Common Core

For Year 1 Student Intake in 2018 to 2023 & Senior Year Student Intake in 2019 to 2025

The Common Core was designed to be taken in a structured sequence to ensure a progressive development of foundational skills and knowledge. It aims to provide students with a fundamental and indispensable knowledge base for developing analytical and critical thinking abilities, and for making historically and scientifically informed judgments.

In the first year, students learn how to think, and how to reflect on their own processes of thinking through the course “Critical Thinking: Analysis and Argumentation”. They also acquire an understanding of Hong Kong’s uniqueness and its cross-border and cross-cultural connections from “The Making of Hong Kong”.

In Year 2, students’ critical thinking skills are expanded and advanced through learning the scientific processes and investigative patterns in “The Process of Science”. Additionally, students' understanding of their social world is enlarged through a historical examination of China's global role and relationships by taking “China in World History”.

The Common Core constitutes a fundamental foundation necessary for all students. The thinking skills that the courses develop-- of querying, investigating, evaluating, analysing, and communicating-- are used in all fields of study. The knowledge students gain -- of Hong Kong and China, of global dynamics and relations, of the mechanisms of change in both the human and the natural worlds -- form a framework within which they can interpret the various circumstances that shape their lives, now and in the future. 
 

This combination of skills and knowledge is not only relevant to, but a prerequisite for, advanced coursework in all major programmes.