In order to enhance the quality of teaching and learning, the School of Early Childhood Education has specially designed an Early Childhood Model Classroom for providing students, especially those of pre-service programmes, with a laboratory environment that allows them to put theories into practice. With its well-equipped facilities, teaching and instructional supplies, the Model Classroom helps to improve the child observation and teaching techniques of students.

Facilities inside the Early Childhood Model Classroom
High flexibility and easy-to-change settings of the learning environment is one of the features of the Model Classroom. Students can organise the teaching materials in the learning corners according to specific themes. Various learning corners are set up in the classroom to provide a conducive environment for children to learn.

The Observation Classroom
It is adjacent to the Early Childhood Model Classroom. An audio-visual recording system with control panel is installed. It enables the students to observe and tape-record the activities inside the Early Childhood Model Classroom by themselves.

A comprehensive set of AV equipment has been set up offering an advanced multi-media system to assist teaching and learning. Four removable video cameras and six ‘hidden' microphones are installed in the Model Classroom to capture and tape-record the activities inside the Model Classroom without disturbing the teacher and children. All these facilities are connected with the control panel in the Observation Classroom.

Resource Centre
The Early Childhood Model Classroom is supported by the adjacent Resource Centre. A collection of learning equipment and references is available in the Resource Centre, and student teachers can make use of these resources for teaching or for preparing their teaching aids.

The Hong Kong Institute of Education HSBC Early Childhood Learning Centre (ECLC), with the support of a generous donation of HK$7. 85m from the Hongkong Bank Foundation, was established in September 2001 at the Institute's Tai Po Campus. The ECLC aims to promote the quality of early childhood education in Hong Kong through the experimentation with and dissemination of innovative practices, as well as the enhancement of early childhood teacher education and parent education.

The ECLC provides a rich learning environment for children of six months to six years old that allows each child's potential to be optimized through the shared joy of learning and teaching. The curriculum promotes learning through exploration and concrete experiences and provides a learning environment that emphasizes development in both the cognitive and affective domains.

The ECLC also provides field experience opportunities for pre-service and in-service student teachers that support their professional development through class observation, attachment, supervised teaching practice and internships.

The ECLC promotes and demonstrates innovative learning and teaching approaches, and facilitates the conduct and dissemination of research and development projects in early childhood education by staff of the School and the ECLC.