August 24, 2020

COVID19 has changed drastically how students learn and gain practical experience. We are not deterred and continue to look for ways to provide real life experience for our learners. This Summer our debaters participated in International Debating Competition against teams from United Kingdom and Uganda. Congrats to our debaters in taking on the challenges and delivered well prepared speeches. Join us today and be part of our winning team!! 

May 31, 2020

This year Future Leaders Academy's young writers will have an official book launch at the Hong Kong Book Fair. Also our debaters and public speakers will receive awards on stage at the Exhibition Center for their achievements at the World Junior Schools debating and public speaking competitions.

May 15, 2020

How often do you worried about your child can’t speak with confidence? The usual suspect is because they are shy. Really? I am sure 9 out of 10 children are not really shy. Many will speak confidently about what they like or know the most. They can tell you the details of their favourite games without a blink of their eyes. But when ask them talk about anything else they shut down. Clearly they are not shy. So why can't your child speak confidently? How can debate help?

After working with tens of thousands of young leaners, the key reasons for speaking confidently are lack of knowledge, incoherent structure and ineffective delivery.  These are the key areas where debaters are trained to overcome these challenges.

First, it’s critical to know what you are saying. One key challenge today is too much information is all over the Internet. Any untrained young learners might be able to find some basic information from sources like Wikipedia. However, it lacks clear, systematic explanation to help young learners to understand better.  It also does not have the depth to help learners to form solid understanding of a subject. Debate helps learners develop critical learning skills to discover and acquire knowledge that is valid and relevant. They learn how to evaluate the validity and important of information searched from the Internet or any other sources. So that they can acquire correct knowledge to be discussed about.

Once the knowledge is acquired effectively, it’s important to structure the knowledge. The ability to categorize and prioritize acquired knowledge helps young leaners organize their thought logically. They will be able to write down their ideas more structurally and coherently. This is critical because they need to let others understand their ideas easily. Only with simple and logical structure, key ideas can be shared effectively. Debate constantly train learners develop to structure their thought and writing.

Finally, communication to others has to be engaging. Messages must be passed to others through various delivery skills in both verbal and non-verbal cues. It can be as simple as speaking with a solid audible voice, adding emphasis to the key points and varying the tone. It’s also important to give effective non-verbal signals like proper eye-contact, facial expression and body gesture. The delivery skills are often emphasized during debate training.

Debate targets these core area: knowledge building, coherent thinking, and effective delivery through training of Matter, Method and Manner. As debaters develop and improve these skill areas, they will naturally speak with ease and confidence. If your children are able to build up valid relevant knowledge, develop structured and logical thought, and share ideas in clear and engaging delivery, they can easily speak with confidence and conviction. Any children can achieve this goal. They just need to be trained properly. Gradually, you will notice your child’s confidence to speak in front of anyone.

April 19, 2020

Learning and practising debate is critical for any students who wants to succeed in life. students should start early because debating skills can be applied right the way in students’ school learning. Three key skills, asking relevant questions, finding correct answers and communicate clear ideas applies directly to school learning. These skills are required for any students to advance and excel in schools.

First, asking relevant questions. Students try to acquire knowledge during their formative years at school. They learn many subjects in classroom setting. They can’t understand everything taught. We often hear at best students will say “I don’t understand”. However, that’s not enough. Students need to ask relevant questions about what they don’t understand. This can help point out the road block of learning. On the contrary, without clear questions, both teachers and students don’t even know what they don’t understand. Debate provides a training ground for students to learn and practice how to ask relevant and effective questions. Only with good questions, the gate to understanding of school subject is opened.

As the gate is opened, students need to find the right path through a forest to reach the knowledge castle. There are many ways to do that. With the advancement of technology, it’s become easier to find information. However, the ease comes with challenge. Too much information makes it even harder to learn. How often do we see students taking wiki as the source of knowledge? How often do we see students use the first few links of search link as answers? Debate teaches students to be critical and effective in finding relevant answers. Such skills reduce the time of learning and improve the accuracy of answers. Isn’t that what we want for students when they learn in school?

Once the path to the knowledge castle is crossed, it’s time to tell everyone what you know about this castle. After all, why waste all the effort without sharing with others about the new knowledge you found. In school, the tests and exams are the ways to let students show off what they know. This is so critical. Hence, the better students are the one who can effectively share their knowledge in written and spoken forms. Debate clearly gives students a great training ground to build out such skills effectively. They learn to write their speeches and arguments. They practice their communication skills with speech delivery. With debate skills training, they can easily leverage them for school tests and exams.

From clearing the gate and finding the right path to reaching the knowledge castle, critical learning skills must be applied. They include asking clear questions, research relevant information and communicate to other knowledge acquired. Debate training is a proven training ground to help students build up and practice such skills effectively. It helps students to learn clearly, fast and accurate. It also helps them to score well in tests and exams. For those students who want to excel in schools and prepare for a great future, debate is a critical skill to acquire.

January 30, 2020

Future Leaders Academy practises what we teach our learners with creative and critical thinking together with practical problem solving skills.

We responded to the coronavirus situation by applying key first principles. 

1. Make sure students and staff are safe 

2. Give the best possible support to our FLAers to learn

So we decided to do the following from the beginning of Feb

1. Close our office to keep everyone safe. We will continue to do so if condition does not improve.

2. Offer live virtual classrooms to continue our regular programmes and even offer some online support classes for those who want to learn.

The outcome is FLAers continue to learn in the safety of their homes using our virtual learning classroom.

August 31, 2019

The awards ceremony went really well. Winners were selected from hundreds of entries from young writers around the world - Canada, United States of America, Mexico, Bahamas, United Kingdom, United Arab of Emirates, etc 

Some of the winners shared with us their writing experience and how writing helps them in school. 

Stay tuned for the next year's 2020 ICCWC writing competition. 

July 30, 2019

The annual Critical & Creative International Writing Competition has completed with thousands of entries from around the world. The winners have been announced for all categories. The award ceremony will be held Sept 1 at Queen Elizabeth Stadium in Hong Kong. A book with all winning entries has been published. Congratulations to all budding young writers. We look forward to reading more stories and essays from these young writers new year. 

March 29, 2019

Future Leaders Primary Debate Team spent a great weekend at the Inter-Schools Debating Challenge. All teams performed well with some exceeded their level. They faced teams from various top primary schools in Hong Kong. At the end their preparation and hard work was handsomely rewarded. Another great experience and fun day for our debaters. Proud to see them continue to grow and excel. Keep up the good work team.

October 01, 2018

Another year of debating competitions have started in earnest. Our debaters are hard at work to prepare for the games. This year they will continue to learn more about issues affecting us locally and globally from food trucks system to production of biofuels.

The learning process itself is rewarding. They will be able to expand their horizon and see issues from different angles, try to make sense of them and persuade others with their critical thinking and emphatic delivery. Our debaters are gaining valuable skills to equip themselves for brighter future. 

August 30, 2018

Another year of great debate invitational. Many young debaters took this great chance to learn and gain more experience by competing with other fellow debaters. To check out this fun and exciting event, check out our facebook link here. 

March 22, 2018

Some of our Young Writers feeling quite proud after receiving their published work!

Their stories were selected over 20,000 entries around the world. Well done team!

February 21, 2018

Future Leaders debaters has done a great job showing off their debate skills. Other schools learnt from our debaters on some foundation skills in case development, giving solid rebuttals and delivering confident speeches. It was a fun and rewarding event. 

August 29, 2017

Congratulations to all debaters on their 200% performance at the Future Leaders Academy Debate Invitational 2017 Summer. Over 70% of the debaters were their first time ever. Really well done!!!
We look forward to seeing them in the next FLA Debate Invitational 2018 Spring. Register with us to reserve a seat now!

July 29, 2017

Four of our students won the Young Writers awards. The competition required students used their creativity, knowledge, and writing skills to create stories about the ocean surrounding Hong Kong. They also had to add drawing and presented their stories at the competition. Job well done Future Leaders young writers!!

June 28, 2017

After a full year of hard work and exciting games, Future Leaders Debate Team has won the HKSSD competition Hong Kong Island Primary Division Championship. This year's motion was "THBT Hong Kong should introduce refundable deposit system for plastic drink bottles sold here". The team put up a great debate performance as the affirmative side. "the team clearly presented well developed arguments as a team" commented by the adjudicator. We are proud and grateful to see the development of FLA debaters grew through the year.

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We are looking forward to more debate competitions to come. Come join us if you like the excitement, able to work hard and ready to grow for your future.

December 28, 2016

Congrats to the Future Leaders Debate Team for winning their first round competition. 

The motion was "THBT Hong Kong is still a shopping paradise". This is the first real competition for all members. They carried themselves very well during the debate and articulated most of the arguments as the negative side. The adjudicator gave praises to both teams for having an engaging and competitive game. Our third speaker Siena Ho was awarded the Best Speaker for the debate especially with her ability to do impromptu rebuttals.

Well done team - Lorraine, Carson and Siena. Also great team support from the parents and team members attending the competition (Shun, Sannie, Justin and Winnie)