Our ECA structure contains four programmes, namely the House System, Student Clubs, Leadership programme and Public Service.
House System
a. All students (and staff except SLT members) are assigned a House out of four at random from the day they enter the school, and remain at that House until the day they exit the school.
b. Every Wednesday’s ECA time is devoted to House events, which are mainly inter-House competitions of one sort or another. While most of these competitions are of a sporting nature, i.e. basketball, football, ping pong, dodge ball, etc, there are also non-sporting games, such as spelling bee and general knowledge quiz. The House competition fixture is produced at the beginning of the year so that everyone knows what events are coming up.
c. After each competition, each House will receive points based on its standing in the results. At year’s end, the winning House will have its name engraved on the trophy cup and get to keep/show the cup in its trophy cabinet for the entire following year.
d. Every Wednesday students and staff alike will wear their House colours and cheer their own teams on during the competition.
e. The Sports Day competitions, held on one school day each year, will run in House units. Every athlete has a chance to win House points and honour for his/her House. Indeed they step onto the podium to accept medals/certificates, they are acclaimed by their House mates.
Student Clubs
a. Student Clubs may be teacher led or student led. The club leader/organiser applies to form a club in a written form. Once approved and successful in recruiting enough members, he/she will run the club for a semester according to certain criteria. The club may be funded partly or wholly depending on competing claims for funds and the size of the earmarked budget.
b. Each student must attend/run one club at the minimum as a progression/graduation requirement. They can attend a maximum of three clubs on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.
c. Student Clubs may be of different varieties, as long as they help support and develop healthy interests and abilities in students. They may be sporting kind (yoga, football, aerobics), academic kind (mathematics, sciences, debating), artistic kind (hip pop, calligraphy, origami), board games (go, chess, scrabble, backgammon)
d. At the end of the club season, each club will have a culmination event, whether it is a competition, exhibition or charity sale.
e. The sporting clubs may double as school sporting teams to compete against other local schools in whatever format available, i.e. members of boys basketball club will be school’s team. They will train during club time and may compete against other schools on weekends or at other times.
f. In principle, all student clubs are free to students. Any cost in running a club may be covered by relevant school budget. But if a cost is high, or the budget is exhausted, the organiser may ask members to voluntarily pay for expenses incurred. This may happen when an outside professional is hired to conduct training, or students go off campus to engage in horseback riding, archery, and such like.
Student Leadership Programme
a. The programme includes bodies: student union, prefects, House captains, class monitors, club leaders.
b. Student Union is a body where its members are elected by popular vote of all students. Candidates conduct hustings to sway voters. There are five positions in the SU, which are chairman, deputy chair, head of entertainment, head of publicity and head of external relations. Each member may recruit helpers from the general student population for particular jobs. SU has its own budget, and is responsible for organising school wide events like fashion show, Halloween night, Spring Festival show, charity dance, etc.
c. Prefects are selected by teachers, all teachers that interact with them. Their function is to help school perform various roles, like representing schools outside, supervising detention, chairing assemblies, shepherding visiting parents on P/T conference days.
d. House captains are selected by House masters (teachers) on certain criteria. First year HCs are chosen after a two-day camp is concluded. New students camp is scheduled usually within the first month of the school year. HC’s main duty is to organise competitors for their own house to compete in upcoming House competitions. They also need to take care of team uniform, drinking water, cheer squad, etc. Sometimes they also organise training.
e. Class monitors are form class based and are chosen by form tutors/personal mentors, or a class vote (decided by form tutor). Positions to fill include class rep (member of junior council which meet with principal once a month to make representation of their constituents), social monitor (outings, birthday parties), publicity monitor (announcements, class display board)
f. Student Club leaders. See above
g. About one fifth of all students will be holding a position of leadership of one kind or another.
h. All student leadership titles will be shown under his/her name wherever names appear on School Management System, and their work referred to in school reference letters.
Public Service
a. Each student must complete four hours of public service each semester, or they will not be allow to progress or graduate.
b.
Activities that count as public service include:
i. Charity sale to raise funds for reputable charity bodies or people in need. This may involve donating or collecting items for sale and actual sale of goods on or off campus.
ii. Using one’s strong academic knowledge/skills to help a schoolmate with his/her studies.
iii. Helping a needy neighbour (elderly or handicapped person living alone) with shopping, house chores, walking a dog, or just keeping them company
iv. visiting old people’s homes or orphanages bearing gifts (this could be done in form class units)
v. collecting litter at a public place (beach, park). This is a catch-all method for any student who is in danger of failing to complete their public service duties near the end of semester. The school may organise a bus for such a trip.
vi. Any other worthwhile deed.
c. All public service actions must be supported by photos, testimonials, and detailed records entered or uploaded onto the SMS