Quality of International School

I would like to seek your advise on how I could escalate my concern and complaint of an International School in Hong Kong. I have done speaking to the school. The principal is rude and unfair in her action. Hope to hear from you soon on where and how I could raise my complaint related to international school.

edb hk

My recent experience made my life the first time and I hope it is the last mistake I made for my lovely son. My son was studied in a Elite Local School, his class teacher and home tutors told me that his English was very good, better expose him into English environment. Then, I decided gave up his place in the Elite local school and swap him to a unwell-known International School (All famous International Schools are full) as his workload in local school is also very high, unfortunately, I have never expected that his non-experienced class teacher was so unprofessional, she just looked at the mirror in every minutes even during our conversation, very thick make up on her face every early morning, non-westerner speaking accent,(of course she is not westerner) Her perfect minded made my son, my husband and I were very upset and we don't know how to fulfill her requirements.

She expected a new joiner (non English mother tongue) to do his task immediately when he joined the school at the first day, he needs to do his book report at school without any advise, silience read, projects, etc.... She complained she has to help my son a lot to complete his task. She said she lost her patient after my son's 3 days at their school. I wonder why I have to pay money to their school? They also complained my son's attention problem and conigtive problem! Of course I took my son to the hospital to check whether my son really has a problem, at the end, the doctor told me that his attention has little bit problem but not serious, his IQ is also exactly fit to his age.


I submitted the report to the principal, they still asked my son to repeat for his level after he joined the school for only 41 days. Do you think I should stay at this school?


I was so struggled to think about my son just joined the school for only few months, he enjoyed speaking English and try to be not shy in front of his classmate, everything was still in progress and in a right track (doctor advised me his problem is very common for a new join student), but his teacher was not understanding, as a mother, I felt so helpless and hopeless, I supposed to give the best to my son, but the foreigner teacher did not encourage him but put a lot of pressure to him/us! I felt I made an extremely wrong decision and I won't believe International School anymore. I hope there will be no more kids are so unlucky like my boy.

Dear Cara,


How great to hear a person who has been understand our situtation and would like to help his language. I am living in Bamboo Court. It is very close to Hopewell Center in Wanchai. A month ago, I felt totally hopeless and so frustrated until now.


Honestly, I have been talked to the Principal, the SEN teacher for more than five times, they suppose try to let my son go to Grade 4 if he has no ADD. Unfortunately, when I were so happy to submit my son's assessment paper to them to tell them my son does not have significant ADD problem, his attention problem is only minor. He also not ASD kids. When I was so excited to pass the paper to the Principal, she told me that if my son do not have ADD then he must has cognitive problem. I felt so upset to hear that, if my son has cognitive problem, that means his IQ is only 70 points or lower. I talked to the doctor again about the teacher raised up another problem, he told me that my son is so young, he has lot of chance to learn, why your principal do not trust her interview, parent and the doctor's opinion? In their test, my son is quite intelligent.


Most of the problem sent to their Clinic also referred from International School's teacher, the problem is not they can found out the problem, is they don't understand there are different kids and different learning ways in the world, he explained. They put too much ???? on kids development but actually they only know very little part and not in the whole picture. Finally, my son done the assessment of speech in Cantonese, English, Sensory, attention, IQ over this month, they found that his attention problem is very minor, he is also very intelligent in learning English and reasoning, he copy exactly the same accent from the English teacher. Only three months time? his English became very fluent, his sentence writing was also improved. The other therapist and the doctor told me that the school is not professional, most of the IS teachers are not study education, they are only University graduate. That's why, studying in IS is not good choice for HK people. That is different with sending a kid to study on board. He told me that some IS teacher misunderstand the common character of local children and International children, they are very very different. If you want to change the learning way to a kids, at least taking more then 3 years time. A local kids want to speak fluent English needs to take 3 years time also, not only 50 days. They received a lot of complains from IS, their teacher found different problem to the kids, at result, they found the teachers are not understanding of child psychology.


I tried my last chance to speak to his class teacher before I decided to leave this bad school, I told her my son did not go to silence reading level as he never tried and no one teach him before, he even cannot do reading report by his own, can I help him at the first few months, she explained to me all her children in the classroom could handle, and she is only a staff to working here, the boss asked her how to teach then she will follow only, then she kept looking at the clock when I talked to her. I also found that my son actually finished a lot of his task but he did not submit to the teacher just left them in his desk. Why? I standing there and asked my son to submit the classwork to his teacher, he went ahead and asked his teacher give him a grade, his teacher asked him to put back his work in a class folder then she will grade them in class.


Yes, my son was a star in a Elite School, 98 or 100 marks is always happen on his exam, but his perfect mind teacher in IS did not give him encouragement, I found this problem since he joined the school for the first week, he always pretends his teacher give very low mark to his work. (Even you have done your work, but I will still give you 0 as you are late to submit, you also not enough participation in the group project, etc..' let's think about his language compare to his classmate is not good enough, so how to participate well?) I know my son suffered a lot in this Christain School! The teacher did not put any concern on my son, he is a new joiner! I felt so upset to what she said to me. I know I could not help in my side and she will not help him also in their side. We have no choice, I decided to give up this place. I made a wrong decision! I should trust IS.



What I can say on this case, my son was past Principal's interview and successfully get in a new English School. The principal's entrance assessment was not match to the class teacher's requirement. Our kid gave up a space in local school, put new concept on his learning, his teacher did not care about he is new. She keeps misunderstanding to a young kids. They asked parent to do assessment to a kid, doctor and therapist do not agree the kid has any problem, then the school insist to ask the kid to repeat to his level. (Waste time!)


My son really enjoyed to do project in IS, I hope he can continue this teaching approach. Do you know where I can find such lessons?


Thanks for your help, Cara. You may send me message through the my email

Kanicevee@gmail.com


Kanice

Sure, I have think about KIS before, but I rather go back to local stream and I found a school running low teacher and student ratio which is talking about 1:22 in HK side, the have one westerner teacher for each class.


Is that KIS is really good? I also learnt from my friend KIS put all information in the internet, the parents can check their classwork and homework in their school web. Can you email me about the English tutor for me and may I have contact with your friends who has kid studying in KIS? Thanks a lot.

One more warning to everyone who would like to receive true International education to your child, please don't choose the so-called "Christain" background but their Principal and teachers actually not open-minded and also not really care about children's psychology. They will even love to use "RED PEN" to write your child's handbook frequently because of very minor problem but the teacher never think about how to teach the children or solve the problem. The teacher will also play the facebook or ipod during lesson! Ohhh....


If I am going to pay around 10000 a month for my children's school fee and to receive lowest education, I rather donate my money to the charity organisation and go to HK government's school or some other school with better management like ESF. They are more responsible and reliable to children and family. We also have to alert some of the International School they are not hiring westerner to teach our children English, and also they are not graduated from Education. So what education do we receive at the end?

i think that is a bit black and white, inkpot


certainly the top tier IS are very good schools with excellent facilities, staff and programs...as well as huge behavioral problems with their students.


but there are a lot of second tier IS with good programs as well, earnest and hard working teachers, good (and bad) students but are hardly dumping grounds for problem/hopeless kids...

Does anyone have any opinions or experience they can share with the following schools:


Po Leung Kuk Choi Ka Yau (Sham Shui Po) Private

Wong Kam Fai (Ma On Shan) DSS

Renaissance College (Ma on Shan) ESF

Pui Kui (Tai Wai) DSS i think?

Yew Chung (Kowloon Tong) Private


I'm applying for Primary schools for my Daughter who is in K2 ECLC (Local school with western teaching approach). My daughter is 1/4 chinese, dad speaks fluent cantonese but does not read or write. Ideally we would like her to attend a fully Bi-lingual (English/Mandarin) school but I do have reservation about the fact that we cannot support her with her Mandarin and she would therefore definately require a tutor. I don't want her to miss out on her childhood and only ever be doing homework/studies. I would also like her to attend a forward thinking school. We live in the Tai Po area.


would appreciate any comments or advise,Thx.