The institute aims to become the world’s leading elite early education institution by training the students to excel in academia and virtues.

Established in the year 1980, Rightmind International Nursery & Kindergarten is a private independent school, which provides bilingual education with a total focus on Putonghua and English languages. It offers exceptional educational facilities on campuses situated in South Horizons and Shum Wan, Hong Kong. The institute operates under the aegis of Mrs. Betty Ho who has operated RMKG, in her capacity as School Supervisor, since 1997, when she took over a local kindergarten in Aberdeen. The school was initially known as Jimmy’s Kindergarten, which was renamed “Rightmind Kindergarten” in 2005 as a nod to its teaching philosophies, pertaining to the right brain teaching method.

A Wide Array of Offerings

The institute offers a variety of educational programs to ensure the overall development of its students. It aims to nurture kindness and academia, advocates respect for parents, love for siblings, diligence and trust and to empower children to be angels in the lives of others. Some of its special offerings include:

1. Rightbrain Education: This educational system aims to create a happy learning environment that stimulates the visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory and vestibular senses to ensure that children are stimulated and able to retain information and knowledge using their right brain senses
2. Music Education: The school places special emphasis on music education. A strong team of music teachers, qualified in conducting, music pedagogy or vocal training teach the students not only music but also show them how to enjoy it. The guidance of jazz singer/songwriter, Howard McCrary, as the school’s music consultant, assists the students and teachers to achieve new heights of excellence
3. Zhonghua Zijing: Zhonghua Zijing is a learning system developed at Zhengzhou University, China, that teaches 4,000 Chinese characters in just four books. These characters span 50 topics including Chinese history, science, geography, humanities and much more! Rightmind selects topics from the four books to teach the students to recognize Chinese characters and they practice by reading story books. By K3, the students obtain an extremely solid foundation in Chinese literacy
4. Rightmind Mathematics program: This innovative system uses stories to teach advanced mathematic concepts to Kindergarten aged children including binary function and co-ordinates
5. JELIC Program: These multiple intelligence enrichment activities balance the development of both hemispheres of the brain, through self-paced, hands-on experiences. It assists the children to strengthen their Judgment Quotient, Emotion Quotient, Logic Quotient, Intelligence Quotient and Creative Quotient, along with developing children’s intellectual reasoning, mathematical deduction, combinational thinking, life skills, linguistic capabilities and aesthetic creation
6. Letterland Phonics Program: The school offers phonemic awareness sessions in PreNursery class, followed by teaching letter sounds and blending from K1-K3 classes
7. Foreign Language Program: Under this program, students are given the opportunity to learn four languages during their 4 years at RMKG. They have also incorporated French and Spanish language into the curriculum
8. Mindfulness: RMKG teaches students mindful breathing and listening exercises which help them recognise, relax and regulate their inner feelings at an early age. It also helps them to develop compassion, focus, curiosity and empathy.

The school also offers the Crèche Program for children of 18–24 months. Launched in 2012, the program focuses on developing trust and helping children feel settled and secure. Students of the crèche class learn through play; immersive activities which adopt the right brain learning methods consistent with its teaching philosophies.

About the Erudite Leader

RMKG marches towards attaining excellence in education and students development under the astute leadership of Mrs. Betty Ho, the School Supervisor. As a right brain education specialist, founder of KinderU and KinderU Suzuki Music Academy, Betty has dedicated herself to learning about children’s brain development for the past twenty years. She is a memory course instructor and a Tomatis Practitioner. Betty has devoted herself to right brain education and brain-based learning methods. With in-depth knowledge in dermatoglyphics analysis, gifted and special needs education, child psychology, brain gym, and meditation, she incorporates her studies into the curriculum of RMKG and KinderU, which has become a unique teaching theory in Hong Kong that has proven to be most effective. Right brain education principles are based on love, helping young children to develop greater sensitivity, imagination and creativity, as opposed to focusing purely on academic achievements.

A Safe Haven for Education 

Safety of children is of primary concern for the authorities at RMKG. The low teacher–student ratio allows teachers to give individual attention to the students for their overall development. Students are accompanied by teachers at all times and in the unlikely event of an accident, trained first aid personnel on campus to provide quick and effective first aid.

Air purifiers installed across the campus and the serving of purified Kangen water during teatime ensure that students maintain a healthy life in the institute’s premises. Only organic produce and hormone free meat is given to students in order to eliminate any allergies they may have. By offering a healthy diet, the school aims to strengthen the students’ immune system, as a result of which, they are less likely to succumb to illnesses.

Focus on Parental Involvement

The school believes that parents are children’s first teachers.  Hence, parents are encouraged to participate in school activities. It organizes parents’ training to inform them of various new programs and teach them how to follow up at home. This way, parents also have the chance to experience what children were taught at school.

During school holidays in Easter and summer, RMKG organizes family trips and cruises. It also conducts informal gatherings (“A Date with the School Supervisor”) to meet with new parents so that they can better understand the school’s philosophy and learning culture.

RMKG highly values the cultivation of culture and education of love as it is crucial for children because they learn quickly and moral values must always come first. Parental involvement is encouraged at RMKG and parents are often invited to participate in its reading programs, performances and even learn together with their child. Through the learning of Dizigui, parents can also enhance their intergenerational relationships within their own family.

Maintaining a Disciplined Environment

The school spends the first term in the Crèche and Pre Nursery years nourishing good habits among the students. It aspires to build happy families and a harmonious society based on traditional wisdom, as advocated by scholars from China over the past two thousand years through the “Dizigui Program”. RMKG believes that parents are the most influential teachers because children emulate their actions. As such, the school encourages parents to review all the teachings of Dizigui with their children and put them into practice at home. The program also helps parents acknowledge that the effort they put into practicing good discipline and teaching good virtues at home to inspire everyone else in the school to do the same.

Instilling Essential Values

The school not only prepares the students academically, but it also instills the essential values of good living among the students. It believes in planting the seed of love and good values early in life. Hence, they teach the students traditional Chinese values using Dizigui as a basis of their moral education. With simple and useful indications like how to respect elders and how to behave with peers, it focuses on transforming students into well behaved young individuals.

RMKG also teaches virtues of compassion, perseverance and resilience to the students. It has invited many guest speakers to interact with parents and students. Renowned personalities like Nick Vujicic and Adrian Anantawan have visited the school. Nick’s story showed the students that no matter what life throws at them, as long as they believe in themselves, they can accomplish anything. Adrian and his parents shared their stories and experiences with the parents and the students.

The school instills a sense of charitable giving within the students with the expectation that they will grow up to become angels in the lives of others. In K3, the students learn about many different charities and the importance of helping others. It educates them about the good that these charities do and promote their charity programme “A Coin A Day”. RMKG has placed donation boxes for charities such as Children’s Heart Foundation, Orbis, Food Angel and Nourish the Children Foundation at both campuses.

RMKG staff, students and parents take part in the annual “Heart-to-Heart Charity Walk”. This event aims to create an awareness of children’s heart disease among the students and parents. The event further lays emphasis on the importance of exercise to have a healthy heart and focuses on raising funds for the Children’s Heart Foundation.

The Achievement Column

Throughout its illustrious journey of imparting excellent education to brilliant young minds, the school has achieved numerous noteworthy accolades. Some of the various awards that the school has won include:

• Academic awards: 2017 Precious Blood Primary School Mental Arithmetic competition – 7 students were awarded 2nd Runner up, gold, silver and bronze medals
• Public Competition Awards:
• 5^th China Artist Association Solo Singing Contest 2012 Silver & Bronze Medals
• 7^th China Artist Association Solo Singing Contest 2011 Gold & Silver Medals
• Speech Festival awards: Every Year for the past 10 years our students have achieved distinctions and merits in the Hong Kong Schools English and Chinese Speech Festivals
• Music Achievements in the past 10 years/since 2009:
• Sang the Chorus in the Music Album “Dear Lord” released globally by Nick Vujucic 2014
• Performed for many large public events, including 4 consecutive years of performances at the Hong Kong United Youth Association Annual Celebration in the presence of Hong Kong Government Officials
• Performed at many charities, including Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, Children’s Heart Foundation, Heep Hong Society and UNESCO
• Performed with the renowned Jazz musician and Grammy Award nominee, Mr. Howard McCrary at his Concert in 2012 at the Hong Kong Coliseum. McCrary joined the school in 2013 as the Music Consultant to further increase the students’ potential.

Pathway to the Future

Betty believes in Lifelong learning and focuses on updating and reviewing RMKG’s curriculum periodically. Every year, Mrs. Ho furthers her knowledge on early childhood-related topics. She continues to provide teachers with training according to the newest theories in education and the latest discoveries in early childhood education.  Marching ahead, she plans to update the music curriculum and start the school’s own instrumental program. Additionally, the school plans to expand its kindergarten education to the Greater Bay Area and open Rightmind Primary School.