SIS收左亞囡啦！YEAH！

Riesling

I just can't hold my happiness, my gal just had an interview 10 days ago and I've got the admission letter today for the PYP 1, soooooo happy! I know there are lots of interviewees this year as Chinese becomes more and more important and people know more about SIS recently..but don't know how may kids compete for 1 place..... no matter what, this is a big relieve for me as I've just applied for 2 schools only!!!!
Thx  god!

DiamondHill

Congratulations !

My daughter got P1 addmission, I'm happy too.

ikerberg

Yeah!  Congratulations!  

My son also gets accepted.  We are all soooooooo happy about this!

Yes, competition is keen this year.  On the day of the interview, the waiting room was just overflooded with hundreds (if not thousands) of well-mannered, fluent English speaking and smart-looking kids.  

We thought the chance for my son's success was just 50/50 and now he gets accepted, we are all relieved cos' there is no need for any more interview for primary school and secondary school, thanks to the through-train arrangement of SIS.

We completely trust SIS could provide top-class education on English and Chinese (Mandarin)!

do123alex

I am still struggling.
While the school is strong at academic result and famous for Mandarin and English, it lacks a good mix of nationality of students, most students are local HK, or from mainland china if not from Singapore or Malaysia, this is different from other int'l school that has balance of students from various countries that would provide multi-cultural learning environment.

And more concern me is the way of teaching, is that spoon feeding, with homeworks and tests? If that is the case, any difference from  a local school.

Riesling

Hi do123alex,
I think you haven't done sufficient fact finding at the moment, that's why you are struggling. If you spend some time to explore more about the school, you may have different prospective. However, if you totally dislike the east meet west approach, SIS may not be a choice for you!

Riesling

I feel the same as you! Btw, do you know how many classes are there in PY1, is it 4 classes? and do you know how many kids compete for a place this year?

Cheers...

ikerberg

Re: Do123:

Why bother it is a white cat or a black cat so long as it can catch mice?  When you assess if a system is successful, you have to see its "products".  

In April 2010, I paid a visit to SIS's open house and was awe-struck by the students' ability in speaking plain native Mandarin in "Mandarin Story Telling" performance, as well as in students' presentation using native tongue of English and self-made Powerpoint by students at SIS Primary School.   

During our visits, all students we met are smiling, confident and well-mannered.  We just wanted our kid be one of them every time we visited SIS.

==============================
Re: Riesling

During my visits to SIS, I got informed there are 5 PY1 classes, each 20 students, i.e. totally 100 would get accepted.

The visiting guide told me that Singaporean composition would be around 40%, and some advantage would be granted for those having elder siblings studying there.  But in the past years, some candidates with elder siblings studying there were not accepted, because of comparatively inferior performance in the interview.

So, my "guesstimation" is that there would be around 30-40 seats for open competition, i.e. for those without any connections.  

Also from my "guessitmation" on that day, there would be around 400  candidates.  Deducting that around 70 candidates with "connection", the number of candidates competing for the 30-40 seats would be around 300.

Bear in mind that SIS intentionally (I guess) set the application fee at HK$2500 non-refundable in order to screen out all those without genuine sincerity of letting their children study there, e.g. those who would want to let their kids to have more interview experience or to test their kids' ability.....

So, all those participating in the interview theoretically would be well prepared and with a will to win this game.

So, I guess it would be around 40 / 300 chance for the selection.  But, if you also attended the interview that day, you would surely be 'surprised' by the high quality of all those kids attending the interview.  

So, at the very beginning, though I had confidence in my boy's ability, I still had much reservation as to whether he could be successfully selected.

Now that we have got the offer, I feel very thankful that our plan to move to the HK Island a few years ago, looking for a dream school and all our efforts in equipping our kids with sound English ability for the interview have reaped a great harvest!

Hope to see you soon some time later in SIS.

[ 本帖最後由 ikerberg 於 11-2-2 04:22 編輯 ]

Riesling

Hi ikerberg,
Oh, I didn't know there was an open house in Apr! I would go to visit for sure if I know that, but very glad to hear what you described on that day, those are exactly the reasons why I choose SIS as one of my TWO school applications!! haha, I feel I was very brave that I just applied for TWO schools only! I just got the school bus routes today as we now have to think about where should we move to, the housing in HK Island is much expensive and less spacious than where am I living now, this is the only downside......

Anyway, congratulation to you too! See if our kids will be in the same class!  :D

ikerberg

Mrs. Hamster,

My son's case: PY1 will start in August 2011

We applied at around early Sept 2010; school tour arranged by SIS in the same month.

Interview arranged in Jan 2011.

Result received before Chinese New Year.

Pls try to see if SIS will arrange Open House in April 2011...

We visited SIS Open House in April 2010 and were greatly surprised by the excellence of the students' ability in Mandarin and English, their good manner, as well as their sunny, smiling happy faces...

[ 本帖最後由 ikerberg 於 11-2-9 17:57 編輯 ]

yoyobb

BIG Congratulations !

ikerberg

Mrs. Hamster,

After visiting SIS's Open House in April 2010, I dropped all other "lovers" because there was only one - THE ONE in my eyes --- SIS.  

I knew very well that the interview would be conducted in Eng or Mandarin, and of cos' we are a HK family and won't choose Mandarin.  I therefore determined to let my son study in Small World Christian School starting from Sept 2010 in PM to equip him with the Eng ability for the interview, and to remain in Rhenish Mission School in AM ---- just in case he was not selected by SIS, we still would have options of going to the IS or traditional streams....

Before studying in Small World, my son could only speak Eng words / phrases, not complete sentences.  However, after studying for 2 months in SW, my son started to speak complete sentences.  

On an afternoon in late Oct 2010, i.e. about 2 months after studying in SW, I played with my son in the Peak's playground.  There were some birds and there was some bread in my son's hand.  He suddenly said "Daddy, let's drop the bread and let the birds eat it."

I was totally awe-struck by his super great improvement in Eng after studying in SW.  It tells how important a language environment is to a child's learning of languages.

Considering SIS would use only Eng / Mandarin from PY1 and seeing the students' awesome Eng / Mandarin / IT competence during the Open House, I and my wife then started to fall in love with SIS.  No other schools could lure us away...

About the interview,  my son is not a native speaker and according to my observation, about 60-70 % of those attending the interview were native Eng speakers.  Therefore, you may say my son would suffer some disadvantage if only language speaking skill was assessed.  However, thanks to the training in SW, my son could fully understand conversational Eng and express himself quite well in Eng.  Overall speaking, I guess my son would be "average" among all those candidates in terms of spoken English.

Since we could not witness how the interview was conducted, I had to rely on my son telling me what had happened during the 30 mins of interview.  

He said - the teacher would say "Circle, triangle, circle, triangle, then what's next?"

According to my son, he could answer :Circle.

Another 'test', according to the decriptions" of my son would be like--- The teacher would ask the candidates -- a group of 4 or 5 to throw a dice on its six faces were figures like -- square / star / triangle .... and if the face shows star... the kid would be required to put 'something' onto 'somehwere' with a star....

So, overall speaking, so long as the kid could communicate in Eng, I think it would be OK... and from the games, you would note that SIS would assess a kid's logical sense / IQ / or maybe motivation to participate etc...

So, I think what made my son stand out and selected would not be his spoken English (which was average), but his logical sense etc.....

Hope the above information could help!

[ 本帖最後由 ikerberg 於 11-2-9 20:07 編輯 ]

ikerberg

Mrs Hamster,

Rhenish Mission School is a local school located just next to HKU...

Small World definitely is a very good school providing excellent English speaking / learning environment...

"Starters" at Wanchai maybe another choice.....my son took some short courses / play group during the summer 2010 and we also saw his improvement....

Good luck... Keeping exploring SIS!

Oinky

hi ikerberg,

are you gonna consider attending SIS together with Rhenish?  As I heard that Rhenish has quite a difficult curriculum.

hmm...cos I am having a similar situation.  though very happy that SIS accepted my kid.

ikerberg

Oinky,

Since I completely trust SIS's curriculum and anyway, he doen't need to compete for a good primary school and then a good secondary school, I will try to let him go to just SIS.

In fact, there is also practical problem since SIS's PY1's time = 1200 - 1500, so it is quite impossible to let my son stay in Rhenish ..... get off school at 1100 am??

[ 本帖最後由 ikerberg 於 11-2-12 04:15 編輯 ]

Ocean419

Big congrats to you with children who will be starting at SIS this coming fall.  I surely hope that I will be in your situation a couple of years from now.  M boy is just over a year old now and I have just started looking int pre-nusery for him who will start pn in sept 2012.  Dear successful parents, could you please suggest some good pn schools that are along the hk island mtr, will provide a loving and nuturing environment and set him on the right track for SIS?  Many thanks~

Oinky

thanks for your sharing ~