Several years have elapsed and it was the right time to take a break and look back what we had achieved in the past and look into the future as well. Two days of reflection on 6th and 7th June, 2012 were valuable time when all teaching staff sat together to review the School Major Areas of Concern of this and the past 3 academic years. Driving forward and into the future, we plan for the development for the coming years.

The reflection days started on 6th June when all the heads of the Boards, the Departments and the Subjects gave a SWOT analysis on the areas of their concern. Through analysis of our strengths, we admired our highly efficient professional team and appreciated our devotion to education. We would keep on capitalizing our strengths to strive for further success. In reviewing our weakness, we discovered the lack of funding, facilities and time constraints. Even though such limitations existed, we had the courage to overcome those difficulties instead of being disgruntled, dissatisfied and even indifferent. We were all joyful when we came to the opportunities. We were delighted by the fact that the image and reputation of the school towards English and All-round Education has been improving and it clearly demonstrates our effort paid in the past 2 years had not been in vain. We were all vigilant to the threats—the external turbulent and competitive environment due to the downward trend of students' population. In face of such a difficulty, we were not those people blindly choosing to let life "happen" to them. Instead, we would try our best to minimize the adverse effects arising from those threats.

On 7th June, we evaluated our performance in the past year. We discussed "What we had done?", "How effective things were done?" and "What improvements could be made?" We were divided into groups according to the three "Major Areas of Concerns" of the year. For the first major area of concern—"Develop Students' Self-Learning Capacity for Effective Learning", we appreciated the various tactics applying such as online reading, Junior form reading scheme and the creative methods used by teachers to enhance self-learning capacity of students. We did believe that there were rooms for improvement before we reached the day when all students were enthusiastic and capable of learning by themselves. In discussing the second major concern—"Optimise Students' Competence in English through Language across Curriculum", we admitted that the mindset of students had changed and they were willing to learn. Their apathy in the learning and use of more English has been improving. The school had developed a lot of effective teaching methods such as Writing across Curriculum, English Drama Training, English Story Telling, etc. and we had built up an English-rich environment for students. We all believed that we would not stop. Instead, we were looking for new and creative ways, not just for establishing English-rich environment but also for nurturing English-rich students. At last, we came to the final concern—"Cultivate Students' Personal Quality, Promoting National Education through Joint Efforts of Teaching, Discipline and Guidance". We made a complete evaluation on the arrangement of lessons, from-based pastoral care activities, peer group counseling and whole-school mass functions and activities. We understood that values-based education was a long-term process and we all admitted that our students were pure, sincere and well behaved.

Before we came to our final part of the day—making our Three-year School Development Plan, our Principal provided us a brief but valuable lesson on the ways to make objectives and strategies so that we could all handle the keys in making strategic planning. Then, groups were formed into three aspects: "Teaching and Learning", "English Development" and "Moral Education". For "Teaching and Learning", we went through comprehensive discussions on catering for diversity, assessment for learning and high-quality learning. It was no doubt that we had a strong desire to boost the academic performance of students. For "English Development", we concluded that the present strategies should be continued and strengthened and the student-to-student English environment should be enhanced. For "Moral Education", the present 3-Stage-Six-Form Themes to cultivate students are to be continued so as to ensure the nurturing of all-round and well-behaved students who are responsible citizens to our society and country.

When the programme came to an end, we appreciated our efforts put in these two days and the sound strategies that we have worked out. Our bodies were tired but our spirit was high. We understood our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and we knew what to do and where to go. It was the right time for all of us to move on and strive for brighter future for our School as well as for our Students.