What Is the Hong Kong School Curriculum? A Teacher's Map From P1 to S6
Quick answer: Hong Kong runs a 6-3-3-4 structure: primary school (P1 to P6), junior secondary (S1 to S3), senior secondary (S4 to S6) ending in the HKDSE exam, then university. Content sits inside eight Key Learning Areas set by the Curriculum Development Council, but each school builds its own school-based curriculum on top. Nothing here is EDB-issued material. It is an independent map for teachers arriving in the system or moving between HK schools.
How is the system structured from P1 to S6?
Primary runs P1 through P6, six years, no exit exam. Junior secondary is S1 to S3, three years, still no public exam at the end. Senior secondary is S4 to S6, three years, and it ends in the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education, the single public exam that replaced the old two-tier HKCEE and HKALE system.
This "334" shape is what people mean by the New Academic Structure. It rolled in from September 2009, starting at S4 and moving up a year at a time. If you trained somewhere with a different exit point, S4 to S6 as one continuous block leading to a single exam is the detail to hold onto.
What are the eight Key Learning Areas?
The Curriculum Development Council organises content into eight KLAs: Chinese Language Education, English Language Education, Mathematics Education, Science Education, Technology Education, Personal, Social and Humanities Education, Arts Education, and Physical Education. Every subject you teach sits inside one of these, and the CDC issues curriculum guides for each rather than a single fixed national syllabus.
Two guides matter most: the Basic Education Curriculum Guide for P1 to P6, and the Secondary Education Curriculum Guide, published in booklets, for S1 to S6. Both set learning goals rather than a lesson plan, which is where school-based planning comes in.
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What changes once students reach senior secondary?
Four core subjects carry through S4 to S6: Chinese Language, English Language, Mathematics, and Citizenship and Social Development, which replaced Liberal Studies. Mathematics has a Compulsory Part plus an optional Extended Part, Module 1 or Module 2, for students heading into more quantitative fields.
Alongside the core, students take electives from categories such as sciences, humanities, arts, technology, and Applied Learning courses aimed at practical pathways. Everything feeds into the HKDSE at the end of S6, reported on a Level 1 to 5 scale with 5* and 5** above it.
How much freedom do individual schools actually have?
More than a "national curriculum" framing suggests. CDC guides set outcomes; schools decide sequencing, resources and pacing inside their own scheme of work. The fine-tuning policy for Medium of Instruction, running since 2010/11, is the clearest example: secondary schools set their own school-based MOI plans rather than following one fixed rule for English or Chinese as the teaching language.
That is why a P1-to-S6 map matters before you plan anything. Two schools teaching the "same" KLA can look different in the classroom.
How do you use this map depending on where you're starting from?
New to Hong Kong teaching: start with the KLA your subject sits in and read the relevant curriculum guide booklet first. Skipping this is the biggest cause of a first-term plan that misses what the panel expects.
Moving between HK schools: the KLA structure and NAS timeline stay constant, but the school-based curriculum, MOI plan and pacing will differ. Ask for last year's scheme of work in week one.
Taking on wider planning: use the map to check your subject's progression stays coherent across the P6-to-S1 and S3-to-S4 transitions, where expectations jump. A resource like Math Test Prep & Assessment Toolkit – Grades 3–5 helps confirm students are actually ready for that jump.
How do you differentiate across this P1 to S6 map?
Approaching: students working below the expected band for their year need the KLA outcome broken into the smaller steps that sit underneath it, plus more repetition before moving to the next stage of the map.
On level: students track the standard P1-to-S6 progression as the CDC guide sets it out, with pacing that matches their year group's usual milestones.
Above level: students can move into the next KLA stage early or take on extension tasks inside the current one, rather than simply repeating on-level work faster.
What goes wrong when teachers skip this map?
Treating Liberal Studies as current. It was replaced by Citizenship and Social Development, phased in from S4 in 2021/22 and reported as Attained or Unattained, not on the Level 1 to 5 scale.
Assuming UK-style Key Stages map directly onto HK ones. They don't line up the same way, and importing a UK pacing guide unchecked creates gaps.
Quoting a percentage of schools as English-medium versus Chinese-medium. No current, verifiable EDB figure supports a specific split, so a number like that belongs nowhere in a lesson plan.
Frequently asked questions
Is this curriculum information officially issued by the EDB?
No. This is independent teacher-facing material, not an EDB publication, and it has not been vetted by the EDB, the CDC, the HKEAA, or any examination authority.
What is the fastest way to check I'm not using outdated subject names?
Two swaps: Liberal Studies is now Citizenship and Social Development at senior secondary, and Life and Society is now Citizenship, Economics and Society at junior secondary, fully rolled out from S1 in September 2024.
Do all schools teach every KLA the same way?
No. The eight KLAs set the map; each school's sequencing and even Medium of Instruction choice per subject can differ under its own school-based plan.
Where should I go for anything exam-specific?
The HKEAA publishes exam structures and reporting scales directly. Treat this article as orientation, not exam guidance.
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