GIS v. FIS

A friend who has a an 8 year old in FIS (English section) sent her 3 yr old to GSIS for an interview, figuring it would be good practice for next year when she can apply to FIS. To her surprise the girl was offered a place in kindy - now she doesn’ｔ　know what to do. Any thoughts would be appreciated!

One idea is to let her do a year of kindy there & if she doesn't like it she can try for FIS next year. Or she can stay in her current pre-school & wait to try join her brother.

Thanks!

I would advise her to send her kid to GSIS. Many international schools have good reputations throughout HK, FIS included, but GSIS is especially well regarded.

Although students who attend school in HK seem to be quite mobile, not many stay from kindergarten all the way through to graduation, however, if your friend is thinking long term then taking up a position with GSIS would be beneficial.


The main reason why I would recommend GSIS is that they offer AS and A Level courses, although it will be a long time before the 3 year old girl sits an A Level exam, it is still a very desirable qualification. FIS offer the IB programme, and they are more experienced in teaching it than ESF schools. However, at the moment, entry tariffs to UK universities are still proportionately higher for students with IB qualifications than A levels. This has resulted in many ESF kids not getting into their desired universities as they could not gain the high scores, where as (arguably) if they had taken A Levels they would have done.


Many blame this on the fact that in the IB programme you have to take six subjects as opposed to the three at A level. This is not the fault of the ESF, mainly just hesitation by UK universities to take into account the larger number of subjects.


You can see their line of thinking, how is it advantageous for them to take on an applicant for a History course who has 6 reasonably good IB qualifications, than a student with A levels who obtained an A in the subject that he/she wished to study. From their point of view the other subjects are really just excess.


The international school market in HK, after the transition of ESF to IB, seems to have developed a gap for people seeking an A Level based education. GSIS always offered A Levels but it is very hard to get into (another reason why she should take heed of the offer), hence now, schools like Kellett are expanding into secondary education provision to entice those wishing to do A Levels.


Bottom line, I feel an education from GSIS would prove to be a very good investment. Feel free to pm me if you want any advice/clarification.

GSIS is switching to IB over the next few years. There will be no A-levels at GSIS by the time this kindergartner enters secondary.

Thanks folks- she has been advised by GSIS that they're changing to IB. She has no idea where her kids might go to Uni, that's part of the problem. They're a kind of mixed western/Chinese/Japanese origin - in theory the world should be their oyster! As an ESF parent, I found the A-level versus IB info very useful!

She's going for GSIS - "for now" !! She's still unsure about the logistics of having her kids in two different schools. Sidetracking slightly, I had not realised that the ESF still does GCSE's, then switches to IB - very odd, I think, especially as their primary schools are now goign IB- anyone know why the back and forth?