Elite Hong Kong schools urged to raise the bar, challenge high-ability students

Critics have urged elite schools in Hong Kong to elevate their standards and provide more challenging tasks for top-performing students, according to the Education Bureau’s External School Review reports. The bureau assessed 68 secondary and primary institutions, highlighting the need for teachers to develop in-depth questions and tasks to stretch these high achievers. Some schools were instructed to better cater to learners’ diversity, including by assigning more advanced activities to pupils who finish tasks quickly.

Reviewers emphasized the importance of setting tiered tasks and higher-order questions for these students, suggesting the use of digital tools that enable self-paced advancement. They also recommended adjusting lesson difficulty and adopting collaborative designs for struggling pupils.

Queen Elizabeth School in Mong Kok, known for its academic performance, received particular criticism. The report noted that its strategies for stretching more able students were limited and advised the school to strengthen these efforts. The school’s university entrance exam results typically surpass city averages.

The report urged teachers to create more complex lessons, assign differentiated tasks, and incorporate higher-order thinking questions to challenge top performers. It also recommended using varying levels of prompting queries to foster deeper thinking among students.

Wa Ying College in Ho Man Tin and St Joseph’s College in Central were among the institutions given similar feedback. Both were advised to layer assignments by difficulty, set advanced supplementary challenges, and pose more analytical questions to push high-ability pupils.

Other schools received guidance to set more demanding work for high-ability pupils, such as St Joseph’s College, which was encouraged to broaden its pedagogical repertoire to address varying learning needs more effectively. Hennessy Road Government Primary School was told to provide enrichment exercises and digital tools for students who finish assignments early, while encouraging teachers to use more varied and complex questions to foster higher-order thinking skills.

Despite focusing on top performers, the reports also emphasized the need to support weaker learners. SKH Lee Shiu Keung Primary School was advised to optimise questioning techniques and use 'layered questions' to guide thinking and develop higher-order skills, as well as to enhance collaboration in group activities to better cater to different students’ learning needs.