Any parent can help - about ICS (international Christian school?

purplemummy

Any parent can help - about ICS (international Christian  school? What do u think about this school?
1) How many teacher in one class, one English one mandarin?
2) how frequent is the Chinese class
3) how good is the external examination in year 1
Thank you very much

329048

This is a good school, including 校風！This school is much better than ESF or ROC.

DiamondHill

Yes, totally agreed 329048.

ROFL

Don't know if I recall correctly , but ICS says it is an English school, not a bi-lingual school so you shouldn't expect there to be much Chinese.  At the Foundtaion years level, i think its only 1 English teacher, the putonghua teacher comes in only when they have the class, which I think ( correct me if I am wrong) is about 30 minutes a few times a day?

Academically a strong school, but cannot compare with schoos like ESF because ICS looks for a completely different type of student - the visions, teachers and background of the 2 systems are so different thats its like comparing apple to oranges, so its hard to say give a superficial good/bad opinion.  but of course it is reputed to be a good school,

kochiman2004

It's true that ICS is English school, my friend is working there.  The students and teachers all are fluent English speakers so far I know.  More than 95% graduates will continue their studies in overseas.

bunniesmama

My child go to ICS so I can shed some light on this. Btw, you might want to post on the "international school" forum instead since there are more active discussions about ICS there.

1) ICS is an international school, NOT a bilingual school. One teacher per class with teaching assistants, all english speaking.
2) In kindergarten, mandarin class twice a week, 30 mins each. In PG1 (first year in elementary, full day, equivalent to K3 in the local system), three classes per a "6 day cycle", so basically mandarin class every other day. Starting G1 and beyond, 45 mins chinese class EVERYDAY.

Re: ROFL's comments. I agree with you that ICS is strong academically, HOWEVER, I don't believe its worse than ESF. If you talk to parents with kids in international schools, everyone would agree that the top international schools (academically) in HK are GSIS, HKIS and CIS, with ICS comes as a close 4th. ESF is popular, because its big and cheap (relatively) and if you are category 1, admission is non-selective. The reason why you hear ESF on the news so much is because 1) they are big and everywhere and 2) every year they have top students in IB (scoring 44/45 points) --- but if you look at the ratio of the number of top students vs. the ENTIRE ESF pool, you would realize that that ESF is not that strong. When you have so many students, of course, you could also send a few to the Ivy Leagues and Oxbridge every year, right? But if you look at the small class size of ICS (only 60 graduating seniors and STILL you could send a few to the top universities every year) that tells a much more powerful story (the same applies to GSIS, HKIS and CIS)

Hope this helps.

purplemummy

Thank you all of you!

kochiman2004

回復 bunniesmama 的帖子

Quite details and fair comments ...

aaicswong

totally agreed with the comment of bunnie above. you should look at the university placement of different schools. ESF is just average as a whole. I am not sure if HKIS should be counted in the top three in terms of academic excellence and university placements.  

anyone can share the standard of chinese learning in ICS. how is it compared to other bilingual school like CIS, SIS?

luplup

原帖由 bunniesmama 於 12-02-15 發表
My children go to ICS so I can shed some light on this. Btw, you might want to post on the "internat ...

Agree with bunniesmama's comments too.  Please also note that ICS is very strong in arts subjects (especially Music, Fine arts and Performing arts) but not that strong in science subjects.  Despite this, most students have good learning attitude and strong analytical & language skills, which I think is very important for success in higher education.
Regarding Chinese learning, the school has beefed up their program in recent years but still, you cannot expect too much.  Most students receive tutoring outside school.

aaicswong

how is the family background of the students? do most of them come from the local middle class?

bunniesmama

Re: aaicswong. HKIS is actually very strong in its academics, every year, they can send their top students to very top universities overseas, but its only small portion of the entire student population. That said, you gotta be 'who's who in HK" to go to HKIS, so they have a very big group of students who are very 'hea" in terms of academics but has lots of resources. So depends on how you look at it!

Re: Chinese learning. If you want exceptionally strong chinese, SIS is your best bet, but among all IS, its most like a local school than an international school, and your kid will ended up really love Singapore :) Re: CIS. Friend of mine interviewed for reception at CIS and the CIS admission person showcased to them two students, who speak fluent mandarin and english, and said "1/3 of their students can achieve this level of fluency upon graduation". What she is really saying is that, yes, there are students who ended up like that but its NOT just a result of the school, but their parents and family!! What CIS does is not that much different from other IS, just that their families place a much bigger emphasis on their chinese learning outside of school and have the resources to support that.

Re: luplup. Yeap, ICS is much stronger in arts than sciences. A lot of it have to do with the quality of the science teachers in high school, which might change in the future. and yes, I agree, all ICS kids receive some sort of tutoring in chinese outside of school. Its almost a given if you care about chinese language learning.

Re: family background. Back in the old days, ICS was very grassroot!!!! But with the new campus and all that, it has already received much more attention from more affluent families. That said, because of its location and christian background, its still considered somewhat "niche" in the market and not attracting the "who's who in HK" yet. I know some quite affluent families, who send their kids to ICS because they are also very God loving families who want a christian education for their children. Meanwhile, a lot of other families I know are middle class (many are middle class with single income though), and a good number of missionary families (because ICS do give preference in financial aid to missionary workers). What I find interesting is that many of the affluent families have children in lower forms (after the new building was built), and many of those more "grassroot" families with their first children in upperforms...

aaicswong

bunniesmama: thanks for sharing the information that is extremely useful for selecting school for my mid (she got offer from ICS for KI for the admission year 2012, but we still not decide yet...) . I was under impression that majority of the students in the ICS kindergarten and lower primary school are local chinese. Aim I right?  Would this affect the learning of English among the students? How is the standard of English of ICS students compared to other top IBs in HK? Can ICS student speak native like English?  What language is commonly used between students when they communicate? Also, may I know what language do you use to communicate with your kids at home? my kids is very weak in Cantonese.  I noticed that the academic result of the open exams (SAT???) of the ICS graduates are quite strong. Do you think know what contribute to their strong academic performance?  The university placement of ICS graduates in 2010 is very satisfactory? Do you know how was the placement in the prior years (I can find that in the school website)? Any comments on ISF, Canadian Int's School and Kellog? It sounds that you don't like SIS very much. However, the academic results of their graduates (first time) are extremely strong this year.

Let alone the admission and tuition aspect, would you pick HKIS as the top priority?  

Thanks,