YCCECE teaching team for Jockey Club ‘CoolPlay’ Project has received an Honorable Mention in the FSTE Teaching Excellence Award (TEA) this year. The prizes were presented by Dr Christine Choi, Secretary for Education at the FSTE 30th anniversary ceremony on 22 November 2024. 

FSTE Teaching Excellence Award is established to recognise and reward FSTE Member Institutions’ teachers with excellent teaching performance. This annual sector-wide Award also aims to promote and share good practices for learning and teaching in order to foster a culture of quality enhancement amongst member tertiary institutions.  The Jockey Club ‘CoolPlay’ Project scored the Honorable Mention award this year. It is the first award won by teaching staff of YCCECE. The teaching members of this project include Dr Brad Chan, Ms Esther Chong, Ms Ruoyu Wen and Ms Joey Chan.

Commenced in 2023, Jockey Club ‘CoolPlay’ Project Phase 2 is a four-year research initiative funded by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust and co-organised by Yew Chung College of Early Childhood Education and Hong Kong Christian Service. This project offers teacher training to pre-service teachers and in-service teachers.

The project followed a child-centric approach and extended its reach to handpicked grassroot communities in Hong Kong, providing early childhood educators and parents with educational resources, training, and support tailored for young children. In school and daily life, young children are encouraged to put into practice ‘exploratory learning’, equipping them with 21st century key skills including innovation, communications, and collaboration. This project covered various community and research activities, this year it launched the ‘Exploratory Kindergarten Certification Scheme’ this year and arranged the 4th CoolPlay’ International Conference on Early Exploration. Exploratory Kindergarten Certification Scheme’ aims to recognize local education organizations and elites with outstanding performance in early childhood education. The scheme also carries the aspiration of setting a standard of excellence for early childhood education in Hong Kong, providing professional guidance to pioneer the industry to reinvent by injecting innovation in implementing ‘exploratory learning’.

“We are honoured to receive the Honorable Mention in the FSTE Teaching Excellence Award. This achievement is a vital piece of the bigger picture we have been building. Our teaching materials JumpStarter series has won multiple international awards for its innovative design, and now this recognition from FSTE completes the picture by affirming our excellence in teaching itself.  Our mission has always been to empower teachers to inspire exploration and curiosity in young learners. We believe that impactful education requires both outstanding materials and effective teaching. The success of our JumpStarter series showed the power of the resources we created. This teaching award now validates our ability to bring those materials to life in the classroom, empowering teachers to foster exploration through play-based learning in young children,” said Dr Brad Chan, Co-leader of the project.