Tin Hau school first to adopt official Montessori education
Official Montessori education comes to the city after Tin Hau school's teaching methods win recognition from international council
Montessori kindergartens are common across Hong Kong but there is only one primary school using the internationally adopted teaching approach.
The International Montessori School in Tin Hau recently became only the second accredited primary school in Asia. The other one is in Japan.
IMS was accredited by the US-based International Montessori Council after an inspection by a four-member panel in October.
The government had previously planned to turn the school site into a youth hostel but dropped the plan following public opposition.
The inspection covered about 125 standards and criteria, including the educational programmes, student-teacher ratios, teacher qualifications, curriculum, group size and facilities, among others.
With 600 pupils, IMC advocates bilingualism and has developed its own Chinese curriculum materials incorporating the Montessori philosophy, which dates to the early 20th century, when Italian educator and scientist Maria Montessori developed the approach based on her own research that showed children learn best by doing, not by passively accepting knowledge.