Primary Schools’ Salesian Educative Pastoral Plan

Hong Kong 16 February 2015 – Primary schools of China Province in Hong Kong jointly organized the Salesian Educative Pastoral Plan (SEPP) Teachers Development Day. The theme was to formulate the school development plan with the SEPP approach.

The objectives were to celebrate DB200 through a whole school participation in formulating the "Vision, Mission and Value" of the schools, so as to internalize and implement Don Bosco’s Preventive System. During the process of formulating the SEPP, all schools experience a sense of unity and a sharing of common conviction. This was a valuable occasion for the schools, using the same method and format, to formulate the SEPP which was also the future school development plan.

Fr. Andrew Fung introduced the new idea of "Lay Mission Partner", even non-Christian teachers could participate in the SEPP. The atmosphere of the school, and even the attitude of the reception staff of the school could reveal the SEPP elements. In fact, all levels of the school are invited to participate in the SEPP formulation. The term development in the Salesian sense is “Growth”. SEPP was about the growth of the teachers and students in school. All levels should participate in order to have a common of attitude, direction and goal of work in school. SEPP helped the teachers to know more about the conviction of Don Bosco and the Salesians. Thus, schools could formulate a Salesian style of school development plan. This was something that we could dream together.

All the teachers were divided into small groups to learn writing of SEPP. The discussion results were fruitful and revealed that the teachers had a good understanding of SEPP.

As a conclusion, Fr. Lanfranco Fedrigotti, Provincial of China Province shared 3 important messages of Don Bosco to all the teachers: The stability and joy of the society depends on what kind of education the children receive. We as human beings, the most important lessons are those we learn in the early stage of boyhood and this affects us throughout our lives. So, our work in primary school is crucial to the lives of children. Finally, children imitate us, we are their role models, and that is very important indeed.