Early Childhood (Lower Primary) at HKIS
In collaboration with Hong Kong International School (HKIS), text by Margarita Mendez, Lower Primary Associate Principal
There’s a saying that when children are busy at play, they are busy at work – this certainly rings true at HKIS.
Pre-school teachers are masters of observation. They see and respect children as capable and responsible, and honour their innate sense of knowing how to construct meaning as they navigate their learning. Teachers of young children know when to step back and observe, when to lean in to listen, and how to notice and document that children learn best through play. By activating their power of seeing, teachers are able to know each child individually and design meaningful activities for them to amplify their play-centred learning.
The Early Childhood programme at HKIS is anchored in this foundation of teacher knowledge and understanding. The school’s teachers pay close attention to the experience of being a young child and therefore spend a lot of time listening, noticing and getting to know each student. The data they gather shapes the play-based activities they design for the children in their class. In Reception 1, when children are busy at play, they are busy at work!
Early Childhood teachers know not to interfere in such serious business as play. And yet, they need to be sure that students are progressing in their learning to set them up for success in later grades and beyond. In order to accomplish both goals, HKIS teachers use moments of play to collect evidence of the students’ passions and developmental stages. To do this effectively and systematically, its Reception 1 team developed a tool to assess each child’s language development during these authentic moments throughout the day. This tool has been so effective that it now replaces previous assessment practices which disrupted children’s play activities and felt out of context and inauthentic.
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In addition, teachers use this tool to continuously embed pre-academic skills into play-based activities, while observing and taking notes to document learning. The tool allows teachers to step back and give the children opportunities to show them what they are capable of independently, through developmentally appropriate and designed play activities. So, a teacher can observe each student’s language ability while also making each child more aware of the sounds they hear in words they use while playing games that emphasise rhyming, reading stories with predictable patterns, or singing and clapping out the syllables of songs. These activities cultivate purposeful learning for students.
And that is ultimately the goal: When students feel in control of what they are learning, they value it more, and learn more easily and more deeply. Targeting each student’s individual interests and needs for learning and assessment makes play and observation a powerful tool for early childhood educators.
Learn more about the Early Childhood programme at HKIS on its website.
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