Small classes, tolerant environment: Ex-GEP teachers and students recall their experience

War games where pupils solved maths problems to win territory from one another, and "missions" where they posed as secret agents infiltrating enemy bases to defuse threats.

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These are some of the ways former Gifted Education Programme (GEP) teacher Raymond Poon, 47, engaged his pupils and sought to grow non-academic qualities like leadership and teamwork.

He would appoint "commanders" from a class of about 20 to 25 primary school boys, and let them sort out how best to organise themselves to accomplish the task, while throwing them pointers and extra challenges along the way.

These extra lessons were made possible by the GEP, as its structure gave him the time and space to focus on enrichment beyond the regular curriculum, he said.

Mr Poon, who is now a private tutor and adjunct teacher, said: "As a GEP teacher, having smaller class sizes, fewer teaching periods and motivated students meant that I had the bandwidth to plan these special lessons.

"In a mainstream classroom with almost 40 pupils and a lot of other responsibilities, it is very difficult to plan and execute such things."