Theme and Aims

Local PE in schools has developed rapidly in the past decades. The subject has been included as one of the examination subjects in the HKCE in 1989. Following the government mandate of having qualified PE teachers to teach the subject in schools in 1990, it has been identified as one of the key learning areas acknowledging it as fundamental and major knowledge domain in schools in the current education reform (Education Commission, 1999; 2002). Accordingly, all schools are recommended to allot at least 5 percent of the curriculum time for the subject. In the recent development of the senior secondary school curriculum, PE has been suggested as other essential learning experience in the forms of general PE and one of the electives in the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (CDC, 2007). The development signifies considerable professional and academic advancement of the subject in the school curriculum, which in return requires PE teachers to be helped continuously to develop professionally.

On the other hand, local educational reform efforts have addressed new goals of education in terms of “learning to learn” and “all round development” and the role of teachers as being facilitators rather than knowledge providers (Education Commission, 1999; 2002). Teachers are key players in the reform movements as they directly involve in learning and teaching for the students. Accordingly, they have been urged to improve the quality of teaching and to be prepared to be reflective and innovative in their teaching. They have to possess new knowledge in their subject area for facilitating more student-centred learning. They were asked to incorporate new methods of instruction and to introduce new approaches for promoting students’ learning towards the educational goals in the current education reform. Apart from achieving educational goals highlighted in the 6 strands and 5 values and attitudes, nurturing students’ creativity and critical thinking are recommended as important learning-to-learn skills for all key learning areas including PE aiming at promoting their life-long learning capability.

However, the concepts and nature of “creativity” and “critical thinking”, and how respective skills for developing these learning-to-learn skills through PE in schools are relatively unfamiliar for most PE teachers. Opportunities and platform have to be provided so that PE teachers can be shared and nurtured for incorporating these skills in their school PE curriculum. Thus, organization of the Summer School for PE Teachers 2008 aiming at nurturing PE teachers with knowledge and skills for nurturing students’ creativity and critical thinking is a timely initiative. It aims to build up knowledge-based sharing culture. The major objectives of the Summer School for PE Teachers 2008 are formulated as follows: