Perceptions of school life among a sample of Chinese children in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

Many studies have focused on the negative aspects of transition from kindergarten to school, such as bullying and difficulties adjusting to school life. Fewer studies have asked children to talk about both positive and negative aspects of school life across time. This study explores children’s perception of positive and negative aspects of school during the last month at kindergarten, first three months and last month in Year 1. Gender differences in children’s perceptions of life in Year 1 are explored. Positive and negative aspects of school included peer interactions, learning, rules, environment, school activities and teacher–child interaction. Other positive aspects of school also included parents’ or siblings’ engagement in school activities, teachers’ praise and pupils’ roles. This paper provides robust information for educators and parents to use as a reference for developing effective strategies to help children adapt to school life.

KEYWORDS:

• Transition to school
• young children
• positive expectations
• negative expectations
• longitudinal study
• gender differences

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the reviewers for their critical review. I wish to thank the participating children, the parents and teachers for their cooperation; Chow Fu Yee, Cheng Ka Ki, Li Ka Yan, Yip Lai Ying, who assisted with collecting the data and data entry.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr. Wong Muns research interests lie in young childrens social and emotional well-being, including children's concept of distributive justice, how children cope with bullying, peer conflicts, learning, and sense of helplessness at school. Her recent longitudinal study examines parents, teachers and childrens role in helping children to cope with stress during the transition from preschool to school. Dr. Wong is the Field Experience Coordinator for the Bachelor of Education (Hons) (Early Childhood Education, 3-year Part-time) Programme from 2008-2015. She is also the Project Leader of Zippys Friends at School and at Home Project, an emotional education programme for children and parents in Hong Kong (2006-present). With the sponsorship of Hong Kong Bank Foundation, Zippy's Friends Programmehas been launched in 529 kindergartens and 150 primary schools (N=679). A total of 2,041 teachers have been trained as Qualified Zippy's Friends teachers. More than 90,000 5-7-year-old children have beenbenefited from the programme with significant improvement in expressing emotions, solving problems and learning attitude. Dr. Wong has beeninvited to the Department of Education, University of Oxford as a Visiting Research Fellow from 25 April 2010 to 19 June 2010. She has also been invited by the Education Youth Affairs Bureau in 2007-2015 to conduct inspections and provide consultancy work on the plan and work of the Integrated Evaluation of School (Kindergarten sector) in Macau. In 2015, Dr. Wong was invited to be one of the Symposium panelists to present her research on distributive justice at the Asian Conference on Education, 2015 (Oct) in Kobe, Japan. She also works as the Project Consultant for the Caritas Little Angel Project (2016-2019): A Supportive Developmental Project for Enhancing Children's Coping Strategies and Mental Health.

Additional information

Funding

The author wishes to thank the Hong Kong Government for providing a research grant for this study.