Mulberry House is paving the way for bilingual education

Starting from a mother’s failed search for a bilingual playgroup to send her children to, Mulberry House founder, Jessica Ye Trainor decided to take matters into her own hands. After completing a Montessori degree she began home-schooling kids and her classes soon gained popularity amongst parents across Hong Kong. She decided to open her first bilingual playgroup in Central in late 2015, focusing on teaching children a bilingual education with a modern approach.

The Mandarin immersion programme was particularly popular when it started, catering to the needs of many children and parents on Hong Kong Island. As the children grew, the organization began creating more programmes for preschools and primary schools to support them.

“I am a huge fan of the Independent Schools Foundation, so when they opened the kindergarten, we were the first ones to enrol. Over the years, the majority of our playgroup children also got into ISF, CIS and Victoria, which was very encouraging for us,” says Trainor. Now with two kindergartens, two playgroups across Hong Kong and two nurseries in Shenzhen, Mulberry House is pathing the way for bilingual education.

Curriculum

Following the well-researched United Kingdom early year teaching framework (EYFS), Mulberry House’s curriculum is highly interactive with three primary areas of learning: Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Communication & Language and Physical Development. They also offer a range of extra-curricular activities in sport, music, drama and STEAM.

Reggio Emilia approach

The curriculum was inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach, an educational philosophy focusing on early childhood education. The philosophy strongly believes in the 100 languages of the children approach which provides children with different avenues for thinking, revising, constructing, negotiating, developing and symbolically expressing their thoughts and feelings to help adults and children better understand one another. Reggio Emilia also highlights three beliefs including respecting each child and their development, creating a positive learning environment and encouraging children to inquire and explore, enabling them to learn and develop their own potential.

Day-to-day learning

Each day at Mulberry House is divided into a morning and afternoon session. Mornings consist of 50-50 English and Mandarin immersion programmes along with multi-sensory learning materials, to allow younger children to effortlessly absorb and experience both English and Chinese as a “living language”. The afternoon session includes four options for parents to choose, full English immersion classes, full Mandarin immersion classes or 60-40 of either language. Rather than hiring language teachers, Mulberry House has English and Mandarin native speaking early childhood educators to help children naturally navigate the world around them in two languages in context while cultivating the love of learning.

Campuses

Mulberry House has two campuses in Southside and Tai Po, they each offer bright spaces and indoor play areas for children to explore. The Tai Po campus also offers outdoor spaces including a garden and sandpit, a rare find in Hong Kong, while the Southside campus offers full-glass windows engulfing every classroom in natural light.

The Southside based kindergarten recently appointed Betty Fang as Head of School. Having taught in numerous international kindergartens and primary schools across Hong Kong for the past 20 years, Fang understands the importance of learning through play and fostering creativity.

“As a young mother, I remember being on an endless search for playgroups and kindergartens that would foster a life-long enjoyment and excitement for learning in my daughters. When I first stepped into the school, I knew that Mulberry House was the school I would have wanted my daughters to attend,” says Fang. She will be leading the new campus in Aberdeen this school year and is excited to grow the community and carry the mission forward.