Objectives

• Offer a secure and happy learning environment to promote children’s self-confidence and nurture their intrinsic interest in learning.
• Facilitate children’s all-round development in the areas of ethics, intellect, physique, social skills and aesthetics.
• Build a solid language foundation for children in Chinese (Cantonese), English and Putonghua.
• Develop children’s academic readiness for successful Primary and life-long learning.

 

 

Curriculum

Our unparalleled curriculum merges a strong academic foundation favored by the Eastern culture with professional early childhood educational practices advocated in the West. Children in St. Catherine’s are thus developed holistically. Not only are St. Catherine’s students strong academically, they are distinguished by their love of learning and their critical and creative thinking skills.

 

The St. Catherine’s curriculum is designed to address the following six learning areas specified by the Hong Kong Education Bureau in Kindergarten Education Curriculum Guide (2017): “Physical Fitness and Health”, “Bi-lingual Language Development”, “Early Childhood Mathematics”, “Nature and Living”, “Self and Society”, and “Arts and Creativity”. Besides, our curriculum places equal importance on nurturing our children’s learning interest and motivation, with teachers supporting them to learn “how to learn” and be developed into all-round individuals to meet the ever-changing needs of the society.

 

With the devoted effort we put into developing our school-based curriculum, the curriculum of St. Catherine’s is best known for its success in promoting children’s language and literacy development. We aim to provide children a pleasant environment to learn Chinese (Cantonese), English and Putonghua, and so we deliver our curriculum bilingually with a wide range of structured and free choice activities designed for children. They could thus learn and practice the languages when they are in individual play, engaging in small group work and taking part in whole class learning sessions.

 

In line with our philosophy about the importance of immersing children in a language-rich environment at an early age, we staff each class with a Chinese/Putonghua class teacher and a native English class teacher. They work in partnership and co-teach in the same class, and such co-teaching facilitates children’s comprehension and use of both the English and the Cantonese/Putonghua languages through being able to communicate with their teachers constantly. Apart from that, St. Catherine’s develops its school-based Chinese/Putonghua curriculum, and children are introduced to Putonghua using story-telling and rhymes. In facilitating children to learn the English language, we develop our very unique phonics teaching system to scaffold children’s competence in reading and writing the language. Further to that, we strive to cultivate in children a love of books and reading through the progressive English and Chinese reading schemes.