The natural green environment provides young children with space for learning

Authentic classroom settings on campus
The wide-ranging activities of the CDSPFE help to enrich the field experience of students. Students are also getting a chance to observe and practise innovative teaching and learning techniques closer to home, in the Institute's own centres of educational excellence.

The Hong Kong Institute of Education HSBC Early Childhood Learning Centre (ECLC) opened on the Tai Po campus in November 2001, thanks to a generous $7.85 million donation from the Hongkong Bank Foundation. The ECLC not only provides students in the School of Early Childhood Education with classroom experience. It enables the school to demonstrate and share innovative teaching practices with its students and, equally importantly, with other schools.

The ECLC undertakes research projects as well, which aim to improve pre-school education in Hong Kong. For example, projects investigated the potential effects of an enriched classroom environment and teaching materials on preschoolers' language proficiency and how to handle children's conflicts.

	The HKIEd Jockey Club Primary School will open in September 2002

A new learning environment of innovative design
Similar benefits are expected from the HKIEd Jockey Club Primary School. The purpose-built school, scheduled to open on the Tai Po campus in September 2002, contains a number of innovative features. The partitioned classroom design allows flexibility in teaching and learning. Observation rooms enable student teachers, parents and visitors to observe children while they are in class. Centres are being set up at the school to promote teachers' professional development and to reach out to parents and the community. Additionally, students have access to a range of facilities designed to develop multiple intelligences: an integrated art room, an amphitheatre, a multi-media toy library, a number of sports areas as well as a roof top garden converted into a centre for environmental conservation.

A number of activities were underway in 2001-02 to prepare for the school's opening. The principal, nine teachers and supporting staff were hired in a rigorous recruitment exercise. Seminars were organised for more than 1,000 parents. Institute staff involved in preparing for the opening of the school visited laboratory schools in the United States and observed the schools' role in local education and the partnership between schools and universities in field experience and research. As with the ECLC, it is expected the HKIEd Jockey Club Primary School will be a breeding ground for student teachers who can take on leadership roles in the schools that employ them.

Helping key educators in the field develop professionally
While the Institute endeavours to equip students and researchers with high quality field experiences, it also helps schools and serving teachers to develop professionally. Numerous courses are offered each year to teachers on curriculum and teaching-related matters. In 2001-02 these covered everything from the new Chinese and General Studies curricula, to kindergarten administration and the teaching of autistic children.

	The new Field Experience Handbook published by CDSPFE

We also organised special leadership training programmes for principals and vice-principals. The Department of Educational Policy and Administration has provided, since the academic year 2000, at the request of the Education Department, a broad range of continuous professional development courses for serving and newly appointed primary school principals and vice-principals. These programmes make an important contribution to professionalisation of the role of primary school administrators. They include courses for serving principals conducted in collaboration with the Subsidised Primary Schools Council, the National Training Centre for Primary School Principals and the School of Foundations in Education of HKIEd.