strategies (5Ps), which can turn passions and ideals in education into actions and enable the school to develop and achieve the set of aims of the school even more effectively.

 

Learning more about IE

Since then, effort has been made to learn more about Invitational Education. Principal and teachers tried to attend every seminar and workshop on Invitational Education, and exhausted different means, such books and the World Wide Web to learn more about it. Besides that, the school invited an officer of the then Education Department ("ED") Mr Peter Wong who was sent to follow Professor Purkey for attachment to conduct a school director-administrator-teacher-staff training workshop on Invitational Education. Touched by the potential positive effects of IE on students, we became serious about putting theories of IE into practice. The more we learnt about IE, the more determined we were to become a truly inviting school. We then began to infuse the ideas of IE into the daily life in the school through the 5 Ps: People, Places, Policies, Programs and Processes.

Support

Full support not only came from teachers and staff, parents and students were also very happy to see the measures we took in terms of the 5Ps to make the school an even better place to study in. The School Board was very supportive. They decided to include Invitational Education as one of the main themes for school development. They also approved of releasing my immediate duties and sponsored me to attend the IAIE World Conference in 2000 and to visit about twenty inviting schools in the US.

 

The 2000 IAIE Conference & after

The conference and the school visits all proved to be very inspiring and rewarding. During the 17-day study trip I experienced a lot of care and support from educators around the world who shared the same ideals, learned a lot more about IE and witnessed how the plans and theories of IE had been put into action.

After I returned to Hong Kong, a sharing session about the study trip was organized in the school. A presentation with more than two hundred slides and video clips were shown. At the same time, a report with a list of recommendations based on the collective ideas of colleagues under the 5Ps on developing IE in school were drawn up. The report was sent to the School Board and it was endorsed unanimously.

In order to encourage participation in creating an even more inviting school, we tried to involve everyone in the staff in brainstorming on things we can do in different aspects to bring about an inviting school. Blessed with the unique school culture at CPS, teachers and staff are particularly devoted and keen to learn. Each functional group soon reached consensus on how to proactively integrate the recommendations into their yearly plans.

Again, thanks to the enthusiasm and hard work of all staff in planning and monitoring the implementation of IE through the 5Ps, we have received very positive feedback from students and parents on what we have done. The results of the Inviting School Checklist also confirmed that IE really worked well in our school.

In 2002, Creative Primary School was presented the Inviting School Award by the International Alliance of Invitational Education in recognition of our effort and achievements in providing an inviting school environment for our students. This was a great encouragement to all at CPS.

Now the spirit of IE is well embedded in our school culture, system and policies. However, we dare not be complacent about this because we believe that as a learning organization, there is still a lot that we can do to further our educational ideal and empower each of our students to unlock their boundless potential.