SENSE

(The following information is provided by the school.)

Background

Po Leung Kuk Law’s Foundation School provides education, therapy, boarding facilities and family support service for children aged 6 to 18 with severe intellectual disability.

Students in our school generally have weak learning motivation, attention deficit and they are slow in developing in comparison with peer of the same age. However, as long as they are provided with different learning experiences and enrich their life by expanding their horizons, they will always make progress day by day and thrive in love.

School provides students with different courses according to their individual needs. For examples, Lower Primary Orientation Course, Conductive Education, Remedial and Enhancement Class like Remedial Class, Computer-assisted Learning, Chinese Supporting Scheme for Non-Chinese Speaking Students, etc.

In recent years, school has actively developed Barrier-free Adventure Based Learning and Virtual Reality Based Learning. Through barrier-free adventure based learning, students can learn to overcome obstacles, challenge themselves and build good problem solving skills, self-confidence and social skills. In the safe and realistic Virtual Reality classroom, student can learn from experiences as if they were in the environment so as to improve their ability, such as social adaptation, motivation to learn, problem-solving ability, eye-hand coordination and gross - motor skills.

 

Highlights

In addition to designing diversified courses and activities, what we really want to share with you is to convey love through art education.

Humans are born with five basic senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste, which can enhance their interest in the external environment, improve their exploration ability, and gain a better understanding of the world. For our students, the senses as a catalyst for art learning. Therefore, we have added the "five senses" pedagogy to the art curriculum, by adding a variety of sensory stimulation to learning, it helps to stimulate students’ learning interest and creativity. Students’ creativity will be transformed into artworks and let the art speak for themselves.

In addition, we actively cooperate with different groups and introduce different art media to our students. For example, our school was selected to participate in the“Journey of the Classics VI: From Textbook to Stageplay Drama II in Practice Project programme” for two consecutive years from 2018 to 2020. The programme enables students to express themselves, to develop self-confidence, and to communicate with the audience through performing art. Although face-to-face lectures were cancelled due to the epidemic, which might have disrupted students' learning, students can continue to study at home through online classes.

Art is full of emotions and thoughts. For severely mentally handicapped persons who have difficulty on listening, speaking, and understanding, art is a way for them to express. In order to provide students with a richer and more rewarding learning experience, Expressive arts therapy is provided for students. It is a body-mind-spirit intervention in multi-modal therapeutic approach that fosters therapeutic outcome integrating various arts. Through expressive arts therapy, it helps students to express their emotions, to improve their self-awareness, to promotes personal growth, to achieve whole-person development and let our staff to receive the message of love from our students with a new perspective, and let our students spreading the art of love.

On the other hand, we believe that art comes from life, so we try extracting creative inspiration from life. This year, we participated in a joint school art exhibition with the theme of "Butterfly Transformation". Under some guidance and assistance from instructor, our students transformed into butterfly fairies and embodied the positive attitude in love and art. Through the activity, our students and audiences can feel love and being loved, caring and acceptance.

In the past, we have won many awards. For example, in 2011 and 2018, we were awarded the Gold Award and Outstanding Performance Award respectively by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. We are glad that our beliefs have been recognized by the public.

In conclusion, education is a life-long journey which consist of joys and challenges. As special education personnel, we hope to be able to communicate with our students spiritually and let our students understand what love and beloved are. We will be satisfied that if our students have the same chance as their peer to learn, to do and to love!