Yew Chung International School's new middle school programme seeks to ease transition from primary to secondary
With a mix of Chinese and Christianity, a British curriculum and IB, Yew Chung International School is transforming its secondary curriculum
Yew Chung International School, whose origins date back to 1932, is among the schools to emulate offices and working spaces in relying on more common areas and less walls to encourage an exchange of ideas, interaction, collaboration and cooperation.
The school’s secondary campus in Kowloon Tong is being renovated with the intention of transforming individual floors into open-air podiums that create flexible learning spaces for “a range of activities, albeit in an individual setting, peer learning and group settings”.
Designed by the American architectural firm Fielding Nair International, the project started in 2016 and it is scheduled to finish in 2018. Apart from providing pupils with an extended level of learning activities, rooms for interaction and individual learning, the renovations in Block A, where Year 7 to Year 9 classrooms are situated, contain a bigger message.
The school is integrating its Year 7 to Year 9 curriculum into a new Middle School programme, in which “Learning Communities” is the DNA. “The goal in introducing the middle school is to develop a bridge from primary to the upper school in the community,” says Amos A. Lyso, vice-principal of the secondary section.