CIS parents? Is it really difficult to be accepted by CIS?

ALIP

Hi Ruby 1219,

The two key criterion I set in selecting a school for my daughter are biligualism and IB programme. I want my daughter to be fluent in both spoken and written Chinese & English. There are only 4 proper bilingual schools in HK namely, Yew Chung, CIS, SIS & Kingston. Compared to other ESF schools, RC currently has more lessons but all other ESF schools are moving to 5 lessons a week. I did a quick check and found out that RC offers 200 minutes of Chinese lesson per week compared to 280 min at CNDIS and 240 min at Aust Int'l. For the bilingual schools I mentioned, one dedicates 50% time teaching in Chinese and another offers 450 min per week. Therefore I didn't feel RC offers the level of Chinese proficiency I hope my child could achieve.

In fact after visiting RC and finding out about the limited Chinese lessons, I did send an email to the Principal saying that I felt misled by their website which like you said, used Chinese as a selling point - I of course did not get a reply back :)

ALIP

Hi gst725,

It is indeed sad that education is such a big problem for HK parents - wish the Education Dept would clean up their act and do something right one day.

I didn't really do much research on HKIS because it runs the American curriculum which would limit the choices of universities. I personaly think that US unis are better for business related and IT majors but not other subjects that's why I didn't want to limit my daughter's future choices given I still don't know what her strengths/interests are. The only things I've heard about this school is that it has a lot of rich kids and the discipline is quite loose - i.e. no uniform so going to school becomes a fashion parade for some kids.

My daughter is currently at Kingston Int'l. In order to ensure that she gets in their kindy, I sent her to their nursery school when she turned 2 costing me nearly $6K per month! I can't really say if it's money worth spending but I'm happy with her progress. When I first visited the school, I did ask where the primary kids go on to and they said they're working on finding a school that would guarantee entry for their  graduates and that they're talking to CIS as well. Then one day Kingston informed parents that they've reached an agreement with Creative in Tseung Kwan O to accept their graduates. I checked out the school and didn' like it. Around that time, there was news about RC being established. I was really interested but unfortunately only found out that it's not what I'm looking for after the school visit last Dec. The experience with RC made me realised that many schools say they have Mandarin but in fact mostly at the basic level. So I started looking at all the schools again and decided to try CIS. If my daughter doesn't get in CIS, I'll let her stay at Kingston and hope that more schools would have upgraded their Chinese program by the time she graduates! So you see, it's not exactly smooth sailing for me either : )

I guess there's not much more you can do at this point but just be aware that int'l and local schools are very different in many aspects. The longer your daughter stays in a local school, the more difficult it will be for her to adjust to int'l school.

By the way, would you accept if CIS offers your child a place?

502

ALIP,

You did a lot on understanding the schools!

How do you think about ISF 弘立 in terms of discipline and proficiency in langauges?

Rgds,

502

mattsmum

copied from their web site:

did they change the school fee and policy?全年十期/本校並無任何債券

Yew Chung
入學申請費：港幣 $1,000 (此收費將不予退還，請於遞交申請表時一並交回，劃線支票抬頭請寫：Yew Chung International School )

學費

小學（第一至第六班）
第一期 $12,885 元
第二至第十期 $12,850 元 全年十期 共 $128,535 元

本校並無任何債券或需個人推薦等措施。
耀中國際學校為有數名子女在本校就讀的家長提供學費優惠。如有查詢，請致電 (852) 2338 8774 或電郵 [email protected] 與我們聯絡。

ALIP 寫道:
I did look into Yew Chung but decided I didn't like it cause it's a local turn int'l school which seems to have maintained the "pressure" of local schools. Besides, they charge 12 mths school fees which I think is ridiculous.



By the way, SCMP online has a school guide which is quite helpful. Good luck!

ALIP

Hi mattsmum,

I looked at Yew Chung about 2 yrs ago so it looks like they've changed the fees and policy since. The school fees used to be around 10K though. I'm surprised about the "no debenture" bit cause I read a recent article in SCMP about parents complaining of a new policy on the school imposing a debenture of $200K or something per child. I think they changed some policies because of the new school campus they built on land provided by the gov, which as a consequence, they will no longer receive any other grants.

ALIP

Hi 502,

Actually, I've really just looked at a few schools in great depth : )

Anyway, I first heard about ISF a year or so ago when a friend was interested and asked for my opinion. I went on the website and it didn't look that professional (may have improved since) but the teachers' CVs were on the website and majority of their background were just "so-so". I then heard about ISF again from another friend last year who is looking to transfer her daughter from a local private school to IS. She didn't apply for ISF in the end because she felt that it's too expensive and the main selling point is that it was founded by the well known local scientist - she said her daughter does not plan to become a scientist - as a joke of course. Two of her daughter's schoolmates though transferred to ISF and the English standard of one of the kids actually declined while the other one adjusted okay. ISF is very new and I've not heard or read enough about this school to really comment on their discipline and language proficiency. However, given the school is the aspiration of a group of local academics I think discipline would not be lax. Although the school claims to be a bilingual school applying for the IB qualification,  language proficiency would depend on the level they opt for under the IB requirement. A classic example is RC which I think did not opt to offer Mandarin at the "intensive" level therefore the limited lessons per week.

03baby

Do you know which IS teaches Traditional Chinese and which IS teaches Simplified Chinese?

I only know ESF and SIS use SC.

Gogocat, is your child studying in SIS now? Why do you want to switch to CIS? Is it difficult to switch from SIS to CIS after Year 5 or 6?

WYmom

ALIP,

Do you know the % of Chinese in CIS?  Is it 50%?  Are the students doing A1 papers in IBD in both Chinese and English?

As I know, ISF uses 70% Mandarin vs 30% English in primary and switch to 30%:70% in secondary, so students should take the A1 paper in IBD, but not sure about their English.

RC uses only 20% Chinese, and it aims for students to take the A2 Chinese paper in IBD, while ESF schools aim for taking the B paper (Chinese as a second language) only.  English will definitely be A1.

Thanks.

gogocat

hi 03baby,
In fact, my daughter is a small girl and we submitted the application to different Int' school in one go. for CIS we can submit the application form 2 years before the start of the school year. If my little one could get accepted by CIS, she could only go to reception class... I want her to be a small girl rather than a big girl in the school since she is pretty mature. to be honest, I dont particularly like/dislike SIS but just pretty sure that I wont let her study in SIS secoundary school. I noticed that most of the kids in SIS could speak fluent english but still SIS secondary school is too new. Anyway, I wont feel upset/ overjoyed even if she could get accepted by CIS coz SIS is good enough at the moment.

Ruby1219

Christf and WYmom,

You two seem so familiar with the IBD system. I would like to ask you more about it. Thanks in advance.

So, you mean taking A1 paper of IBD means the highest level ? How many levels and how many subjects are there ? How many subjects at minimum that a student has to take ?

Christf, you mean CIS divide its students into different groups to take different subjects and levels of the IBD exam ?

WYmom, you said RC takes A2 for Chinese (Mandarin?) then how about the other subjects such as English ? Are they also dividing students into groups for different level or just taking same level for all students ?

Sorry that i have so many questions. I'm totally idiot about the IB system.

Btw, my friend who's a ESF parent told me she foundt that actually ESF is not letting all their students taking IB exam ? Only the top tier would be taking it. Do you know about this ?

Ruby

WYmom

Hi, Ruby,

IB program is quite complicated, I just happen to know a bit more about it from RC's introduction on IB program.  As I know, A1/A2 are the mother tongue levels for language, ESF students (I believe include RC) will take A1 or A2 English, depending on the ability of each student.  Each student has to take 6 subjects (include 2 languages, Maths, 1 art, 1 science and 1 others) minimum.

As I can see from the IB results of SC, most students take IB Diploma (IBD), and only a few take the IB Certificate (the lower one) instead of IBD.  Besides, as I know, right now students still can choose to take GCE A-level instead of IBD, but it may change in future.  So I don't think your friend's saying is correct.

I believe you can get more details of IB program from the official IBO website.  

Hope this helps.

mattsmum

you can get lots information form ibo web site, you can also seach for this in the chinese websites, many schools in china are actually ib school since 95, they got a lot of article about their work.

Ruby1219

WYmom & Christf,

Thank you so much to you both. Now I have a much better understanding on IB, will visit their website and study more too.

WYmom, you are RC parent too right ? Which year is your child in ?

Ruby

ALIP

Hi WYmom,

For CIS, the early years split for Chin & Eng is 50/50. As they progress on, the split is 35% Chin and 65%. The school did not say from what year onwards though.

If RC is aiming to do the A2 paper, the std of Chinese is higher than I expected, however, I do wonder how they plan to achieve that with just 200 min per week. I heard from somebody that it's because they can't employ enough Mandarin teachers. Does anyone know?

WYmom 寫道:
ALIP,

Do you know the % of Chinese in CIS?  Is it 50%?  Are the students doing A1 papers in IBD in both Chinese and English?

As I know, ISF uses 70% Mandarin vs 30% English in primary and switch to 30%:70% in secondary, so students should take the A1 paper in IBD, but not sure about their English.

RC uses only 20% Chinese, and it aims for students to take the A2 Chinese paper in IBD, while ESF schools aim for taking the B paper (Chinese as a second language) only.  English will definitely be A1.

Thanks.

ALIP

Hi christf,

May I ask if you have a child at CIS? Could you shed some light on the school culture? Thks!

WYmom

ALIP 寫道:
Hi WYmom,

For CIS, the early years split for Chin & Eng is 50/50. As they progress on, the split is 35% Chin and 65%. The school did not say from what year onwards though.

If RC is aiming to do the A2 paper, the std of Chinese is higher than I expected, however, I do wonder how they plan to achieve that with just 200 min per week. I heard from somebody that it's because they can't employ enough Mandarin teachers. Does anyone know?

ALIP,

Thanks for your info.  For RC, you are right as I heard that they aim to increase the Chinese class gradually after they employ more native Mandarin teachers.  So I think the target of taking A2 Chinese paper is more for those Y1 students now, but not for their current secondary students.