Many critics tended to oppose the education reforms in the last two decades in Hong Kong for its neoliberalist and managerialist origins and aim to achieve performativity, accountability and global competitiveness (e.g., Chee, 2012; Choi, 2005; Ho & Tsang, 2008). However, Ko, Cheng and Lee (2016) argued that these reforms also contributed to school autonomy, teacher professionalism, transparent school governance, flexibility in curriculum and resources management and the development of a self-evaluation culture. This paper examines the paradoxical interactions of professionalism and neoliberalism on professionalising school leadership and governance from findings in the interviews with school leaders from the middle to school-sponsoring body level. Unlike the academic critics, different actors (senior teachers, principals, school managers) were less concerned about the anti-neoliberalist issues but stronger expectations on developing their professionalism in changing times like innovative pedagogy, learner diversity, organisational learning, and crisis management. Copyright © 2019 The Education University of Hong Kong.

Valid feedback is essential for the administrators, educators, parents and, of course, for children to be able to steer their development in a sustainable way. Key influential theorists such as Montessori, Piaget, Vygotsky, and others all used observations extensively to understand how children learn and use knowledge about children's learning to improve pedagogies and children's lives. However, most adults including teachers in the ECEC settings have not always observed children and tracked their growth.The grantees of Hong Kong Research Grants Council, Dr James Ko, Professor Doris Cheng, and Dr Jyrki Reunamo, have collaborated to find relationships between young children's involvement, adaptation and agency in early childhood settings through systematic observations. More than 100,000 observations were documented in research and professional development programs conducted in Finland, Taiwan and Hong Kong. By using simple cross-tabulation, researchers and teachers can obtain information about the context-specific aspects of learning, emotions and social relations. For example, children’s strategies to confront bullying were connected to their observed activities (Reunamo, Ko, Cheng, Lee, Wang, & Salminen, 2016). Agency and openness orientations observed in children were found affecting their differential development trajectories including their school readiness (Ko, 2015) and some children may show a higher risk in certain aspects of growth (Ko, 2015; Reunamo et al., 2016). It is well-known that "play" related activities in Hong Kong are very different from Finnish one (Cheng & Stimpson, 2004, Cheng, 2012), though western teaching approaches are translated in the Hong Kong early childhood curriculum (Cheng, 2006). By systematic observations, Cheng and Chen (2017) also showed that children in play-based activities showed the strongest class involvement. Recently, three researchers have developed self-accessible training materials with video clips and demonstrated how

This article analyzes how principals of high-performing secondary schools in England and Hong Kong establish structural arrangements aligned to their core values as educators. Such values-driven structures provide a platform by which principals create the conditions in which policy and reform can be managed and absorbed without compromising the core purpose and contextual priorities of these schools. The findings reveal how the participating school principals have carefully embedded and institutionalized these structures within the cultures of their organizations as part of a multilayered approach to leadership. Copyright © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

This article draws on data from cases of high-performing and improving schools in Hong Kong. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with principals, middle leaders, and senior teachers to identify key policies and steps taken for their enactment, and to solicit interpretations of the policies. Principals were found to actively select, prioritize, and emphasize policies based on clearly articulated values. These values-led and contextually informed decisions formed the basis for redesigning the school organization and leadership structures, allocating resources, and aligning multiple initiatives to policies. School-based and mandated policies worked in synergy, and school principals responded rather than reacted to mandates. Copyright © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Valid feedback is essential for the administrators, educators, parents and, of course, for children to be able to steer their development in a sustainable way. Key influential theorists such as Montessori, Piaget, Vygotsky, and others all used observations extensively to understand how children learn and use knowledge about children's learning to improve pedagogies and children's lives. However, most adults including teachers in the ECEC settings have not always observed children and tracked their growth. Based on the research and professional development programs conducted in Finland, Taiwan and Hong Kong with more than 100,000 observations, we found some relationships between young children's involvement, adaptation and agency in early childhood settings through systematic observations. We will introduce observation strategies with video clips and demonstrate our latest mobile application for observation for practitioners to contribute to a big data pool aimed to enhance the teaching quality in ECEC settings. Copyright © 2018 EARLI.

Curriculum reform with a school-based approach is often assumed to offer schools and teachers autonomy at the site level, thus enabling them to develop a school-based curriculum and pedagogies to better fit the needs of students. Over the past decade, school-based curriculum development in Hong Kong has encountered issues that deserve worldwide attention and discussion. By reviewing the experiences of two schools in Hong Kong and drawing on international evidence, this study identifies key challenges and difficulties in school-based curriculum reform in three areas. Intellectually, there is a lack of a strong and broad shared knowledge base for curriculum development. As a result, most school-based curriculum initiatives have been piecemeal, fragmented and shallow. Structurally, many teachers have wasted time ‘re-inventing the wheel’ when developing school-based curricula. This effort has left them without sufficient time and energy to be effective in teaching. Culturally, reliance on school management to steer school-based reforms has prevented the development of a new culture in which teachers have the autonomy to make changes in their daily practices. Without cultural changes, curriculum reforms are not sustainable or effective. This study proposes a cooperative platform that integrates the strengths of central intelligence and school-based initiatives to maximise support for curriculum development at the teacher, school-site and system levels.
[Copyright © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.]

The findings are based on a larger study on systematically comparing leadership development and practice in seven differentially performing education systems (Malaysia, Australia, Hong Kong, England, Indonesia, Russia, and Singapore) (Harris et al.). The contextual background of principalship training in Hong Kong was the Principals’ Continuing Professional Development Framework introduced since 2002 (Education Department, 2002). Under this Framework, all existing and newly appointed principals have been required to undergo continuous professional development or prior certification (Education Bureau, 2010). Based on 20 interviews with principals, key staff and teachers of three secondary schools in three different bandings. One of key themes identified in the data is the roles of the school principal as a change agent. This key finding is compatible with findings that highlighted the prominent role of the principal as a key change agent for the successful implementation of school-based management, both in Hong Kong (e.g. Cheng, 1992; Ma, 1993; Ko & Walker, 2014; Ko, Cheng & Lee, 2016) and in schools worldwide (e.g. Hallinger, 1992; Hopkins & Reynolds, 2001; Marks & Printy, 2003; Wohlstetter et al., 2008).More specifically, the roles of school principals are discussed in relation to the different conceptualisations and charaterisations of principalship in transactional, instructional, transformational, and distributed leadership theories.

This study explored the nature and effects of leadership for learning in the context of Hong Kong primary schools. Employing a mediated model of leadership for learning, the study examined how school leadership practices are perceived and shaped in the high accountability context of Hong Kong school education. Consistent with other recent empirical studies of school leadership effects, the research explored the relationship between school leadership, school-level capacity for improvement and student learning outcomes. Regression analyses found a negative impact of principal leadership practices related to strategic direction and policy environments, but a positive impact of staff management and resource management practices in terms of enhancing support for students. Contrary to expectations, schools’ capacity in supporting students had less impact on student academic outcomes than the negative impact of resources capacity and workload of teachers. Instead, mixed impact was found between principal leadership and student academic outcomes; it was negative regarding practices in strategic direction and policy environment, but positive in leader and teacher growth and development. The study refines our understanding of how the socio-cultural and organisational contexts of schools shape successful school leadership.
[Copyright © 2015 Philip Hallinger and James Ko.]

This study addressed the variations between key staff and ordinary teachers in perceiving principal leadership practices and school capacities. In a similar study on secondary schools, Walker and Ko (2011) found that in order to ensure better support for student in schools, key staff teachers found their principals' practices on strategic direction and policy environment more important initially, but its significance was superseded by his/her leadership practices on leader and teacher growth and development. In the present study, data collected in primary schools distinguished key staff teachers who held leadership roles in administration or instruction and ordinary teachers who did not have any leadership roles. Their differences in perceptions were expected to impact on the overall support for student in schools. Regression analyses were performed to test whether the two groups of teachers perceived differently the impacts of principals' leadership practices the support for student in schools, and whether the differential perceptions in the two groups would affect the overall staff perception in schools. The results showed only a minor difference in the perceptions of key staff and ordinary teachers. Both groups found a negative impact of principals' leadership practices related to strategic direction and policy environments, but a positive impact of their staff management and resources management practices on enhancing support for students in the school. The key staff tended to emphasize the importance of staff management more, while ordinary teachers treated both types of leadership practices almost equally important. Overall, the perception of key staff seemed to prevail when the views of both groups were considered. These findings seem to be less compatible with the emphasis of strategic direction and the role of principals as the goal setter of a school as suggested in transformational leadership theory or strategic leadership theory. Instead, in facing