ESF tsing yi offer

Mamamu1126

Just received a call from ESF TY ，school place is confirmed . Take it or not ?
My son now studying in YC . He just adjusted into the full day class . Teachers r really experienced too

貝珠

Pppwong, I think u already had preference in IS.

Quiet child vs talkative child, who will get more acceptance in local school ? I believe the quiet and well behave one would be more suitable.

For IS , I think in general , it is suitable for all kids. But particularly suitable for children with good communication skill and strong learning motives.

pppwong

chumiguan 發表於 15-9-19 10:53
My daughter is in TY K2 now. When others say TY is not that good, I am thinking the other way round. ...

thanks so much for your sharing. it did give me a lot of insight as to what the kids do in the school!

my kid is very quiet. he can behave very well in local kindies but he does not shine as a kid of a lot of self confidence.  i wonder if he could find his way through a play-based environment in ESF.  do you have any observations on this?  thanks so much! :)

chumiguan

My daughter is in TY K2 now. When others say TY is not that good, I am thinking the other way round. Perhaps I was lucky enough that the k1 teachers were really good and with heart to teach and take good care of children (except the 2nd EA whom I didn't like). My girl loves the teachers too! She told me the other day that she likes Miss Xxx most (the k1 TA) and she miss her a lot!

Regarding play based learning, she learnt quite a lot, such as transportation, vehicles, materials (wood, glass, metals etc.), occupations, shopping and restaurants  etc. I like the teaching method as well, e.g. The theme of transportation: Teachers took them to their surroundings to see the trains, buses, taxis etc. She would point to the trains whenever we came across one. She urged me to take her to have rides on ferries, trams, buses, for which she really wanted to experience what she learnt. They made artworks related to the theme as well, such as using shoe boxes for a bus, and making Octopus cards.

At school, there are sand pits and water pools, which they can always play with. There are many toys and tools (such as long tubes) for them to "play" with the water, so she knows how water behaves, and how things work with water and sand. Perhaps I am a Montessori fans, these type of experience learning at school is what I look for. There are lots of story telling, my girl can tell me stories after school. There are books to read at school, they can read anytime and to borrow home every week.

In terms of academic, the school really doesn't teach alphabets and numbers. There isn't text book for them to learn words or numbers. From every week newsletter I learnt what she played and learnt that week, and I am satisfied as K1 should be getting to know their environment instead of recognizing words or maths. When I asked my mom my life in my K1, my mom also told me that I only played in my kindergarten (my kindie was St. Cat). So I am expecting the same from my daughter's kindie.

Regarding language, she speaks fluent Cantonese at home as my helper and grandparents, and all the friends we meet at weekends speak in Canto. Only me who talk to her in English. However at school she speaks in English, even her best friend is a Chinese, they both speak in English. All kids in her class speak in English at school. This was observed during school open days, and classmates' private birthday parties.

However, if someone needs a kindie to equip their kids for applying other top schools, ESF Kindies are never a good choice.

Saboc

I think is crucial that you have made up your mind in choosing local or international stream

FattyDaddy

pppwong 發表於 15-9-18 11:53
my main concern is the risks associated with ESF ...

When we talk abut risks, we should try to quantify it.

Like you said, 95% of ESF kindergarten pupils do proceed to ESF primary schools (including the 2 PIS), so that should give you some idea of how risky or safe things are, personally I think it is already better than many of the so called "dragon" through-train schools.

Of course there is always the chance that your child may happen to be in the few % who couldn't secure a place, that's why it is also important to have a Plan B, but that Plan B could vary a lot from one family to another, some parents may send their children to 2 kindergartens, some may supplement with after school tuition etc, to each their own.

oooray

If your child has already been studying in a good kindergarten with good reputation, don't take the one without good reputation in your mind.
In Hong Kong, only the government can guarantee you a P.1 place that most probably you don't want to accept.

pppwong

Mamamu1126 發表於 15-9-10 10:56
Just received a call from ESF TY ，school place is confirmed . Take it or not ?
My son now studying ...

i'm facing the exact same problem now,. my main concern is the risks associated with ESF - if we cannot get a place in ESF primary in the end, where would we go? as the reputation of ESF TY has not been great, i wonder if its play based curriculum could lead my child anywhere in case he falls through the cracks.

then of coz on the bright side, it appears that over 95% of kids could eventually get a place, a chance which a lot of ppl would be dying for...

cant decide!!!

jolalee

LOL moral Taliban! I actually didn't come across that many who criticized this method, as least not in the thread i posted in asking for advice on how to improve my child's Chinese about 1.5 years ago. Most parents told me it is better to do one language per environment, and that i should switch over to speak Chinese fully to my boy.

Of course it'd be better for the child if the same parent speak the same language through the years, but i guess with the stress of getting a school spot in HK, normal behaviors are out the window. We just have to do what's best as we see fit.

FattyDaddy

jolalee 發表於 15-9-16 16:40
We spoke English at home before getting into our school of choice, and only switched over after learning about this method of speaking Chinese at home from fellow parents here...

I know what you mean, it reminds me of some discussions that went on in this forum about 3 years ago when ESF still had the Category 1 and 2 classifications. In order to maximize their children's chances some parents spoke only English to their children but switched to Cantonese full time once they had gotten through primary admissions. Personally I think doing this is fine but if you jog your memory you might recall there were some members of the moral Taliban who vehemently criticized this practice

jolalee

21Ckid 發表於 15-9-14 00:32
講真，就算英基青衣百般不是，例如質素一般、校舍細又似係騎樓底、甚至金頭髪人太少，總不至於平曰在校用廣 ...

I have no intention of stepping on any school, just stating what my son experienced while he was there. Apologies if that's how I came across as.

At that moment I was keen on getting son into another school, so learning Chinese was far from my mind. However, now that he's in, I do welcome Chinese classmates who can converse in Chinese. We do teach them about social etiquette though: if there is someone in the same room who cannot understand Chinese, it is best that you converse in the common language.  That's how I was taught growing up and I think that is a sensible way to handle multiple languages.

jolalee

FattyDaddy 發表於 15-9-13 16:22
If most parents follow this and have full Chinese (or whatever non-English language) exposure at ho ...

I understand the dilemma. I was learning as we grow. We spoke English at home before getting into our school of choice, and only switched over after learning about this method of speaking Chinese at home from fellow parents here.

A funny incident my son once told me: his classmate gave him a new name, "Dung Dung". I had no idea where that came from, so I asked him why his classmate would call him Dung (manure)? I was intrigued. My son told me one day he wanted to go to the bathroom and the boy inside the water closet told him "dung dung"! Then I realized the boy was simply asking him to wait, not giving him a new name. I had a good laugh over it.

Anyhow for potential IS parents who wish to put their children in an English immersion environment, there are certain schools that do not provide it. Just be aware, that's all.

FattyDaddy

AJW2010 發表於 15-9-13 18:06
Good catch ...

Ha, I'm not here to catch anything or anyone :)

We all have ideals, just discussing how practical or impractical they might be.

21Ckid

講真，就算英基青衣百般不是，例如質素一般、校舍細又似係騎樓底、甚至金頭髪人太少，總不至於平曰在校用廣東話交談吧！我孩子學校近全部Chinese,但學校文化下，都用英文（可能冇鬼仔學校如woodlands咁好吧！）。只有別人用廣東話才用廣東話回應！

人地真的用廣東話，你個仔咪用英文咯，如果對方回應唔到，都好難考入去啦。

其實你個仔唔識廣東話，應該高興，有機會學呀。

有時見到D人點踩以前學校，都幾心寒。

AJW2010

原帖由 FattyDaddy 於 15-09-13 發表
本帖最後由 FattyDaddy 於 15-9-13 16:23 編輯

Good catch.

in the end, parents are allowed to discriminate their own peer when finding the most suitable school for their children.  

Anyway, everyone has different expectation on the schools.  do the research and know what you sign up for your own kid.

FattyDaddy

jolalee 發表於 15-9-13 02:05
full exposure of Chinese at home and full exposure of English (minus all grammatical errors and limiting accents to US/UK) in school. For a school where over half the kids who probably do not speak English at home, the exposure is not ideal. ...

If most parents follow this and have full Chinese (or whatever non-English language) exposure at home, then naturally the school would have the majority of their kids not speaking English at home.

It seems the "ideal exposure" could only be achieved if the school's admission strongly favours children who speak 100% English at home but somehow accepts your child who speaks 100% Chinese at home. Not easy :)

jolalee

hong0706 發表於 15-9-12 13:38
That esf ty is not reputed to provide high quality education is well know, but as to speaking mostly ...

Yes I should rephrase it as "many kids in his class are mainly canto speakers". If you look at it, 4 Caucasians (who could be speaking Spanish, Dutch or French at home) plus 2 native English speaking Chinese parents (I'm one of them), so give and take (perhaps there are more native English speaking Chinese and some Caucasians may not be native English speakers) we say there are 6-8 out of 22 kids that speaks English at home with their family. That's about 1/3 of the population, which is not that ideal. Anyhow, i understand what you're getting at and apologize for the over generalization in my previous post.

jolalee

FattyDaddy 發表於 15-9-11 11:18
In hindsight, this point seems irrelevant because you WANT him to be able to speak Cantonese and if  ...

As many parents have taught me here, the aim is to have one language per environment; hence we hope for full exposure of Chinese at home and full exposure of English (minus all grammatical errors and limiting accents to US/UK) in school. For a school where over half the kids who probably do not speak English at home, the exposure is not ideal. Yes this is double standards, but if one of the main purpose is to have good English exposure in a school setting, then one must look into that as well (if it is not then that's fine).

hong0706

jolalee 發表於 15-9-11 10:01
My son was in ESF Tsing-Yi for a short while but i took him out soon after (when i had better offers ...

That esf ty is not reputed to provide high quality education is well know, but as to speaking mostly in canto, i cannot agree. In my kid's class of 22, 8 are non-chinese (judging by surnames) of which 4 are caucasians, rest are indians, koreans and japanese. Of the other chinese parents, i heard at least 2 speaking native english (one british and one american accent). Of course, i won't know if their kids speak cantonese or not.

lui

原帖由 keep-calm 於 15-09-12 發表
Is it very difficult to get in ICS Primary for non ICS kinder students? Does the school offer higher ...

Yes the competition is very keen. I was told by a 兒科醫生 ( focus on 兒童心理及體能發展的）whose Kid got IB full marks that ICS is very competitive. My gal is her client and we seek for advice on schools. Many of her doctor's friend send kids there. The competition is extremely keen on higher form ( I mean for insert of primary and secondary).