Teacher culture is widely regarded as a factor affecting the success of school improvement efforts. Descriptions of teacher cultures in the literature are often rooted in particular historical, geographical and socio-political contexts, which may limit the wider applicability of these models. This paper goes beyond a simplistic comparison of schools against pre-defined models of culture. It provides a rare insight into one of Hong Kong's international primary schools and describes the centrality of collegial support in teachers' day-to-day lives. The evidence confirms that transformational forms of leadership are central to building a supportive school culture, but high expectations of teachers and strong collegial support do not create rigorous development of practice and may in fact work against it. This paper contributes to our knowledge of teacher cultures in a way which can help stimulate discussion of Hong Kong’s diversity of school types in more than simple structural terms.
老師文化被廣泛認為是影響學校成功改善的因素之一。文獻中描述的教師文化模式，多植根於歷史、地理及社會政治因素，因而限制了更廣泛地應用這些模式。這篇文章超越了簡單地把學校與既定文化模式作對比，對一所香港的國際小學提出精闢的見解，同時描繪老師日常生活互相支持的核心要素。研究數據證實，要建立學校支援文化，最重要的是轉化型的領導才能；此外，老師過高的期望和強有力的同儕支持，卻不能在實踐上產生精確的發展，甚至會造成反效果。這篇文章加深我們對教師文化模式的認識，從而激發我們對香港不同類型學校作深入探討，而不僅是依據簡化的系統作研究。
[Copyright of New Horizons: The Journal of Education, Hong Kong Teachers' Associationl is the property of Hong Kong Teachers' Association at http://www.hkta1934.org.hk/]

It is widely accepted that assessment has a link with learning. One key factor in the link is formative assessment. Formative assessment is generally defined as taking place during a course with the express purpose of improving pupil learning. However, there is still considerable disagreement over the roles of teachers and pupils in this process (Torrance & Pryor 1998, p.8). It is therefore very important to understand how teachers perceive their roles and their pupils' roles in the formative assessment events. This paper will report on an investigation into teachers' perceptions of their roles and their pupils' roles in the formative assessment process. The investigation, which involved over 1000 teachers from 35 primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong, invited teachers to show their views by completing a questionnaire. To supplement the data collected from the questionnaire survey, a sample number of teachers were interviewed. Discussion will be focused on a comparison of the findings with the current literature, leading to some implications for the roles of teachers and pupils in the formative assessment process.
[Copyright of Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) at http://www.aare.edu.au]