"Many parents today have an educational perspective based on current theory and trends. Schools need to educate parents about the current situation in today's education, help parents to understand the children’s need to develop skills and attitudes in co-constructing beyond a knowledge driven curriculum. Hong Kong Education Bureau proclaims the roles and responsibilities of parents, in the belief that parents are the primary educators for young children at home and play an active role in the education of their children as partners of the school (Cheng, 2015). On the other hand, parents in the Mainland China have become more conscious about how to play their part in home-school collaboration and engage themselves in children’s education, especially in face of the Two-child policy (Fang, et. al. 2018). As a school, it is important to provide education for parents to create a collaborative relationship between parents and educators, empowering life success to students with learning intentions. Communication has always been the key factor in fostering parents-school collaboration. However recent trends revealed schools’ concern of additional factors influencing the parent-school relationship and communication process – 'transparency’ and ‘frequency’ have played a role in parents’ understanding of what goes on in children’s school life. In this paper, educators from Hong Kong and Guangdong Province of Mainland China will share ways of kindergartens from the two regions in educating and communicating with parents, and how parents can be supported as part of their child’s learning journey. Technology provides online channels for parents to be informed, while face-to-face and other offline options are still being considered as commonly-used for communication. For data collection, survey questionnaires were sent to kindergarten principals from Hong Kong and Guangdong to explore ways of communication and collaboration between schools and parents that will encourage a common understanding

Research Findings: This study examined the contribution of teacher-student conflict at kindergarten to the child’s school adjustment in primary school using a Hong Kong sample. It investigated self-regulation as a mediator and parents’ positive relations with others as a moderator in that transition. At Time 1 (T1), kindergarten teachers reported their levels of conflict with individual children (N = 324, 168 girls), whereas children’s self-regulation was assessed with a Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders Task. Fathers and mothers also rated their positive relations with others. At Time 2 (T2; 8 months later), when children were enrolled in primary school (N = 247, 126 girls), primary school teachers rated how well they adjusted to the new school. Moderated mediation analyses showed that although the direct effect of T1 teacher-student conflict on T2 school adjustment was not significant, the indirect effect of self-regulation was. T1 teacher-student conflicts were negatively related to children’s self-regulation, which in turn predicted subsequent school adjustment. Interestingly, this indirect effect was significant only when parents’ positive relations with others were low rather than high. Practice or Policy: The findings highlight the importance of both a warm and caring relationship in the home and self-regulation to successful school transition. Copyright © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

香港自二零一二年起實施三三四新高中課程政策。然而,政府、政策研究者、學者等仍未對有特殊學習需要(SEN)高中生的學習情況,以及其畢業後的出路安排有足夠關注。本研究以小組訪談形式,收集了SEN高中生的家長對其SEN子女高中後轉銜的看法,包括對子女畢業出路的展望與態度、對現有政府支援體系的瞭解與評價,以及對於SEN學生高中後轉銜與支援服務的建議。小組訪談數據顯示,SEN學生家長均表示孩子高中後最理想出路是繼續升學,沒有升學機會時,才選擇工作。同時,他們主要擔心子女成績遜色,而在現今無論是升學或就業都講求高成績的社會中,其子女未能保持競爭力。另外,他們對於學校、政府和非政府機構等所提供的支援知之甚少,並且對社會支援,尤其是來自政府的支援非常不滿。此外,家長一致認為學校應負責SEN學生高中後的轉銜,並希望學校、政府或非政府機構所提供的資源能更多地考慮到SEN學生的個別特殊需要。最後,文末深入分析是次研究的重要性、局限及意義。 Since 2012, Hong Kong has implemented the New Senior Secondary (NSS) academic structure and curriculum. However, Hong Kong Government, policy makers and researchers have paid little attention to the educational situation and the career paths of the students with special educational needs (SEN) under the new curriculum. Thus, the current study was carried out, aiming to investigate parents’ opinions on their children’s post-secondary school transition. According to the results of focus group interviews, almost all parents of SEN students revealed that the most preferable career pathway was further study after their children graduated from senior secondary schools. Only when no study opportunities available would they consider job applications for their SEN children after they graduated. However, it should also be noted that a major concern of parents of SEN students was their children’s unsatisfactory academic achievement which could weaken their competitiveness, no matter whether they choose to work or further study as their post-school outcomes. In addition, the results indicated that these parents had little knowledge of current support services provided by schools, NGOs, and Hong Kong Government. Concerning current support services, they were particularly dissatisfied with those from the government. Noteworthy, parents all agreed that schools should be responsible for the post-school transition of SEN students. They also hope that schools, NGOs, and the government could take SEN students’ special needs into full consideration when these important stakeholders

作為凝聚有特殊教育需要子女家長的處所，特殊學校是有責任組織適切的活動，支援家長克服子女的學習及成長困難。本文概述一所收取中度智障學童的學校，如何透過發展性小組去支援校內的家長，並探討如何就這些孩子家長的需要、家校合作的現況、家長參與的層次與區分、家長賦權歷程、學校背景、朋輩輔導及小組發展歷程等概念，去全面理解不同持分者在籌辦家長互助小組過程中，要準備的工作及注意事項。透過有層次地去組織支援家長的「伴你同行」小組，除能夠支援更有需要的家長，加強他們處理子女學習、行為、情緒問題，增強親子關係並完備家庭與學校合作的同時，亦促使家長間建立一個非常規的支持和朋輩網絡。 Special schools being a place for gathering parents of students with special educational needs bear the responsibility of organizing supporting services for these parents to overcome difficulties encounter by their children. The paper describes the efforts of a special school for moderate intellectually disabled students in applying developmental group work to support the parents of the school. While considering the needs of these parents, current trends of home-school cooperation, differentiated levels of parental involvement in a school, parent empowerment process, school background, peer tutoring and group development processes for enhancing the understanding of different stake-holders of the school to plan and organize parent groups of such purposes are examined and applied. In the end, not only that the parent support group supported the more needy parents in strengthening their methods of coping with learning, behavioural, emotional difficulties and parent-child relationship. The support group too facilitated home school cooperation process, an informal peer support network amongst these parents is formed as another source of support for parents of the school.
[Copyright of 香港特殊教育論壇 is the property of 香港特殊教育學會有限公司. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
https://sites.google.com/a/seshk.org.hk/seshk-org-hk/c_publication]

Schools around the globe increasingly realized the importance of technology and its application in the education system. To guarantee a successful educational innovation, schools seek out different parties for valuable opinions. Among them, parents are the important feedback providers, because their attitudes are influential on children's academic performance. Moreover, their involvement and support are considered the key factor that facilitates an effective implementation of programming education at schools. This study aimed at developing and validating an instrument measuring parents' perceptions of programming education among P-12 schools in Hong Kong. We propose that parents; perceptions of programming education is a multidimensional construct which constitutes (a) understanding, (b) support, and (c) expectation. In total, 524 questionnaires were collected from the parents who attended programming workshops and seminars. Exploratory factor analysis shows evidence for the three-dimensional construct. Confirmatory factor analysis reconfirms the measurement structure. Implications of the study are discussed.
[Copyright of Journal of Educational Computing Research is the property of SAGE Publications. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0735633118783182]

The benefits of parental involvement in children’s education have been well established but increasing evidence suggests that overparenting may have adverse effects on children. The question of whether excessive parental involvement hinders children’s academic and psychosocial development warrants further investigations. This study examined the associations of parental educational involvement at home and in school with academic performance and psychological health of 507 Chinese Grade 3 schoolchildren in Hong Kong. Parents reported on their level of involvement in children’s schooling and their children’s psychosocial issues. Children were surveyed to determine their school engagement, and their Chinese language and mathematics attainment was assessed. We also explored the underlying mechanism by testing children’s engagement with school as a mediator of the relationships. Our results showed that home-based parental educational involvement was positively associated with children’s language competence and psychosocial wellbeing, and the associations were linked through engaging children with school. However, the benefits reached a plateau at higher level of parental involvement in children’s learning at home. School-based parental involvement had an indirect effect on children’s prosocial behavior through school engagement. These findings highlight the significance of optimal level of parental involvement in children’s education at home for children’s development.
[Copyright of Journal of Child and Family Studies is the property of Springer Science & Business Media. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-1011-2]

This paper examines the early childhood context of Hong Kong (HK) which is characterised by an entirely privatised system. The level of knowledge a child possesses in early childhood can be a determining factor in their admission into desirable kindergartens or primary schools. Given HK’s privatised early childhood education system, the quality of a child’s learning is directly tied to the education services their parents provide independently or can afford financially. The study reported in this paper adopts a narrative inquiry approach to an under-researched area of early childhood education, namely the voices of parents within home learning environments and how the lengths they go to provide their children with a quality education.
[Copyright of Education 3-13 is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2017.1310272]

Research Findings: The objective of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of Incredible Years Basic Parent Training (IYPT Basic) in a community clinic setting in Hong Kong. IYPT Basic is a Western program developed to promote children’s academic, social, and emotional regulation skills and to reduce conduct problems among typically developing children. The program has not been tested in non-Western cultures, where the challenges for parents of children with developmental disabilities can be different. The IYPT Basic was adapted slightly to accommodate cultural characteristics in Hong Kong. Parents of 52 preschoolers with developmental disabilities were randomly assigned to either the IYPT Basic or a waitlist control. Parent and child dyads were assessed before and after the 12-week intervention/waitlist period via self-reports and spouse/kin reports and videotape coding by observers blind to the intervention/waitlist status. Significant intervention benefits included (a) increase in positive and reciprocal parent -child interaction, (b) reduction in parental stress, and (c) decrease in oppositional behavior among the children. The parents’ attendance, satisfaction, and homework compliance was high. Practice or Policy: IYPT Basic, when implemented with cultural sensitivity, can be effective for —and well received by—Chinese parents of preschoolers with developmental disabilities in a community setting.
[Copyright of Early Education & Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2018.1461987]

The Self-Report Family Inventory (SFI) is a 36-item scale developed by Beavers, Hampson, and Hulgus (1990) to assess competent and dysfunctional family functioning. While the SFI is widely tested in the areas of counselling psychology and clinical psychology, considerably less effort has been allocated to examine its psychometrics in educational settings. By using both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (EFA and CFA) based on previous research, this study aimed to validate the Chinese version of SFI (C-SFI, Shek, 1998) with a sample of Hong Kong secondary students with special educational needs (SEN). The key purpose was to provide a useful tool to assess family functioning of this vulnerable population of students to inform practice improvement to cater for their needs. Consistent with Shek’s studies in typically developed students, the results of EFA showed a two-factor pattern. CFA results provided further evidence showing the best model fit indices were for the two-factor solution (i.e., family health and family pathology) compared with other competing models. This study also developed a short form (8 items instead of 36) of the C-SFI, which would be regarded as a parsimonious screening tool for researchers and practitioners to test family functioning of SEN students.家庭自我報告量表 (SFI) 是由 Beavers, Hamson, 及 Hulgus 在 1990 年編製的評估家庭功能狀況的量表。雖然該量表被廣泛應用於輔導心理學和臨床心理學，然而在教育領域的應用卻鮮有報導。本研究在已有研究的基礎上，通過探索性因素分析和驗證性因素分析評估中文版 SFI (C-SFI, Shek, 1998) 在香港有特殊學習需要中學生群體中的信度和效度。研究的主要目的是為有特殊教育需要學生這一弱勢群體提供一個有用的家庭功能評估工具。並在了解他們家庭功能的基礎上，為改進幫扶這一特殊需要群體的實踐提供指導作用。探索性因素分析結果生成兩個因素，這與已有的在香港普通學生中的研究結果一致。驗證性因素分析進一步提供了兩因素模型相關的擬合指數。本研究在原中文問卷的基礎上(36 條題項)，發展了一個簡化版 SF-C-SFI(8 條題項)。簡化版的兩因素與原版對應的兩因素之間的相關係數較高，達到 r=.92 以及 r=.94。 本研究初步為研究者和實踐者提供一個簡化版的篩查工具，用以評估殘疾學生的家庭功能。 Copyright © 2017 The Special Education Society of Hong Kong Ltd.