York International Kindergarten

York Kindergarten is a highly respected private kindergarten in Hong Kong with more than 30 years experience in educating and caring for children. Our campus is located in a quiet, leafy road in the heart of Kowloon Tong and offers a wide range of facilities. We teach close to 700 children between the ages of 2 to 6 every year.

The teaching facilities comprise of 23 spacious classrooms, 4 music areas and a computer/language suite. The outdoor play areas include 3 open-air playgrounds and 1 covered playground which are pleasant, well-equipped and clean. The school also has the benefit of being in close proximity to a lovely park which is used to encourage the children to explore nature and the environment.

We are all very proud of our school and we strive to provide a happy and caring atmosphere in which the best quality education is provided for each child to fulfil his or her potential. Childhood is a very special time and we, with the support of our parents aim to make it as happy and productive as possible for your child.

Every child is a unique constellation of talents and trajectories. Every child has the potential to achieve great things.

We hold several beliefs in common, objectives that influence and shape every teacher here at York . These 8 objectives unite us in a common voice on what we do: helping children realize and reach their potential.

• We educate the "whole" child.
• We teach through experience.
• We give children solid foundations.
• We teach English early.
• We help children develop interpersonal and intrapersonal skills.
• We involve parents in the child's education.
• We make learning fun for parents and children.
• We make a commitment to our profession.

In addition to our reliance on the expressive arts, we have forged partnerships with several media development companies to develop software, DVDs, music CDs, and other multimedia materials for our children.

We understand that 3 hours of kindergarten instruction is not sufficient to exhaust the children's potential. The drive to develop our own teaching materials therefore originates from the need to extend the learning process beyond the classroom and to provide the necessary support for children to learn at home. It is the aim of our IT curriculum to provide children with the necessary foundations so that they use computers to learn independently in the future.

We place an overriding importance on the quality of teachers. For our teachers, the learning process does not end upon graduation from university and teachers' colleges. Indeed, we conduct regular workshops to continually sharpen and improve our teacher's teaching skills and methods of instruction. Existing workshops include storytelling skills, lesson planning seminars, advanced phonetic theory, magic and puppetry workshops, etc. Parents are invited from time to time to participate in these workshops.

We aim to deliver a broad and balanced curriculum. In addition, we strive to build the children's confidence, develop their self-reliance, encourage them to make decisions and develop their ability to articulate feelings and ideas. Our curriculum is taught by a committed professional team whose aim is to make education enjoyable and rewarding for all concerned.

We place great emphasis in teaching Chinese to the children, in particular, Cantonese as well as Mandarin. The children are introduced to basic Chinese characters which they will learn to pronounce, write and recognize. The language used is kept simple and repeated often and the children are encouraged to improve their language skills through games, songs, stories and activities while having fun with their teacher and friends.

There is a great deal of evidence to suggest that early childhood is the easiest stage of an individual's life to acquire mastery in a language. To take advantage of this window of opportunity, we implement an enriched English program taught by English native speakers, consisting of both instructional and situational language and literacy experiences, such as small group activities, shared reading sessions and dynamic role-play routines.

Your child will learn to express him/herself and interact in English. Every child is encouraged to develop a love for the written and spoken word through stories, songs and role play and will be introduced to the alphabet by linking sounds and words to letters.

Our children consistently perform at a very high level. Indeed, more than 100 of our children enrolled in the Primary 3 level of the Cambridge Young Learners' English Test (CYLET) and obtained an average score of 86% (12.9 of our 15 shields). For more information, please visit our page on Academic Achievements.

There has been a rapid increase in the use of computers for learning for children. We recognize the need to expose children to computers as early as possible so as to equip them with the knowledge and skills to use a computer to enrich their education.

We are in the process of reforming our IT program and are integrating the ICT standards of the University of Cambridge into our curriculum. We will provide more information on this in due course.

Through stories, songs and games, your child will learn about numbers and the concepts of size, shape and weight and develop spatial awareness. They will be encouraged to develop problem solving skills and participate in simple scientific experiments to promote inquiry and discovery.

Since 2007, we encourage our children every year to take the Stanford Achievement Tests (10th edition), whereby our students are measured against candidates of all ages across the United States . We are very proud that more than 80 of our children matched the achievements of grade 2 children. It is for this reason that more than 100 of our children were enrolled into Stanford University 's Education Program for Gifted Youth, a math enrichment initiative for motivated, talented and high achieving students all around the world. For more information, please visit our page on Academic Achievements.

We regard science as a very important part of a child's education as it provides the bridge for a better understanding of mathematics, nature and how things are connected to one another. The children will explore areas such as floating, sinking, sound and light, through simple practical experiments.

We understand that activities which happen outside lesson times enrich children's learning and make up a significant part of the curriculum. These informal activities included playtimes, visits to places of interest, social events, taking part in school production or events.

It is for this reason that we are integrating the standards embodied in the CREST Star Investigators scheme into our science curriculum. The CREST awards scheme encourages children to discuss, solve problems and share experiences while investigating scientific phenomena through practical investigations. The CREST awards is administered by the British Association for the Advancement of Science, a learned society established in 1831 to promote the development of science. For more information, please visit our page on Academic Achievements.