Ms Chan believes that children must have the right guidance at home and has had a long interest in parent education. Parent interviews form part of the selection process for new students and mothers and fathers must agree to enrol in at least three courses to be run by its parent education institute, each involving two to three sessions.

These range from getting in touch with your child's emotions to enhancing 'cultural capital' and charting the career path of your children. 'If we are only working by ourselves without the partnership of parents we won't be as effective,' she said. 'I see mothers publicly insulting their children, which is why I need to educate them. I can't say schools are very influential but parents are. Childhood reminiscences last until we are old.'

The school opened last month, two weeks into the new term, admitting its first 450 pupils in Grades One to Three and Seven. Eventually, it will cater for 1,800. Parents are already queuing for next year's Grade One and staff are interviewing more than 1,000 sets of children and parents who have applied.

Stacked on a conference table are hundreds of portfolios in which parents have displayed the early talents of their children, from samples of creative artwork to music and language certificates and kindergarten exam scores.

But extensive early achievement does not impress Ms Chan. 'We don't want them to do too much with their children too early, otherwise they won't like school,' she said. Instead she was looking for children with optimistic characters - active and expressive - who mixed readily with others and had good manners. The parents, meanwhile, needed to show they were caring.

Ms Chan admitted that most who met such criteria were likely to come from middle class families where parents had the time and awareness to nurture children in this way. She is not expecting many to come from the public housing estate being built a stone's throw away from the campus.

However, she wanted to do something to bridge the social divide. The underprivileged, she said, would benefit by being able to use the centre for cultural activities the school planned to open and from it acting as a model of good practices for others to follow.

The Baptist school describes itself as a 'school for tomorrow' and has managed to recruit one of Hong Kong's most dynamic principals, steeped in education theory and passionate about her role, to lead it forward.

For four years, Ms Chan, the former head of the Ho Man Tin Government Secondary School, has been lecturing aspiring principals on school leadership in Chinese University of Hong Kong courses. She has also been instructing teachers taking the postgraduate diploma in education at the University of Hong Kong since the early 1990s.

She draws on theories of school improvement that she promoted in her previous headships. She measures herself against the 11 conditions for effective schooling identified in the 1990s by the British educationalists Pam Sammons, Josh Hillman and Peter Mortimore, and the Invitational Education award programme, from the United States, that focuses on creating an inviting school environment.

Of the latter, she said: 'To me it is not a gimmick to boost admissions but to raise the potential of students. But the focus still has to be on teaching and learning. Without that a happy, pleasurable environment is no use. A school is a school. It is not Disneyland.'

She wanted to transmit a culture of trust and respect, something 'very hidden and powerful', she said. 'I am willing to try new ideas, but you have to calculate very carefully the risks you will face and chances of success.' She planned to bridge her academic interests and role as a principal in the staff development and school-based research that would be features of the school.

Ms Chan is also doing her own research towards a doctorate on market forces in education to which she said Hong Kong schools had previously paid little attention. 'Schools that respond quickly will survive,' she said.

The university, which has its new College of International Education for its associate degree programmes adjacent to the imposing through-train school, provided added intellectual support.

'I have the advantage of having relations with different departments in the university,' said Ms Chan. 'The department of education studies serves as adviser to the curriculum team. Chinese medicine gives advice on our Chinese herb garden.' The university's music department also offered support and its focus in baroque music could be shared with the school.

Ms Chan, meanwhile, will continue to share her leadership expertise, in the aspiring principals' course that Baptist University has won the tender to run for the Education and Manpower Bureau.

She has attracted a strong team to lead the school. Benjamin Chen Wai-kai, the former principal of the DSS Wai Kiu College, has been recruited as deputy principal overseeing the secondary section, while Raida Din, from Canada, formerly in charge of the primary section of the private Independent Schools Foundation Academy, is the deputy in charge of the primary.

The school had planned to be the first in the DSS sector to offer International Baccalaureate programmes to all ages. However, Ms Chan persuaded the university to drop that idea because she felt it would dilute children's immersion in Chinese culture. Now, the IB diploma may be offered at senior secondary level in one or two classes, as an alternative to the new Hong Kong diploma - depending on the outcome of a meeting with parents.

'I am strategically positioning this school between local and international schools,' she said, adding that class sizes would be limited to 32. Fees are HK$35,000 a year, the higher end of DSS schools.

English and Putonghua are the mediums of instruction though in the first term Cantonese is predominantly used, to help pupils settle in.

The past few weeks haven't been easy for Ms Chan, what with contractors failing to hand over the campus until the last weeks of August, the race against time to fit out the school - an on-going job - welcoming the first students and selecting the next. Ms Chan admits, as a result, that she has not been getting to bed before 2am.

But that has not dampened her indomitable spirit. 'I can't rest because the whole school is waiting,' she said.