Shatin Junior school vs Renaissance College

Renaissance PYP v.s. Shatin Junior: How would you choose?


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I am struggling between these two schools for my year 1 son. So far as I know, Renaissance is a ESF's quite new Private Independent School but running full IB from yr 1 to 13, while Shatin Junior is a well-established ESF school well-known for its academic achievements for years.


Since I am a Chinese and my husband is a British while Hong Kong will be our permanent home as far as I can plan ahead, the opportunity of learning Chinese and Putonghua is highly appreciated.


Would like to hear the advice from you who know about both or either these schools. Or simply how would you choose over these two schools? Thank you.

My son is 5 this year and has been going to Tutor Time since age 2 so can speak and understand Mandarin - yes Mandarin is vIp for us.

he has been offered a place in SJ but not yet in RC.

Cheers

IF Mandarin/ Chinese is your priority, I would suggest RC if you get an offer. Both are under the ESF "umbrella", and except for differences in student profile (ie RC has more families very concerned about Chinese) the educational differences at primary will be very insignificant.


RC does teach much more Chinese than SC (though SC is changing), and the expected environment of Chinese does make a significant difference in the learning outcome. Though a student may not be 100% fluent upon completion of primary, they will be conversational and reading/ writing levels will be far more advance to regular ESF.


As for Cantonese, I think it really depends on the child. We are not Cantonese speakers, but my kids attended local school through kindergarten. This was enough for both to become conversational. Attending a primary with many HK families perhaps enhanced further their Cantonese abilities. Though the kids were speaking English to each other, when they went to friends' homes they were often among parents/ grandparents who didn't speak English and so got lots of opportunity to practice Cantonese.

Thanks for the replies so far........