Background
Since 2003, the Education Bureau (EDB) has been organising and developing the theme for ‘My Pledge to Act’ in every school year. Schools are encouraged to create campus atmosphere through collective commitment and a series of related learning activities, helping student to develop healthy lifestyle and nurture good character so as to enhance their whole-person development.
Theme of the 2019/20 School Year
This year, the theme of ‘My Pledge to Act’ is "expressing gratitude, to cherish, be proactive and optimistic". Schools are encouraged to help students develop a sense of gratitude, learn to cherish the things they have; adapt a proactive and optimistic attitude towards life, in order to help them face the challenges and difficulties of growing up.
Rationale and Strategies of Implementation
‘My pledge to Act’ aims to empower students to set goals and put them into action. It enables students to integrate subject knowledge acquired, positive values and attitudes and the personal pledges with practical actions so as to help them develop a healthy lifestyle; and also rally concerted efforts of schools, families and other stakeholders in the society to arouse public awareness of importance of cultivating students’ positive values and attitudes.
Schools are encouraged to formulate a systematic and holistic plan for ‘My Pledge to Act’. Measures relevant to the theme of the school year may be incorporated into the 2019/20 school plan, or the school development plan of the coming 2-3 school years. Appropriate school-based curriculum and learning activities may be designed for in accordance with the school’s characteristics and students’ needs.
Diversified learning activities in line with learning objectives can enhance students’ participation and learning effectiveness. For example, make use of Moral and Civic Education lessons, weekly assemblies, class teacher periods, Personal Growth Education lessons, or Life Education lessons, conduct subject-based, co-curricular learning activities, for whole-school participation, hence creating a learning environment conducive to nurturing relevant values for students.
Schools may conduct a variety of life-wide learning activities according to the interests and needs of their students, such as student award programme, growth camp, community service, creative competition, etc., in order to help students fulfil their pledge and enhance the impact on learning.
Resources and Support
Schools are encouraged to continue to organise ‘My Pledge to Act’, the EDB provided posters on the theme of the current school year in late August 2019, and produced resource webpages with diverse reference materials, including learning and teaching resources, student handbook, activity suggestions, e-poster, exhibition templates and electronic certificate of appreciation templates for the schools to download. This year, four characters of mascot (樂諾小太陽) have been designed to represent the positive values of "gratitude", "cherish", "proactive" and "optimistic". Related resources and various templates such as stickers, instant messaging stickers and photo props will be available for schools to download.
In addition, the EDB will organise a "sharing session on the learning outcome of My Pledge to Act (2019)" in June 2020. To show recognition to schools for their active participation, schools will be invited to share their experiences gained. The EDB also organises a series of professional development programmes, in the forms of talks and workshops, to enhance teachers’ knowledge and skills related to the learning activities.
In three consecutive school years since 2019/20, to promote the implementation of school-based curriculum and learning activities related to the theme of "expressing gratitude, to cherish, be proactive and optimistic", publicly-funded secondary and primary schools and kindergartens in the kindergarten Education Scheme can submit mini-scale Quality Education Fund (QEF) applications annually through simplified procedures for funding of not exceeding $200,000 . For details of the funding programme, please refer to the related QEF webpage.
Schools may flexibly use the existing subsidies, including the "Operating Expenses Block Grant / Expanded Operating Expenses Block Grant" and "Life-wide Learning Grant" (Education Bureau Circular Memorandum No. 16/2019), in the implementation of school-based curriculum and conducting various learning activities under the theme of ‘My Pledge to Act’ to enrich students’ learning experiences.
Theme
Expressing gratitude, to cherish, be proactive and optimistic
Key Messages
Mode
The following learning and teaching resources and activity recommendations are for schools’ reference only. Schools may design school-based teaching materials according to their students’ needs for activity implementation related to ‘expressing gratitude, to cherish, be proactive and optimistic’.
Learning and Teaching Resources
Activity Recommendations
Promotional Resources
Online Resources
Four characters of mascot (樂諾小太陽) have been designed by the EDB to represent the positive values of "gratitude", "cherish", "proactive" and "optimistic". Schools can download the mascot related resources to facilitate activity implementation.
(Schools can download the instant messaging stickers and create their own custom sticker packs according to the needs of school-based activities).
Distribution of resource materials
Remarks: Schools are welcome to utilise the "mascot" (樂諾小太陽) for printing school-based ‘My Pledge to Act’ activity resources after seeking copyright permission from the EDB by email (mcne@edb.gov.hk) .
Promotional materials for loan
The EDB has produced three sets of「樂諾小太陽」promotional materials, including theme props, encouraging quotes and photo props(Chinese version only). These promotional materials are now available for loan by schools for organising theme-related activities. Interested schools may download the application form (Chinese version only), and fax or email the completed form to the EDB.
‘My Pledge to Act’ (2019) Official Facebook Page
The EDB launched the "My Pledge to Act" Official Facebook page (Chinese version only) in November to provide the latest information on the scheme (2019) as well as a platform for schools to share their experience gained in implementing activities related to the ‘My Pledge to Act’ (2019).
Examples of Key Learning Areas/ Subjects related topics
Examples of Home-School Co-operation Activities
Parent-child talk
Parent-child voluntary activities
In addition to the online resources provided on the ‘My Pledge to Act’ (2019) resource website, the EDB invites schools to share their related experiences with a view to sustaining the impact of "My Pledge to Act" on student learning. Schools are invited to submit to us short videos (not exceed 3 minutes) to showcase their schools’ good practices for conducting learning activities under ‘My Pledge to Act’ (2019) which help students develop positive values and attitudes of "Expressing gratitude, to cherish, be proactive and optimistic". Participating schools should upload their short videos to YouTube and send the completed application form to the EDB via email (mcne@edb.gov.hk).
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