Jade Theater

As schools change into the New Senior School (NSS) Curriculum, there are some fundamental changes to how subjects are selected, taught and assessed. The following is a brief outline of the important points to note during this transition from the old to the new.

With the old curriculum structure, students are streamed into Science, Arts or Commerce streams of subjects, apart from the one or two cross-stream electives that some schools may offer, most students tend to focus on their stream for both their HKCEE (Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination) in Year 11 (Form 5) and HKALE (Hong Kong Advanced Level  Examination) in Year 13 (Form 7). With the NSS, senior secondary education is now compressed to 3 years instead of 4 and the two external exams have been replaced by one external examination that leads to the attainment of the HKDSE  (Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education).

In terms of subject choices, students now need to deal with 4 core subjects, namely Chinese Language, English Language, Mathematics and Liberal Studies. Apart from the compulsory core, students will have a choice of 2-3 elective from a list of over 20 subjects that are either academic or applied (vocational) in nature. All the subjects will be externally assessed in one examination at the end of Form 6. However, the Liberal Studies subject has a new School-Based Assessment (SBA) component called the Independent Enquiry Study (IES) which would require students to select a contemporary cross-discipline issue and produce a “portfolio” for assessment and would account for 30% of the total subject mark. The nature of the IES is similar to Internal Assessments (IA) and Extended Essays (EE) of the IB Advance Diploma Curriculum in that the IES will be a continuous effort that would involve a high level of research. Most students in Hong Kong are not familiar with this format of continuous assessment which is a far cry from the more common tests and isolated pieces of homework or projects.   ITS also provides a full range of Business English courses and options.

For students that may find this new system to be unsettling, there is help available. ITS tutorial school, situated in both Central and Mongkok, is well placed to assist students in these uncertain times of change. ITS has a team of subject-specialists that is experienced with the international curriculum, from which the local education officials are drawing experience from. ITS’s English tutors  not only will be able to help with the basic academic requirements of students’ subjects but also engage and guide the students with their weighty IES and help them attain desirable results.   For those students that need an IELTS  score a full range of one to one or small group tuition can be provided.  For further information able ITS tutorial school, please visit our contact details page to see where our new school  ITS Mong Kok .  ITS Tutorial School website is also available in CHINESE.