In the morning on September 3, happy voices broke the quiet characteristic of summer holidays --- in greetings and laughters, we heard --- “I’m so happy to see all of you.”  The day began with the usual morning assembly at the Open Court --- the Flag Raising Ceremony for School Re-opening every year. To show our respect, the whole school stood quietly and solemnly, when the well-trained and highly dignified School Flag-raising Squad composed of the 5 Uniform Groups of the School, marched into the playground,.

When all the students and teachers gathered at the school hall to attend the School Re-opening Ceremony, our Principal, Ms Agnes Tang words were echoed by all with the joyful sharing of experiences of the summer holiday and the discovery of what the new academic year holds for them. 3 September 2012 will mark the beginning of the new 2012-2013 academic year. For the newcomers, a very warm welcome! For those returning for another new school year, they will be led by their teachers through another exciting exploratory journey in the vast sea of limitless wealth of knowledge. Ms Tang also expressed her warmest congratulations to our S6 students for they are going to meet another new phase of challenge in their study career in half year’s time, i.e. 2013 HKDSE. She then highlighted the encouraged results of our S6 students attending the first Hong Kong Diploma of Education which was a standard truly comparable to an EMI. It confirmed that the school was successful in using English as the medium of instruction ever since 2009.

Everyone in the school gets to meet the teachers and understand the school theme this year ——“Be Self-directed, Self-disciplined & Compassionate.” . Setting the direction for students’ character formation, 3 major qualities are identified with this year’s school theme. They are: 'Self-motivation', 'Self-discipline' and 'Compassion'. Positive attitude, learning habit, reading, healthy lifestyle, project-based learning, co-curricular activities, other learning experiences, life-wide and life-long learning such as English Great Movie Show, Learning English through Drama and Story Telling, Campus Radio, Learning Chinese Martial Arts in the curriculum --- new impetus for learning and new food for thought, continue to be important. What a lot of excitement!

To help students acquire the skills and foster a correct attitude towards learning, our Principal further introduced to us the School Major Areas of Concerns of 2012-13:
1.  Promoting Quality Teaching to Achieve Active and Effective Learning;
2.  Optimizing Students’ Competence in English through Language Across Curriculum; and
3.  Strengthening Moral and Civic Education as well as Establishing a Caring School Culture.

As students were to face the new challenges ahead, as put by Ms Tang, they must be wondering what their studies and future mean to them. She also understood that parents and teachers would no doubt be equally, if not more, concerned about the new academic structure and how it would impact the future of our students, and as said by Ms Tang, the School will do our utmost to guide students and see them through -– “S. C. Gaw is your second home.”. Ms Tang pointed out that as our students are to strive for the highest standards in their studies and all-round attainment.  It was told that our students achieved balanced development and performed equally well in non-academic areas by attaining a total of 1479 prizes and award in 2011-12 in a good range of domains.  Looking back to the remarkable development of the School, some of the S. C. Gaw graduates and our students in these 2 years, we are now setting new intellectual, speech, music, sports, dance, arts achievements and records that certainly do make us proud.

The ceremony continued with a video show that recalled the memorable stories of students. The video summarized all the activities of students done last year and it is a running history telling us what we have done, learned and been nurtured.

The last part of the Ceremony was Harp performance by the Friends of the Harps. Our S.6 student, Cheung Siu-ching being the scholarship student of the Assoication gave a demonstration on how the various types of Harps could be played and shared with us her learning experience. Then came the wonderful purpose of our Guest Harp Artist from the Association.  After this special session, we all realize that the timbre of harp is so pure and nice and it is undoubtedly a sound of harmony and peace that we look for.

The ceremony ended with the hearty and ever-supportive sharing made by the Form Masters/Mistresses. Different words but of the same thoughts —— be responsible students, positive thinkers and communicative learners. Their words of care and love strongly etched into the hearts and minds of our students. Such is the way this school year declared its official re-opening --- A promising beginning and building with our heart for creating an enriched and dynamic as well as vibrant learning platform for our student