This article discusses how school management can facilitate effective learning in schools for young children. First, it briefly reviews the concepts of curriculum, pedagogy and effective learning. Then, the current state of early childhood education in Hong Kong is examined. With reference to schools for young children in Hong Kong, the article then explores how school management can improve and maintain effective learning through curriculum and pedagogy.
[Copyright © 2001 Alberta Teachers' Association.]

Music movement activities have the potential to encourage young children to experience, explore, discover, and interact with the world, their peers and adults in creative ways. However, previous research has shown that some early childhood teachers in Hong Kong have difficulty in fostering children's creativity (Wong & Chu, 2001). This paper reports a study that further explored the understandings and practices of six teachers, and it draws these findings and professional literature to recommend practical strategies that foster creativity through music and movement activities.
[Copyright © 2002 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

The twenty-first century is a period of educational reform, of which school improvement has been one of the strategies for successful change stressed by various entities. Under the foremost notion of schools’ quality assurance and improvement, different places in the world have marked the significance of performance assessment on early childhood education. In Hong Kong, the previous Education and Manpower Bureau launched a “Voucher Scheme” for early childhood education in 2007. The Scheme requires participating kindergartens to undertake a self- and external- evaluation in order to strengthen their quality assurance mechanism, and to make the education more accountable to parents and society. Making use of a local school as an illustration, this paper presents and discusses the case under the “School-based Quality Improvement Scheme” organized by the Centre for Early Childhood Research and Development of the Hong Kong Institute of Education. The main support depicted in the case will adopt the “Performance Indicators Framework of the Hong Kong Early Childhood Education” as a theoretical and practice reference on discussions. The plan, process and outcomes of the Improvement Scheme on the case under studied will also be briefly introduced.

According to the Olympic Charter, "Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining into a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles". Sport is viewed as a mini society where participants experience the success and failure; the joys and tears; and the ups and downs of life. For children, the overall aims of education for the 21st Century in Hong Kong should be "To enable every person to attain all-round development in the domains of ethics, intellect, physique, social skills and aesthetics according to his/her own attributes..." (Education Commission, September 2000, p.30). In the early childhood curriculum, physical education is integral in fostering young children's total development. Early childhood educators always provide an educationally appropriate program to enhance young children's whole person development. This paper serves two purposes. First, it demonstrates how Olympic sports are highly related to Civic Education for young children. Secondly, it suggests educationally sound strategies for early childhood educators to develop a preschool physical education curriculum with emphasis on the development of young Hong Kong children's civic capacities.