Environment

The Capstone Ecosystem

Effective education is conceptually simple but hard to execute in practice.

We believe students succeed at Capstone because we have created an education environment that promotes success rather than complacency. Our vision, students, instructors, learning environment, and many other tangibles and intangibles combine to form an educational ecosystem where students enjoy attending classes, are motivated to excel, and encourage others to do the same. This is also an environment that, we believe, does not exist anywhere else in Hong Kong within the private education space.

The Unique Capstone Culture

Many students walk around the hallways saying hi to various instructors and other students before the start of their own classes. Teachers often joke with each other when they run into each other in the reception area. Students frequently come to Capstone early or drop in to study or just to “hang out” if they are in the area.

As the above happens though, students also read the list of elite universities that our most recent students have been accepted to. Instructors introduce upcoming competitions as students intensely prepare. Students come for intensive training for upcoming exams, final rounds of large competitions, or school admissions interviews.

One student put it best when he said “you feel so relaxed at Capstone, yet you also feel this immense expectation and pressure to succeed because everyone else is so good”.

For us, we see this as the optimal mixture to breed success. Students at Capstone are typically students who are easygoing in nature but also possess a desire to succeed. Students encourage one another to perform better, but also push themselves to succeed in the endeavors they pursue. At the same time, because the instructors are genuinely caring and supportive of all the students, everybody is part of a close community.

The best way to explain the Capstone culture is for interested parents and students to drop in on a Saturday and simply listen to the classrooms as you hear students cycle from laughing to speaking seriously and watch how students and instructors interact with one another in the open area.

Infrastructure that Promotes Long-term Development

Capstone is not simply a “tutorial” center which hosts great instructors and let them teach their own classes their own way. We are a professional organization which considers the role of both the instructor and organization in creating a system that supports students’ students long-term development. Our investment in our company infrastructure allows a number of benefits including the below:

• Team Developed Curriculum: Capstone courses are not teacher-dependent as course content is created with the input of all teaching teams. Essentially, every curriculum is designed by a group of teachers working on various parts of a unified curriculum. This means that the students’ education at Capstone does not vary based on the particular instructor that is teaching and, when students progress from one course to another, there is a smooth transition in their learning.

• Extra-Resources: With a full administration team and a large office, students can contact administration anytime for extra resources or drop-in for self-study anytime. Capstone also has samples of every major US and UK standardized exam and allow students to take free mock tests at their request.

• Early College Planning: Parents of younger students who are already thinking of long-term Ivy League or Oxbridge aspirations can arrange meetings with Capstone staff (including those who have met with admissions directors and have lead admissions seminars in various Hong Kong schools).

• Large-scale Events: For our Debate, Writing or Literature students, Capstone creates numerous large events and competitions for improvement. This includes writing, debate and public speaking competitions with amazing prizes (because as much as we love our students to always do it for the intrinsic motivation, we want everybody to take part). In our last two Capstone-organized debate competitions, there were a total of over 200 contestants and over $100,000 in prizes.

Learning Space:

Place a group of students in a cramped learning environment and they instinctively feel trapped and are more likely to focus on when they can leave, rather than what the teacher is saying. However, place the same students in a larger room where they face each other like professionals in a large boardroom and they feel more at ease but also an instinctive pull to contribute. We invite parents to visit Capstone to see the classrooms and the facilities and how much space we provide students in the classrooms. While it may seem odd to mention a student’s “space” within the classroom, our conference style seating within large, windowed rooms encourage free-thinking and participation.