YMCA of Hong Kong Christian College (), abbreviated as YHKCC, is a secondary school located at Tung Chung, Lantau Island, Hong Kong operated under the Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS) of the Education Bureau. It is the first secondary school sponsored by the YMCA of Hong Kong.
The school is known as an international school at affordable costs, i.e. a local DSS college offering international learning environment and international curriculum. However, much of the curriculum in the international stream is still DSE-oriented, with Form 4 IGCSE students still having Citizenship and Social Development lessons 2.5 times a week, which is actually more than their DSE stream schoolmates of the same form 4. Additionally, there is a Chinese flag raising every week in Tuesday morning briefings. In the international atmosphere, 73% of the students in the school are international students, who come from over 40 countries. Over 40% of the school's teachers are from overseas.
History The school was established in September 2003. It was the first directly subsidised Christian secondary school sponsored by the YMCA of Hong Kong since its establishment in 1901. It was the only EMI school within Tung Chung.
Mrs. Rosalind Chan served as Principal from 2004 to 2009. In 2009, the new artificial turf pitch, running tracks and grass field were created.
At the 2009–2011 school year Dr. Nick Miller, former supervisor of the school, succeeded to serve as the principal. During the governing by Dr. Miller, the international curriculum was introduced to the school in 2010. A school concert of large scale was held in 2011.
The Hong Kong curriculum which consisted of the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE) and the Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination (HKALE) has been replaced by the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) as of 2012. The diverse culture, background, languages and curriculum of the school was highly praised by a politician during the graduation ceremony that year. The first ever International Fun Fair was held in December of that year.
Dr. Adrian Price took office as the new principal from the beginning of the 2012–2013 school year. But in May 2013, he suddenly resigned on private grounds. Starting from the school year 2013–2014, Mr. Dion Chen took over as principal. In May 2013, the school was visited by the Secretary for Education who observed the international atmosphere and education style as the uniqueness of the school. In June 2013, a new music block is dedicated during the graduation ceremony.
During a sports meeting in the Tsing Yi Sports Ground on 3 November 2014, some teachers learned that there were rumors among the students that some brownies and cupcakes containing marijuana were sold. The teachers later found two Form 4 female students of Croatian and British origin respectively in the stands. After the police arrived, they found five brownies and 22 cupcakes in a plastic bag, and found that the two students had discussed the sale of marijuana-containing cakes in a Facebook message. The government laboratory technician detected a total of 0.38 grams of cannabis derivatives in the cakes. The two have pleaded guilty to drug trafficking, and one of them was fined $10,000 at Tsuen Wan Magistrates' Courts.
In September 2016, the school provided new school uniform for boys and girls.
In 2018, the school's STEM Club demonstrated to the public as well as the Secretary for Education about the robotics inventions.
In 2019, it was the first time the school enrolled Form 1 students from SWYHKCS, an English private primary school located in Kowloon also sponsored by YMCA of Hong Kong, as a school network, An article about the school being visited by YMCA Jintang Primary School in Sichuan, China. where those students already received sufficient education of local curriculum for Chinese language and Mathematics education, international curriculum for English language and other subjects including STEM subjects corresponding to the education in the United Kingdom. After the protest on 1 September 2019, the school postponed the start of term until the next day because of considerable uncertainty resulting from the dangerous situation in Tung Chung station and the likelihood of traffic disruption. During the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests, the school issued a letter-to-parent in November 2019 mentioning that games and social networking platforms were recently used to "entice, pressure and intimidate students into participating in protests in return for payment". The principal received an inquiry from Apple Daily and said that the above fact was notified by the Education Bureau.
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, classes are suspended and students are confined to distance education. Online learning was performed throughout the school period for all subjects. During the suspension period, a video was created by the Science Department of the school which explains the details of Coronavirus disease 2019. While the epidemic situation hinders parents' livelihood, the school helped bail out the tuition fees for next academic year. The school has paid or promised to pay more than HK$700,000 deposits to travel agencies for the purpose of organising study tours. When the government issued red tourism warnings to all overseas countries, travel agencies and airlines took the initiative to contact the school to discuss compensation arrangements. The IGCSE and GCE examinations were cancelled, though the school claimed that they were not too worried about the impact on further education of students, as most of them have already obtained conditional offers by that time. In February 2021, the school arranged for teachers to be forced COVID-19 testing for the whole school to resume classes, as the COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong has fallen. The principal told the entire school staff to be mentally prepared for testing.
On 8 February 2021, Principal Dion Chen announced he would be moving on to Ying Wa College. On 23 April 2021, it was announced during a school assembly that Diana Lo would succeed as principal. As of 1 September 2021, Diana Lo officially succeeded to serve as the principal.
History of principals +TenureNameRemarks12003–2004Dr. Alice Yuk22004–2009Mrs. Rosalind ChanShe retired at the end of the 2008–2009 school year, and died in July 2017.32009–2011Dr. Nick Miller He resigned and became Principal of Australian International School Singapore in January 2012, and died in April 2015.42012–2013Dr. Adrian PriceIn May 2013, he suddenly resigned on private grounds.52011–2012 (acting), 2013 (acting), 2013–2021Dion ChenServed at the school for 17 years upon departure. He resigned to become Principal of Ying Wa College.62021–Diana LoIn 2003, she joined the YMCA of Hong Kong Christian College as one of its founding Science teachers. Since then, she has held the capacities of Head of Department, Head of Year, Head of the Pastoral Team, Head of Administration & Admissions, Assistant Principal, and Deputy Principal respectively.
Campus environment
The school is located at North Lantau New Town in Tung Chung, Lantau Island. It is adjacent to Mun Tung Estate and Caritas Wu Cheng-Chung College.
The school covers an area of about 15,000 square meters. The teaching building is eight stories high, with six classrooms on each of 1/F to 5/F. General facilities include a canteen currently operated by Sodexo on G/F, a careers centre and a reading corner on 1/F, an assembly hall on 2/F, and a library on 7/F.
Special rooms include a dance room on 1/F, a Chinese room on 2/F, a home economics room on 3/F, four laboratories on 4/F to 6/F, a black box theatre named Trinity Hall on 5/F, a STEM makerspace on 6/F, a fine arts centre on 7/F, and a fitness room on R/F.
There is an independent two-storey high building called Music Block which cost HK$26 million. This building consists of two studios.
Aside from the teaching building, there are many first-class sports facilities in the school, such as a four-lane 100-metre running track with a long jump sand-pit, a basketball court, an all-weather covered playground which is fully air-conditioned, and a multi-purpose turf pitch and grass field which usually serves as a football pitch.
School emblem The outermost circle in blue colour represents completeness, unity of the total of life, and God's created order. The inner circle represents friendship and love without end. The book with the school motto is Bible which represents faith and strength. The triangle in red represents Trinity, as well as the YMCA Movement. The Greek alphabets Χ and ρ in blue represents the word Christ.
Academics Teaching and learning Academic departments include Chinese and Chinese History, English, Mathematics, Science, Humanities, Business, Physical education, and Visual arts.
All subjects at the school are taught in English, except second languages. Chinese language is for all students, in which the classes are divided into different level of difficulties according to the students' language background. Other second languages in the regular curriculum include Spanish language and French language.
The school provides various learning activities outside the classroom throughout the years, as well as organising inter-school competitions. With its alternative learning profile, the school provides flexible homework to students. The science department has conducted experiential learning activities on campus outside the classroom, which include physics corners, chemistry corners, science weeks and annual science talks with guest speakers etc. Innovative learning activities are also introduced to students to learn the latest technologies together with the theory.
In the STEM fields of studies, the school has purchased many equipments of latest technologies at school for the learning of students. Biotechnology workshops are offered by the school for the students studying science, which are rare opportunities in any secondary school settings in Hong Kong. Other STEM related equipments include astronomical telescopes for learning astronomy, six 3D printers for makers' projects with 3D printing, and programming robots of different brands and models.
The school offers both the Hong Kong and National Curriculum for England. The Hong Kong curriculum consists the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE). The English National Curriculum comprises the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) and GCE A/AS-Level. No more than half of the students take the GCE course, and the rest take the DSE course. In the school, continuous assessments are adopted. Tests are given on a regular basis and examinations are held two times a year.
Students achieved outstanding IGCSE results. 43% of the students achieved A to A*, and 80% of the students achieved C or above, with a pass rate of 100%. 40% to 50% of the graduates were enrolled into universities for further studies every year, and most of them studied science or engineering in universities like University of Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, University of London, University of Newcastle, University of Glasgow, Cardiff University, University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia etc. In addition to science-related careers like nursing, graduates also work as English teachers, fitness coaches, football coaches or in hotels.
Class structure There are Form 1 to 6 in the school, referring to grade 7 to grade 12 of international schools. There are six classes in every form. The classes are named as Y, M, C, A, H, and K. For examples, there exist 1A and 2K etc. The class sizes of Form 1 to 4 are about 24–29, whereas that of Form 5 to 6 are 17–26. School fees remains unchanged for Form 1 students for two years, and increases when they reaches Form 3 and again when they reaches Form 5.