St. Joseph's Anglo-Chinese School

School History

Campus in the old days

New School Campus

In the Old Days of SJACS (1958-2010)

St. Joseph’s Anglo-Chinese School was founded by the late Rev. Bro. Paul Sun in 1958. The original school campus was a villa donated by a French Catholic, Madam Lily La Fleur.

During that time, there were 21 teachers and 455 primary and secondary students. In 1962, the first batch of 29 Form 5 students took the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination. In 1964, the government granted land and funding to build a campus for the secondary school section. In 1968, the new school building was completed and our secondary section became a grant-in-aid school.

In 1976, Mr. Chan Kong Chiu succeeded as the third principal. In 1978, the secondary section formally changed to a subsidized school, and thereafter the first batch of Form 7 students graduated in the year of 1982. On 13^th March, 1986, Bro. Paul Sun returned to God’s hand in peace.

In 1992, the first student association was elected. In 1997, Principal Chan Kong Chiu retired, and the post was taken up by Principal Yeung Siu Hung. In 2004, our Putonghua Panel Chairperson, Ms. Wong Lai Tse was awarded “Chief Executive’s Award for Teaching Excellence”. In February 2005, an External School Review was conducted to inspect our performance in the domains of “Learning and Teaching”, “Management and Organization”, “Student Support and School Ethos” and “Student Performance”. Our school received positive comments in various aspects.

On 15^th March, 2008, the 50^th Golden Jubilee Celebration Mass was held in the school auditorium. In the Homily, Rev. Cardinal Joseph Zen quoted that Bro. Paul Sun entrusted the school mission to St. Joseph who faithfully followed the Lord’s will. Moreover, Bro. Paul Sun’s philosophy was to build the school as a loving family where young people could learn about God in an environment of love and care. As he once said, “I prefer benevolence to sacrifice; it is manifested by Jesus…… Children must be nurtured in love to develop their wisdom, refine their temperament and excel in virtue.”

The school was modified from a villa donated by Madam Lily La Fleur.

Original School Site, 57 Kwun Tong Road (1958)

At that time, there were 455 students in 15 classes, ranging from Primary 3 to Secondary 2.

Teaching Staff Photo (1958-1959)

Foundation Stone Laying Ceremony (2^nd July, 1967)

Funeral of our Founder (17^th March, 1986)

50^th Golden Jubilee Celebration (15^th March, 2008)

Poon Choi Feast (23^rd January 2010)

A New Chapter of SJACS (2010-present)

After EMB announced that our school would be granted a new school campus in 2007, we started designing the property and raising fund. On 23^rd January, 2010, a Poon Choi Feast was held to provide a precious opportunity for old boys to visit their teachers at their Alma Mater. The feast raised about 100 thousand dollars for improving the facilities of the new campus. We moved in during Christmas 2010. On 2^nd January, 2011, our alumni held a “Lights Out” ceremony in the old campus, where officially the school recommenced on the new campus on 3^rd January, 2011.

In 2011, our school responded to the appeal of the Catholic Education Office and joined the Voluntary Optimization of Class Structure Scheme to facilitate sustainable development of secondary schools. In 2014, Principal Yeung Siu Hung retired and was succeeded by Principal Poon Wing Keung. A new era of “Ad Astra” had dawned.

On 14^th July, 2014, the first Form 1 parent orientation was held. Principal Poon greeted the new Form 1 parents and explained his vision of cultivating students with love and preparing them for university after six years of secondary school life. In July 2014, the adventure program, the life education, and the matching practice were incorporated into the Form 1 bridging course to facilitate an all-round development of our students. In August 2014, four wind turbines were installed with the Environment and Conservation Fund to generate power for our lighting system; they also promoted the renewable energy and environmental knowledge to our students and the community.

On 7^th Nov, 2015, the 7^th St. Joseph Science Community Program was held – 24 teams and 104 students participated in the competition where students built and competed with their robots in football matches. In November 2015, the renovation of the school chapel was completed; teachers and students can now celebrate the First Friday Mass in the newly decorated chapel.

In school year 2015-2016, the timetable was modified to 10 periods each day; the 6-day cycle was changed into weekday arrangement. Two ECA periods were introduced into the regular timetable to let students participate in various activities. Small class teaching was also implemented in Form 1 to cater for the learning diversity. In October 2016, under the initiatives of the Fourth Strategy on IT in Education, the Wi-Fi infrastructure was upgraded and mobile computing devices were purchased to pave the way of e-Learning in the future.

In 2016, our school is going to celebrate its Diamond Jubilee in 2018 and we have already celebrated the Commencement Ceremony a year in advance. The theme for the anniversary celebration is HOMECOMING. On the surface, we are simply inviting all alumni, retired teachers and other relevant parties who have a close relationship with SJACS to come back to the campus for the biggest celebration ever. We are hoping that the reunion will be a fruitful and successful one, such that the entire St. Joseph’s family will be able to bond even closer. To get deeper into the core essence of HOMECOMING, we need to review what we have achieved in recent academic years, and thus springboard to another milestone of the school’s development. To achieve this, Goal Setting is the key prerequisite to success – it defines the aim of the school to further uplift its reputation, not only within our locality, but also to create a bigger impact that goes beyond the district boundaries.

In 2017, St. Joseph’s Anglo-Chinese School has a long history in education and this year we celebrated our Diamond Jubilee in March, 2018. Different celebratory activities, like the Diamond Jubilee Walkathon, ball games, BBQ, the Gala Dinner, the Open Day Opening Ceremony, the Time Capsule Laying Rites, the Thanksgiving Mass, carnival and the Consecration Rites, just to name a few, were organized with many of our retired or former members of staff, alumni, parents and current students sharing the joyful and unforgettable moments together. Our deepest gratitude should be extended to our founder, Brother Paul Sun, who came from afar in the Mainland, following God’s will to serve the people who were in need of financial support.

In school year 2018-2019, we strove for the enhancement of the overall performance of all Josephians both internally in the school and externally in public examinations. Apart from the Elite Students Scheme and the Performance Enhancement Scheme conducted by subject teachers, we also received tremendous support from our old boys. Furthermore, we introduced the After-school Enhancement Course and the Athletes Academic Performance Improvement Classes. All these were done not only to focus on the elites who had already achieved commendable results, but also to assist the less academically competent students and athletes who contributed their time representing the school in inter-school competitions. We helped improve their performances in uniform tests and even in term examinations. It was under such conditions that more students could eventually benefit from the academic policy.

2019-2020 has been an absolutely challenging and unforgettable school year. Earlier in the year we experienced the social unrest followed by a worldwide epidemic. One common impact of both was an unprecedented and involuntary school closure. On the surface it seemed that all teaching and learning activities had to be ceased. However, with the joint effort of the teaching and non-teaching staff, Josephians were still able to ‘attend’ school like never before – in a new distancing norm.

In 2021, SJACS has entered her 63rd Anniversary this current academic year. Unfortunately, it has been another challenging year in the Hong Kong education sector and so at SJACS. During this pandemic, the normal running of the school has been affected in different ways. Fortunately though, with the support from all key stakeholders, we have overcome all challenges – big or small. We have now officially entered a period of ‘new normal’, yet we are hoping for the best in the resumption of ‘normal‘ in the near future.