ICS Parents

bakusensei

Cheerfulmama 寫道:
Dear bakusensei,

ICS hasn't confirmed the playgroup details.  When I visited the school last month, they said that playgroup is likely to begin some times next year.

Best wishes to your baby delivery process  

million thanks :)

courtbas

May I know approximately when does the ICS R1 interview take place every year?  I can't seem to find this information on the school website.

PoParents

Dear ICS Parents,

I am a father of a 3.5-yr boy with autistic features.  He does not belong to the serious type, with normal language and good memory, but may have concentration problem.  Just want to seek your advice that:-
1) Would ICS be a suitable place for my son? Is there any teacher equipped to cater for children with special needs?
2) He now studies at K1 in a normal Chinese kindergarten.  He can communicate with my Philipine maid in English but definitely not very colloquial.  Does he need to 'repeat' R1 if he join next year?

I understand the best is to talk to ICS.  But just want some advices before we approach the school.  Many thanks.

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.

PoParents

lenglengma,

So, as far as you observe, there's no autistic kids now in ICS? I notice there's a column in the application form asking for special needs of the children.  In fact, my friend told me that the son of her friend with ADHD (hyperactivity) is now studying in ICS.

Thanks for your advice on CAIS.  I will check with them.

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.

PoParents

Thanks.  Frankly speaking, dedicated department to handle kids with special needs is preferrable, but not a must in my son's case.  I am delighted to have your advice as basically I prefer ICS to CAIS.

Anyway do I need to repeat him at R1? Or should I apply R2 to let the school decide?

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?

PoParents

lenglengma,

Many thanks for your valuable advices.

NichoB

Cheerfulmama

ICS has just announced the increment of the school fee for year 2007.  The rate is quite high.

Would ICS parents pls. advise me the incremental rate of the previous years?  I'd like to know if it is a special case in view of the new school campus?  I am afraid that the increment for the next few years will be as high as this year. Thanks for your input.

bakusensei

Cheerfulmama 寫道:
ICS has just announced the increment of the school fee for year 2007.  The rate is quite high.

Would ICS parents pls. advise me the incremental rate of the previous years?  I'd like to know if it is a special case in view of the new school campus?  I am afraid that the increment for the next few years will be as high as this year. Thanks for your input.

cheerfulmama,

would u mind advising the announced incremental rate this year? i couldn't find this infor from the ics website.  million thanks :)

bakusensei

Cheerfulmama

bakusensei 寫道:

cheerfulmama,

would u mind advising the announced incremental rate this year? i couldn't find this infor from the ics website.  million thanks :)

bakusensei

Kindergarten: up 7.7% to $42,000 per year
Elementary: up 9.3% to $70,000 per year
Secondary: up 9.1% to $95,000 per year

DanParents

Dear ICS parents,

I am new to the forum and am seeking advice from all of you so that I can have more information to choose the right school for my son. My son is 7 year olds and is currently studying in local school P2. We have found that the local school really gives too much pressure for the kids and the parents. More importance, we found that our son needs to be in more interactive learning environment in order to develop his potentials. Thus, we have decided to put him to International school. However, we have struggled through the process because we concerned for his Chinese standard.

We have been looking around for International School and ICS is one of our targets because both of us are Christian and we think that it will be good to put our son to a school with Christianity background. We also heard a lot of good things about ICS. We have submitted the application to ICS by early Nov. for applying grade 3 in the year 2007 – 2008. Currently, we are on the waiting list and will probably need to wait until early next year.

Any ICS parents can give me some advice how to prepare my son better for the interview ? What is the process for the interview and what will be tested during interview ?

Does ICS has a much lower preference in accepting student from local school ?

In fact, we have also done more to secure his path to International school. We have also applied for HLYIS and have just got the confirmation for admission. We have requested to have the option to start from either January term or Easter term. We are struggling whether having our son to start at HLYIS will yield a higher chance for admission in ICS. Personally, I prefer ICS to HLYIS because of the religion background and the secondary school in ICS.

I appreciate for any advice. Thanks.

DanParents

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.

DanParents

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.

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?

tommyzoe

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 Thanksgiving holidays last week, our kid woke 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!

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.

DanParents

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.

DanParents

tommyzoe,

Thanks for sharing your experience in school selection and how your kid love ICS. This will give us more confidence in aiming at ICS. Will wait for the work of God to see if he will put our son to ICS.