It's much more than learning English

Meanwhile, in the other SAR ...

Macau's School of the Nations staged its annual production Cinderella Kids at the Macau Cultural Centre last week.

More than 200 primary and secondary students were involved in the show.

School administrator Vivek Nair said students did everything, from making the sets to acting and putting the programme together.

This is the sixth year the school has staged a production and the activity is now supported by a Macau government grant.

Mr Nair said the idea started as a way to promote English speaking at the school, but had grown to be a major part of the curriculum.

'We are an English-speaking school and most of the students are Chinese. At the beginning, the main focus was to give students another platform to use English because on stage you have to be clear,' he said.

'But we soon realised it was not the only benefit. It teaches them to work as a team, develop materials and now we have lost count of the number of things we have gained.'

Primary school students acted and secondary students provided the support network and stage management crew.

Catarina Coimbra, 10, who played the stepsister Anastasia, said the play gave her an opportunity to be someone else.

'I learned more about other people, and how to represent them,' Catarina said.

Zachary Wyatt, 10, who played Prince Charming, said he loved 'seeing all the people in the audience and I enjoy being able to entertain them'.

Fiona Pat, nine, who played Drizella, said it was a lot of hard work but the end result was fun.

Kazuma Noguchi, 11, who played Duke Lionel in his final year as a primary student, said he was 'glad that through the play I'm able to show everyone how much I have learned and grown in primary [school]'.

Previous productions include The Sound of Music.