School-based assessment (SBA) can bring about many educational benefits. Ideally, it helps reduce examination pressure and helps improve teaching and learning. In Hong Kong, a much wider use of SBA has recently been added to the assessment system as one important aspect of the assessment reform. This paper will first give an overview of different SBA practices. It will then look at SBA in Hong Kong at policy level and discuss the challenges for its successful implementation.

Many research studies on English reading support that phonological awareness is crucial to reading success. This paper reports about a study which examined the effect of phonological awareness training in English reading among Hong Kong children who learn English as their second language. Participants were 5-year old children studying the last year of preschool education, the year before formal primary schooling. Children in the experimental group (184) received phonological awareness training for about 6 months while the children in the control group (166) were taught with their original English curriculum. Children in the experimental group performed significantly better in both reading–related tasks (picture naming and word reading) and reading-related skills (rhyme detection and phoneme identification). The findings indicate that phonological awareness training is beneficial to the development of English reading skills among Hong Kong children.

Formative assessment is regarded as a means to provide teachers and students with information about the strengths and weaknesses of student learning with the ultimate goal of making responsive changes in teaching and learning. In Hong Kong, formative assessment has recently been promoted in schools. Through analyzing a case study, this paper aims to explore: (1) the key strategies employed by the school in assessing and improving students’ performance, (2) the effects of these strategies in student learning and (3) the challenges the teachers have encountered in practising formative assessment. The intention is to provide a living example for those teachers and policy makers who favour the use of formative assessment as the major approach to improving students’ learning.

In the current curriculum reform of Hong Kong, the Curriculum Development Council (2002) recommends that teachers make use of co-operative learning to cater for their students' individual differences. A common feature of co-operative learning is that students help each other to learn in small groups towards a common goal (Cohen, 1994; Johnson & Johnson, 1999). For such kind of co-operative learning, the success of members of a group is interdependent to one another (Kagan, 1994; Slavin, 1995). The concept of co-operative learning is radically different from competitive learning in which a student's success builds on the failure of others. This paper aims to investigate the factors influencing teachers when they consider using co-operative learning in their classrooms. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of teachers (n = 179) from five primary schools conveniently chosen. Descriptive statistical analysis as well as factor analysis was performed on the data collected. The results suggested that the respondents agreed, to different extent, to all the twenty items of constraints as listed in the questionnaire. Four categories of factors that influenced teachers' decision to use co-operative learning were extracted. They represented the school and system levels, teachers' conceptions of teaching, pupils' ability and discipline, and classroom level. The study concluded that, in view of the various constraints, it would be difficult for teachers to implement co-operative learning to meet the curriculum re-structuring. Based on the findings, some recommendations were made.