ICS Parents

lenglengma

咁大家睇下學校起唔起得成咪知囉。

lenglengma

仲有﹐邊個話政府批了地﹐俾了grant, 就唔可以收人debenture呢﹖日本人國際學校
塊地都係政府批既﹐咪又係要收人每年$12,000 Capital Levy (Debenture係有得囉
番﹐Capital Levy係每年俾左就無得囉番既)。既然係debenture, 有得囉番﹐講真
又唔係多錢(出面 D 國際學校下下都十幾萬debenture), 又呃得我地D咩呢﹖
ICSfather你仲未有正面回應你小朋友係咪比ICS 踢出校﹐如果唔係﹐又點會咁大反應呢﹖
仲有﹐我去果間church係浸會﹐好多ICS 老師星期日都去﹐難道佢地係邪教徒﹖
好多大教會牧師都recommand信徒既小朋友讀ICS﹐難道佢地個個都盲既﹖

lenglengma

Does a school really have to belong to a certain 教派 in order to be called or viewed as a "real" Christian school?  I really don't think so.  If it doesn't belong to a certain 教派, does it mean it is 異端? As long as they are teaching/ preaching things which are not against the bible or Jesus, then it should have no problem.  

Do you have anything to back up that ICS is indeed not a real "Christian school"?  Are there anything that they are teaching which support you to say this?  

If you are a Christian, I don't think you should say the following: "As usual, you really don't have any logical sense."

"As a Christian, it is very important to know which 教派 as I think it is totally unacceptable if it is 係異端."

From reading what you were saying..."As a Christian..."  It looks like you know perfectly well how a Christian should act, and I have to guess you are a Christian (from what you were saying).  You should know very well how a Christian should walk in God's words.  Saying / understanding God's words are not enough, walk it.  

I think I know who you are, because your words, grammatic structure, your friend's story and your "logic" do sound familiar to me.  Seems like you have talked to me before...or else you wouldn't say anything like this:
"As usual, you really don't have any logical sense."

我諗我都唔係咁無logical sense掛﹖有咩會令你覺得我無logical sense呢﹖
ICS入面有好多家長都係浸會﹐循道衛理會﹐Lutheran, 宣道會 既信徒。亦有好多大教會既牧師及evangelists' 既仔女讀ICS既。我諗我地會好明白ICS究竟係一間咩野學校掛﹖除非我地個個家長係傻既。你又無小朋友係ICS讀﹐點解你對ICS咁深仇大恨咁呢﹖我真係唔明白。

I feel so sorry for your friend's child.  Being stucked at a school which her/his child doesn't like, and is not able to change his/her child to anywhere else.  

lenglengma

Thanks Edmond.
I hope this is over.  Thank you tommyzoe for opening this board for real logical discussion for people who intend to send their kids to ICS or for current parents.  I appreciate for all the people who care about ICS.  Thank you all!  God bless.

lenglengma

PoParents,
ICS does not have any specialist/department to handle autistic kids.  However, ICS does provide a very loving learning environment.  I heard that CAIS - Christian Alliance International School is quite good for autistic kids.

lenglengma

PoParents,
No...I didn't say that ICS doesn't have any autistic kids, I was just saying ICS doesn't have any specilist/special department to handle kids like that.  
I know there are few autistic kids do end up doing very good after switching to ICS.  
Hope this helps.

lenglengma

PoParents,
Regarding whether or not to have your kid repeated, I think it is best to leave this decision to the principle during interview/accessment.  Many of the autistic kids are very smart indeed, so may be your kid doesn't need to repeat.  Let's see what the principle have to say about your kid.  Why not give your kid a try at interview/accessment at ICS to see how he/she does first?

lenglengma

DanParents,
I understand your situation.  Since your kid will be in grade 3, his accessment test will be at the grade 3 level.  My kids are not in grade 3, I really can't tell you what they will test your son.  However, I know that there will be two specialists who are responsible for testing your son.  One specialist is responsible for linguistic, the other one is probably responsible for math.
They don't really have any preference over international students.  They just have to make sure your son's English standard is good enough.

ICS is a pretty tough school.  I heard that many elementary parents have concerns over ICS home work policy.  They think that ICS gives kids too many home works.  I personally encourage that.  I am not too worry about heavy homework load, as long as they are doing the homeworks with interests.

My kids used to attend HLYIS.  HLYIS is a good school with a very nice campus.  The area is very nice and it is just like a perfect neighborhood school.  However, HLYIS does involve Capital Levy every year + family registration fee (membership fee).  That is a lot of money.  If you really want to aim for ICS, I don't think you should waste money on HLYIS, since the capital levy at HLYIS is not refundable.  If you are going to let your son study in HLYIS for half a year or so, I suggest you not to waste your money.

HLYIS is also a very traditional British school.  ICS is an American school.  It really depends on the system /curriculum you are aiming for.  You also need to consider where you will send your kids for college in the future to determine which school will do best for your son.

HLYIS, however, has a higher Chinese standard than ICS.  ICS is trying to improve its Chinese department, and will have two streams opened for their students.  One stream is for international students whose mother tongue is not Chinese.  The other stream is for students who speak Chinese at home.  ICS teaches only simplified Chinese.  They don't have Chinese lesson everyday.  HLYIS has Chinese lesson everyday.

If you are a Christian, and if you would like your kid to grow up in a Christian environment, then ICS is definately your choice.  They do have very strong Christian faith and background.  Teachers are very nice and different.  Students there are very well-disciplined and they love Jesus very much.

I hope this will help.

lenglengma

DanParents,
Thank you for sharing with us, and I am sure that many parents here feel your struggles.  Continue to pray and I am sure that the Lord will guide you and will also provide what is best for your beloved son.  Your son is very special, and I will keep him in my prayer.
Is it really that bad to keep him at local school until next year?  Does the school give him too much stress?  Can he stay at his current local school until ICS accepts him?

lenglengma

DanParents,
Yes, I think you should talk to ICS regarding whether or not to have the interview done earlier.  Please keep us posted on the outcome.
I am sorry that I don't have any grade 2 books / homeworks.  My son is in P1.

DanParents 寫道:
lenglengma,

Thanks for remembering our son in your prayer. This is the beauty of being in the bond of Jesus's love.

For my son, it is not so bad for him to stay in the current local school until next year although the school does give a lot of stress to the student and parents. However, our concern is that the longer he stays in local school the more difficult for him to switch to international school. In addition, we feel that the local school is seemed to suppress the creativity of our son instead of developing his potentials due to series of heavy homework, tests, examinations and raising the standard to test the extreme of the student and parents. Thus, we really want to help him to switch to international school to develop his creativity and potential. More important, we think he will be happier.

I just have some lights coming from mind. I wonder if I can request ICS to conduct an early interview. If my son can pass the interview, we can still wait until intake vacancy is available. I will call ICS to check it out.

By the way, do you have or will you be able to get a book list for ICS grade 2 class so that we can review the current standard and better prepare our son for the interview.

Again thanks for your advice and prayer.

lenglengma

bakusensei,
Couldn't agree more on what you said!

bakusensei 寫道:
[quote]
tommyzoe 寫道:
We can understand your concerns about selection of IS for kids. We also struggled for this matter until we made this decision with faith from Jesus Christ. We could still remember that we let our kid to submit a number of kindergarten application forms to various famous kindergartens which included those at Kowloon Tong area. Early this year, we got the results from various schools. Thanks God! Our kid was accepted by all schools we applied. Then we need to make a decision. We put this important decision in the pray. Our Lord gave us an answer that ICS is a good place for our kid. This decision was not easy to be made by ourselves because all those schools are also from Christianity background. When we looked back to this important decision and note our kid's development at the ICS, we are sure that this decision is definitely corrected. Our kid love the ICS very much. Even there were US Thanks Giving holidays last week, our kid waked up early in the morning and wanted to back to school. Our kid love this school very much. The teachers and staff there are so kind. They love every kid in the ICS very much. And one more thing is important that they will put needs of our kid in their pray then we can note some amazing developments in our kid!

Thanks God for blessing every kid at the ICS!



[quote]
DanParents 寫道:
Dear lenglengma

Thanks for your advice and detail input. This is really helpful. We knew the difference in curriculum between HLYIS and ICS. In fact, we prefer to send our son to the University in US eventually. Thus, we really prefer to put him in an American School. Originally, we target at GSIS and HKIS because of their good academic standard and good network with good Universities in US. However, we found that it is very tough to get in these International schools because they have pretty long waiting list and it seems to me that we will need certain connections in order to get a higher priority to get in. We are not holding foreign passport nor having corporate debenture. Thus, we don’t have any priority. We have thought of ICS before but our concern is the academic standard and connection with Universities in US. However, we later on found that ICS is in fact a good school. More importance, it has a very good Christian environment and this will definitely help our son to grow within the love of Jesus. Therefore, we are aiming at ICS now. However, our concern is whether our son can be admitted to grade 3 in the year 2007 – 2008.

We know what we have to pay if we only put our son in HLYIS for a short period of time. We also struggled if we should spend the money. Let me share our plan :

•        Currently, we need to place the deposit for HLYIS to secure the place and will ask for term start after Easter 2007. I hope that I don’t need to pay for the term tuition and the capital levy until late Feb., 2007. Then, I can wait to see if we have any chance to be confirmed by ICS before spending another fortune
•        If our son will be called by ICS for interview and admitted by Feb., 2007, we will give up HLYIS and choose ICS instead. Then, we will have our son remained in the current local school before switching over to ICS in Sept., 2009.
•        If our son will not be called by ICS for interview before I need to pay the term tuition and levy of the HLYIS. I may consider spending the money for HLYIS and letting him to stay there for the summer term. Then, wait for the call from ICS.

We are not sure if ICS will call our son for interview in early next year because ICS has not indicated any timing for calling for interview. I have heard that it will be around Jan/Feb and depend on the position on the waiting list. Do you have any information on this ? Will everyone applied will have a chance for interview in early next year ?  We are also not sure if our son will be admitted after interview because it is very difficult to predict and control his performance during interview. Thus, HLYIS is our backup plan to let our son start study in International School while waiting opportunity in entering into ICS. We are targeted to enter to ICS in year 2007 – 2008. If we cannot make it, we will try again next year and hope that our son will be there sooner or later. May be our faith in the Lord is not enough. We have worked our plan and done the best. I think it is time for us to take a rest and let the Lord to do his rest.

Thanks again for your valuable advice.

[/quote]

Sometimes, we forgot to pray for our kids' education and tended to choose the best school from our point of view. It's so good to have brothers and sisters keep reminding us to pray is the most important thing to do!

DanParents, I believe God has HIS plan on your kid, like HE has that on all other kids here. Don't worry. Keep praying! Do your best and God will do the rest :)[/quote]

lenglengma

SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Tests) are used to test on the aptitudes of a candidate for the purpose of admission to US universities.  All local U.S. students need to take SAT tests to get into universities.  Universities will look at their SAT results and AP scores (if any) to determine whether or not they will be accepted.  U.S. universities also require international students (ESL students or foreign students) to take TOEFL test to determine their English standards.  AP scores are used to determine if the student has already achieved university standards in high school.  AP scores sometimes can be considered as college (university) credits (units).  AP scores range from 1-5.  If your child take AP courses in high school, and have achieved 3 or higher, that means he/she is basically a student with university standards.  ICS provides many different AP courses which give students the chance to achieve a taste of university standards in high school.  ICS AP score in Studio Art is indeed the highest outside of the U.S.  They also provide Calcalus, Physics, Chemistry, Music, Foreign Language, and many other AP courses.

Standford Achievement Tests on the other hand, is not the same as SAT I think.  Standford Achievement Tests are done from P1 through Grade 12 every year to see how students are doing.  The scores are probably used to compared with other school's.  Not all U.S. schools provide Standard Achievement Tests, meaning that they are not required.  However, personally I think it is good to see how my child is doing.  It is nice that ICS has Standford Achievement Test.

lenglengma

Hopefully there won't be any raise for the year 2008/09.  Last year when they decided to raise the fee, parents opposed.  I don't think this year they will be "brave enough" to raise gwa?

原文章由 LeoQuincy 於 07-9-4 10:22 發表
Just learn that there will be a PA forum next week to discuss the tuition fee for 2008/09.  Any idea what will be the extent of fee rise?

While understanding the school will have a lot of expendi ...

lenglengma

Yes, there was a fee rise this year despite the opposition by the parents.  So...at the end they lower the raise.

原文章由 LeoQuincy 於 07-9-6 09:36 硐表
I am a new parent, but it seems to me that there was already a fee rise this year despite the opposition by the parents.  Is it true?

Assuming parents themselves are having payrise to a certain exten ...