SENSE

(The following information is provided by the school.)

Background

Tung Wan Mok Law Shui Wah School is a School for Social Development (SSD) serving students with severe emotional and behavioral problems and learning difficulties. The school is now operating classes from primary two to secondary six with a maximum capacity of 192 places. The residential home, Island Hostel, offers 144 residential placements.

The service we provide is mainly of transitional nature, of which students would be able to return to their original schools after the completion of a short-term adjustment programme. To facilitate teaching and learning, we have been improving the school environment and upgrading facilities since we had moved to the new campus in Tuen Mun.

To cater for students’ special needs and build up an active school, elements of sports, arts, creativity and life education are incorporated into our school-based curriculum, which aims to equip students to re-integrate into the mainstream education.

 

Highlights

To foster students’ learning interest and fulfill their potentials, Drama-in-Education is one of the school’s prominent programmes.

From 2008 onwards, the school has incorporated drama education elements into the school-based curriculum. Aside from teaching techniques on drama, elements of moral education values are added for enhancing students’ level of self-understanding and improving their inter-personal skills. Meanwhile, in order to give students optimal learning experiences, they had chance to stage performance in special occasions such as “Street performance”, Speech Day & Open Day.

To enrich the drama education programme, the school joined a drama in practice project named ‘Journey of the Classics: Modern Chinese Literature’ organized by Leisure and Cultural Services Department in 2017-2018. In cooperation with Prospects Theatre, such elements as performance appreciation, drama training, technical workshops and public performance were included. This project gave students an unprecedented experience on drama learning.

The school has been joining Jockey Club “Arts & Actions” Project – The Absolutely Fabulous Theatre Connection “Arts for Empowerment” from 2019-2022. This is a 44-month project focusing on developing an art-based curriculum in conversation with teachers, social workers and students from Caritas Mother Tesera School and our school. This project broadens the artistic horizon for teachers and students through Cultural Days, Foundation workshops for teachers and London exchange tour. “Arts for Change” will be adopted as an alternative approach to facilitate students’ self-understanding and the development of their unique potentials through applying the unique power of the arts to foster layered and nuanced emotional connections.

It comes as no surprise that Drama-in-Education does benefit students with special educational needs. Through ever-improving steps, it is hoped that curriculum in special education would further be enriched with multidisciplinary elements.