victoria or esf kindergarten

Birkin

Victoria used to be a "happy school" but not the case anymore. They changed their curriculum around 2 years ago - they have tonnes of homework for K2 and K3 kids these days. Getting more and more like a local kindergarten. This may be an upside for some parents who aim for local primary schools.  Victoria is a good choice for many parents who want their kids to go to a bilingual school (like ISF) as they have a strong bilingual programme.

ESF kindergartens on the other hand have zero homework. They believe in learn through play. They teach K2 kids to write their names and learn some simple phonics at school. They have very little Chinese/Mandarin. So if learning Chinese is important to you or if you are a believer of homework and you want your kids to learn to read and write at pre-school level, then ESF kindergartens may not be your cup of tea.

Birkin

I don't think you will be satisfied with ESF kindy if you think Victoria is perfect for your child. You should stick to Victoria.

Btw, ESF kindergartens (Hillside in particular) shouldn't be regarded as a backup. They are very difficult to get in if you don't have any priorities.

Birkin

964000 發表於 16-4-17 20:56
Then you will probably be quite disappointed with ESF, basically it's just play based and kids will  ...

Well, Victoria is quite different from what it used to be, so parents who still think it is a happy school may also be "disappointed".

Anyway, for parents who believe in homework and want their kids to be able to read and write and do simple adding and subtracting before P1, then steer clear of ESF kindergartens to avoid mismatch of expectations.

Birkin

I have a feeling that 樓主 prefers Victoria and is simply looking for people to second her opinion so she either inadvertently or deliberately missed or misinterpreted some of the posts about what the homework load is like for Victoria K1, K2 and K3 students...

Birkin

I think you already got the answers you want to hear so have faith in Victoria and stick to it.

Birkin

kamgat 發表於 16-4-17 23:25
I wanna hear from a user of esf to tell me more about their kids.

I wasn't going to respond anymore but saw your post on another thread and understand that your girl got an offer from ESF TY...  I think you should look at the bigger picture instead of just focusing on the kindergarten curriculum.  You should ask yourself whether you want your child to go to a local primary school or an international school in the long run.  Do you want your child to go a bilingual school like ISF or VSA, or a typical international school like ESF, CDNIS, Kellett, HKIS, GSIS, etc.?

I think most HK parents want the best of both worlds - they want their kids to build a strong foundation in Chinese (thereby going to a local or near local school) and then switch to an international school later (late primary or secondary) for better university placements but life is not that ideal - (1) top tier international schools are very competitive these days so unless students from local schools are very good at English and very smart, they simply won't fit in at international schools; (2) local school students are missing out on the best part of international school education. In my opinion, it is character building more than academic achievements that matters at the pre-school stage.

Birkin

The reality is VSA doesn't have enough places for all VKN graduates, so competition is very keen.  As for other top tier international schools, unless you have some sort of priorities, they are difficult to get in and in some cases, you may not even get a chance to be interviewed.

Birkin

Different schools have different priorities: corporate debenture holders, siblings, alumni, nationality (eg. CDNIS gives priority to Canadians; GSIS gives priority to Germans and Swiss, SIS gives priority to Singaporeans, etc.)