In collaboration with Malvern College Pre-School Hong Kong
Malvern College Pre-School is opening a new K3 programme for children aged five to six years old, starting August 2024. The programme, exclusive to Malvern’s Island West campus in Sai Ying Pun, is designed to provide a foundation for students who may decide to move to the local stream for their primary school education.
The new K3 timetable will be more in line with Year One Primary expectations and will therefore adopt a more ‘subject-based’ approach. Children will follow carefully chosen and planned units that will each have a slightly different emphasis over the course of the academic year. It will also be a bilingual programme, and each class will have one Native English teacher and one Native Mandarin teacher.
The programme will adhere to the Key Stage One (KS1) (UK) Curriculum, and will include the following subjects:
- English
- Mathematics
- Physical Development
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development
- Science
- Design & Technology
- Geography
- History
- Art & Design
- Computing
- Music
Emma-Jane Ritchie, Assistant Principal of the Island West campus, says that while the school’s pre-nursery, K1, and K2 students can decide between half-day and full-day schedules, K3 pupils will attend whole-day classes so they can cover all the subject areas. However, despite it being a “rigorous and more structured” programme, K3 children will still get their daily Discovery Time, continue their fortnightly Forest-Beach School trips, and be able to visit the park regularly as well.
In order to provide families with as many options as possible for primary school education, Ritchie adds that the Island West campus K3 curriculum will offer a “dual pathway” when it comes to their bilingual programme. “In their Mandarin lessons, the K3 children will be taught simplified characters. However, these lessons can be tailored based on individual needs, and parents can request for traditional characters to be incorporated into their child’s learning,” says Ritchie.
When asked how well the new K3 programme will prepare children for the demands of primary school, Ritchie says the curriculum will build upon what the children have been introduced to since the pre-nursery level — from the Read Write Inc. programme for English and the Karen Wilding approach in Mathematics, to the children’s formal Chinese programme that begins at the pre-nursery stage.
“We understand a family’s plan for their child’s education may change according to their development. While we do not guarantee a place in Prep 2 at Malvern College Hong Kong (MCHK), as we do for our graduating K2s into Prep 1, we do offer our K3 graduates priority into Prep 2, over external candidates. At MCHK, we welcome pupils from both international and local kindergartens, and provide the necessary support for the K3 graduates to assimilate into MCHK,” says Ritchie.
For more information, visit the Malvern College Pre-School website.
Image credits: Malvern College Pre-School
