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CAIS students are encouraged to serve and lead as part of their holistic development
CAIS students are encouraged to serve and lead as part of their holistic development
Schools worldwide are increasingly adopting a holistic approach to education, which puts the focus on the “whole child”, rather than simply textbooks, examinations and academic achievements. This involves developing each individual student’s needs, not only intellectually and vocationally, but also emotionally, physically and spiritually.
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“A good description of whole child education is ‘head, heart and hands’,” Richard Vanderpyl, head of school at Hong Kong’s Christian Alliance International School (CAIS), says on his return to EdTalk, South China Morning Post’s recurring video series of interviews in which experts discuss pertinent issues surrounding teaching.
“The curriculum has to be more than just facts and figures to fill the mind and sharpen the intellect. It is also about shaping the heart and equipping the hands. If their heart is shaped by kindness and a willingness to look out for the needs of others, then you have a sharp mind, a really soft heart [and] the serving hands – where they say, ‘From what I’ve learned, from how I feel, what can I do [for others]?’ … rather than ‘What can I get out of this school?’.”
Whole child education is one the missions of CAIS, a non-profit through-train school in Lai Chi Kok, Butterfly Valley, in Kowloon. It offers the Alberta curriculum and International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme to more than 1,600 children representing more than 30 nationalities, aged five to 17, across its preparatory, lower and upper primary, and secondary school sections.
“It is a core part of our DNA as a Christian school that our students have their eyes not just on themselves but on others,” Vanderpyl says. “We help our students to look outside of themselves to the needs of those around them. That is what we believe will make a very good society.”
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CAIS connects its curriculum with its service culture in a range of ways, for example its preparatory school’s annual “Beach Clean-Up Day”, which helps to teach the children about the importance of protecting the environment and doing something good for society.