RC學生除來自ESF kinder 外,有無來自 local kinder?

rororolee

My target is RC, would consider to put my girl in international class from local kinder like St Cat., Victoria...etc to learn some basic Chinese first! then switch back to international stream in primary. Does any parents know RC will also accept student from local kinder? or I must put my girl in the "real" international one so as to get a seat in RC?
Thx for advice~~

popolung

原帖由 rororolee 於 09-3-25 22:53 發表
My target is RC, would consider to put my girl in international class from local kinder like St Cat., Victoria...etc to learn some basic Chinese first! then switch back to international stream in prim ...

Do you have confident that your kid can speak in native english when she is in a local kinder? This is the key of all ESF Y1 interview, including RCHK. If yes, then you can let your kid study in local kinder (or those with int'l class).

But I have tried some local kinder int'l class before I put my girl in Abacus, and I will say if 18 out 20 of classmate is Chinese, it is hard to soak your kid in  English environment. Besides teaching, daily conversation between kids are important. This is how they practice and learn their Engluish too.

Wingba

Hi rororolee,

My kid studied in St. Catherine before entering RC so it is a matter of whether you can "drill" your kid to speak English comfortably in front of strangers and use English quite often in his/her daily life.

Before and after entering into St. Catherine we used mostly English to communicate with my kid. So she had no problem in talking to foreigners in English.

I want my kid to have a basic foundation of Chinese before taking up this international stream and I found it my choice is right. Some of her classmates that come from ESF or other int'l kinders are with a lower proficiency in Chinese. I like RC because they use traditional Chinese and I realy hate simplified Chinese.

Having said that, I am not sure if the situation has changed as my kid was the first intake two years ago as more and more parents are targetting at RC don't know if the competition now is more fierce or not.

Good luck!

oooray

原帖由 Wingba 於 09-3-26 08:30 發表
Hi rororolee,

My kid studied in St. Catherine before entering RC so it is a matter of whether you can "drill" your kid to speak English comfortably in front of strangers and use English quite often i ...

Hi Wingba,
Just curious to seek for your comment that do you think St. Catherine itself could provide sufficient English proficiency for your daughter to meet today's RC requirement, or that is mainly attributed by your most English communications in the past years?

alima

My girl will attend Year 1 , she is study in a traditiional famous kinder, but she is native in Chinese & English, RC don't mind they come fm which kinder.

oooray

原帖由 alima 於 09-3-26 09:58 發表
My girl will attend Year 1 , she is study in a traditiional famous kinder, but she is native in Chinese & English, RC don't mind they come fm which kinder.

hi alima,
per my same question to Wingba, do you pay much extra effort in building up your daughter's english proficiency in the past years, or simply contribution from her kindergarten?

alima

Actually I put more english training for her, 2 phonics course per week teached by net, philip maid, disney channel TV, e-nopi maths etc., these all can improve her english, although me & hubby talk with her in cantonese, she can change her channel automatic.

oooray

原帖由 alima 於 09-3-26 10:32 發表
Actually I put more english training for her, 2 phonics course per week teached by net, philip maid, disney channel TV, e-nopi maths etc., these all can improve her english, although me & hubby talk w ...

Thanks for your sharing.
Would you conclude that English Training in your traditional kinda is still not enough to build up a qualified level to get in RC?
I guess it is an important factor for parents to plan their education plan properly from K1 (or even nursery) who are targeting RC.
[Of course, it will be good to reach the level as "popolung" says by 95% immersing in English environment but inreality not every Hong kong family can achieve that level...]

popolung

原帖由 oooray 於 09-3-26 10:51 發表

Thanks for your sharing.
Would you conclude that English Training in your traditional kinda is still not enough to build up a qualified level to get in RC?
I guess it is an important factor for paren ...

Some parents will put their  kids in Int'l Kinder for AM and local kinder for PM, so to learn both good English & Chinese. But I will not recommend to do that (though a lot of similair cases happened) as it is too hard for a 3-4 years old kids. They need fun and sleep more!

oooray

原帖由 popolung 於 09-3-26 10:58 發表


Some parents will put their  kids in Int'l Kinder for AM and local kinder for PM, so to learn both good English & Chinese. But I will not recommend to do that (though a lot of similair cases happene ...

I'm one of those "parents". I cannot say it is the best option but as both full time working parents (I guess u are full time mom who can spend a lot of time to train Chinese with your daughter after school) if i didn't do this way, I'm afraid my children's Chinese will be weaker and weaker.
So far my daughter is very happy with her school life in both schools and I do not need to worry after after class activities at all (Mon to Fri are busy at school and Sat and Sun are family days)

popolung

原帖由 oooray 於 09-3-26 11:11 發表

I'm one of those "parents". I cannot say it is the best option but as both full time working parents (I guess u are full time mom who can spend a lot of time to train Chinese with your daughter after ...

just can't say whose right or wrong, as diff families may have diff approach. For me I just don't want to sacrifice the kid's sleeping time in kinder only. Also for ESF Y1 interview if she know too much Chinese then in interview may have trouble..... so try to avoid.

almom

There is (I think) no written policy (known to outsiders) of which kindergarten or what background they prefer. However, I guess the school would unofficially prefer to take ESF kindergarten children first. Bear in mind that it is a marketing issue as well. If ESF kindergarten kids cannot get into good schools, who would want to go to ESF kindergartens anymore. The present edge of ESF kindergartens is that, their students have priority in going for interviews with ESF schools. So I guess RC and DC would follow suit. Make sense? But of course, such "privilege" is not unconditional. A kid has to meet other criteria the school is looking for as well.

What happened during the past few years would not contribute to a "pattern" of what the school would do in the future because (1) RC is still relatively new and (2) there is now a new ESF kindergarten.

The school has probably now settled with what they want from students. I see that this year (2009 admission), they are no longer keen on taking as many students from local kindergartens. There are in fact a great number of applicants from international kindergartens already. They would probably want to choose from amongst these kids rather.

What I think they want (for studetns from any year level, in fact) is (1) kids with very good English (native or near native level) (2) kids that are out going and not shy (they prefer those that are talkative than to those quiet book worm type).

There qualities are very important for IB curriculum. And unfortunately, local kindergartens do not provide the environment for development of both of these qualities.

[ 本帖最後由 almom 於 09-3-26 13:19 編輯 ]

popolung

原帖由 almom 於 09-3-26 13:12 發表
There is (I think) no written policy (known to outsiders) of which kindergarten or what background they prefer. However, I guess the school would unofficially prefer to take ESF kindergarten children  ...

Honestly speaking, with priority to interview mean higher chance, especailly if you are in Cat 2. Imagine they can't interview all children that applied, so once if your kids have a chance to interview it will put your kid in a better position. This is how it works. Of course admit or not really depends on your kid English skill, and should be easy for foreigner, but hard for local family. This is why training is important if you are keen for ESF Primary (this secondary) school.

Radiomama

rororolee,

My son will be year 1(RC)  and he is now studying in Victoria.

Besides the english proficiency, the IB program of Vic also matches with RC, that's why this year all the applicants from Vic(HMT) get a seat (as I know so far).

If you have not yet decided which stream your kid will enter, St Cat and Vic are good choices.  

原帖由 rororolee 於 09-3-25 22:53 發表
My target is RC, would consider to put my girl in international class from local kinder like St Cat., Victoria...etc to learn some basic Chinese first! then switch back to international stream in prim ...

almom

I want to clarify what I said.

I think we are talking about only one of the conditions here. And to scientifically compare, we should presume that all other conditions are similar or same.

With 2 children of similar background, similar English level, similar in everything else etc, the ones being in an ESF kindergarten would definitely mean a better position.

Needless to say, having advantage does not mean a sure win case. We are just discussing about one way to tipping the odds.

Afterall, who knows? May be it was a bad day for the child and everything did not work well as expected. Federer has his bad days too and has lost many times.

[ 本帖最後由 almom 於 09-3-26 14:29 編輯 ]

Wingba

Hi oooray,

St. Cat is a very good kinder but the curriculum in English, in my opinion, does not prepare the kids to run for a place in IS. The English curriculum in St. Cat can be better if more time is devoted to
English lesson. That's why we created an English speaking environment for my kid since her infant stage. It helped in getting a place in St. Cat and RC. Another reason may be my kid is out-going and easy to get along with new buddies and I believe IS ususally prefers this kind of kids.

If I have another child I will also follow this pattern as St. Cat helps to lay a firm foundation of Chinese proficiency (in tems of kinder level) for my kid although I am now struggling to continue such standard in the primary level.

Hope it helps in your planning.

原帖由 oooray 於 09-3-26 09:14 發表

Hi Wingba,
Just curious to seek for your comment that do you think St. Catherine itself could provide sufficient English proficiency for your daughter to meet today's RC requirement, or that is mainl ...

oooray

原帖由 Wingba 於 09-3-26 16:53 發表
Hi oooray,

St. Cat is a very good kinder but the curriculum in English, in my opinion, does not prepare the kids to run for a place in IS. The English curriculum in St. Cat can be better if more time ...

thanks for your sharing Wingba.
I have already passed that planning stage (I'm in the same stage as u) but just would like to ask for more input from "insiders" to help other parents' planning.
My conclusion is that even if children are studying in St. Catherine/Victoria and other famous kindergarten (non real IS) that are supposed to be "strong" in English (at least in many parents' mind), parents need to take great effort to train up children's english in order to reach a "safety" English level to meet requirement of RC and other IS primary.

kcpapa

The competition of RC will be more knee in coming years.  More and more Applicants from IS KG, and even ESF is having a new KG in MOS.  So only Cat 2 students from ESF KG can easily fill up the 150 seats.  The English level of ESF KG is quite high.  They have no homework, but only playing in school.  Playing need more comunication then just sit down and learning like most of the local KG.  So may be the kid cannot read nor write, they can talk.  That is what the interview is focusing - to talk...  

I do not think the local KG like St. Cat is not good, in fact that is a very very good one, but the way of teaching may not really fit the interview of RC.   

In previous year, the reputation of RC is not so good, but RC is getting better and more famous than ever.  The competition is getting more knee.
So RC is having more applicants with higher English level.  We can speak English with our kids, but how much time can you spend to talk to your kids everyday.  If your kid can "live" in English not more, just 3 hours a day in school, just playing and communicating with other kids and teachers, definitely they must have better English level than kids who is having Chinese based schooling

Saturn

I agree that kids from ESF KG would of course have priority to get into ESF primary or RC.  But don't be too worried!  We can check with the WKS kinder how many K2 places they are going to offer.

I assume the no. of K2 classes in the new WKS KG would be around 2 am + 2 pm (which would be a max. of 120 kids if there are 30 kids in one class).   These 120 kids would probably be aiming at getting into RC or SJS.  I don't know about SJS but for RC, the school normally opens 6 classes in P1.  That means there will be at least 160 places or up offered in RC.  If RC & SJS share the graduates from WKS KG, there will be more than 50% of the P1 places available for non-WKS graduates to fill in RC.

[ 本帖最後由 Saturn 於 09-3-27 18:33 編輯 ]

Santa_Maria

May I know the interview detail for Year 2?

My kid will be attend the Year 2 interview.

He come from international stream kindergarten and no difficulit to speak English and without fear due to show and tell and reading programe since K2. His teacher is foreigner, day to day pratice for English speaking can handle. He was attended few DSS school interview and already got the offer, but RC just the only one internatiuonal school for me to select. Any advice for the interview?

Thanks for advise.

[ 本帖最後由 Santa_Maria 於 09-3-28 20:27 編輯 ]