The purpose of this study is to examine the mediating role of Professional Development Initiatives (PDIs) in relation to the implementation of New Secondary School curriculum in Hong Kong and student learning. Data were collected from 414 Key Learning Area coordinators and subject heads who were responsible for managing curriculum of senior secondary education in 91 Hong Kong secondary schools. Results indicated that three types of PDI (i.e. curriculum planning, professional sharing and support for teachers) mediated the impact of teachers' collaborative practices on their conceptions of student learning. Whereas two PDIs have exerted mediating effect of teachers' curriculum orientation on student learning. Implications for facilitating teachers' curriculum implementation towards reform and sustaining various types of PDIs are discussed. Copyright ©2021 Elsevier .

In this study, a modified version of the Curriculum Orientation Inventory for Early Childhood Education (COI-ECE) is developed and validated with a sample of 717 in-service teachers from fifty Hong Kong pre-primary schools. Results of confirmatory factor analysis show that the curriculum beliefs of pre-primary school teachers can be conceptualised into four dimensions: humanistic, cognitive process/academic, technological, and social reconstruction orientations. Results also reveal that pre-primary school teachers hold strong humanistic orientation beliefs while cognitive process/academic orientation beliefs are held less strongly. Further analyses by one-way ANOVA tests find that differences in curricular orientation beliefs are related to teachers’ educational level and teaching position. This study reaffirms the importance of implementing an integrated developmentally appropriate curriculum in promoting whole-child development in children’s early years. The implications for supporting and sustaining teachers’ curriculum-based planning and subsequent teaching practices will be discussed. Copyright © 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.