Cdnis or SIS

DaddyR

My girl got offers from Cdnis-reception and SIS- PY1, both have it pros and cons, we've been struggling for long time, but still can't make the decision.....
Would any parents can comment please?

ikerberg

As a parent of 3 kids - 2 in PY1, 1 in P1 of SIS, I think I am in a suitable position to comment on SIS.  I think the biggest advantage of SIS over other IS is that it could really develop very well the bilingual capabilities of kids since very young - PY1 (aged 4).  

For English, it is the main communication medium among kids in school and playground, and although the school does not have a very demanding / hectic schedule for English, kids could still develop excellent English skills without much pressure.

For Chinese/Putonghua, after some reform/re-structure in the past 1-2 years, I could say its Chinese standard in terms of reading and writing would not be lower than local schools', if not higher.  And, for speaking Putonghua, they could achieve native/nearly native standard, which of course, is much higher than local schools'.  It is because of this biggest edge that we choose SIS.   Since I and my wife believe the importance of Chinese/Putonghua as of now and the coming decades, we thought that it was SIS or nothing.   That's why, we did not apply any other IS at all, from day one.

For sure, language skills, like Rome, is not built in one day, and admirable Chinese/Putonghua standard is not built on a vaccum, and neither would it be a miraculous fruit of an act of God, which the kids could reap after a night of sweet dream.  

Extensive reading, some drillings and exercises are conducive to building solid and good foundation in languages, surely including Chinese/Putonghua.

SIS adopted a very structured approach, encouraging kids reading a lot of interesting Chinese books since PY1, and along the path, relying on its well-designed curriculum, equipping kids to sit for IB Chinese exam [First Language].

Hence, the kids could develop such good habit of learning Chinese since very young, and you would not hear complaints from kids about 'hating Chinese' which is yet quite a common phenomenon in other IS.   But, it is true the schedule of Chinese teaching may be a bit tight to kids, e.g. in P1 - all the teaching of PINYIN (phonics system of Putonghua) is completed in 8 weeks, which I heard from others, would take one year in ESF.   If kids' parents know nothing about Chinese/Putonghua or the kids are of mediocre/lower ability in lanugages, it would be a problem and employing private tutor seems quite unavoidable.

In last summer, during our vacation in Malaysia and when I and my wife spoke to the Chinese Malaysian driver in Putonghua, our eldest son surprised us by taking the iniative to chat with that driver fluently in Putonghua.   This surprised us because we seldom spoke to him in PTH on any occasion, and we clearly did not know he had such an ability.   By then, he had just finished PY2 and we could not have foreseen that 2 years of PTH education in SIS would yield such an amazing fruit !!!

The distinctive PRO of SIS  [strong at Chinese/Putonghua]  to  some parents like us is exactly a CON - [schoolwork and homework] in the eyes of other parents.  

So, it finally would be kind of 'values decision', whether you value developing kids' Chinese/Putonghua standard over 'schoolwork/homework', and it is very very personal.

Afterall, I think either of the two schools would have been a dream school to many ppl.  Congratulations!

[ The Almightly above is too 'harsh' to you.  If there had not been two, but one, it would not have been such a 'headache', haha. ]

hkparent

原帖由 ikerberg 於 14-04-21 發表
本帖最後由 ikerberg 於 14-4-21 07:24 編輯

As a parent of 3 kids - 2 in PY1, 1 in P1 of SIS, I thi ...

How is the oral English of SIS students? Do they have any Singapore accent? What is the percentage of non-Asians in the student body?

ikerberg

No Sing accent among students mainly cos all English teachers are native speakers from UK, US, Canada etc.  For those who still have doubt in 'Singlish', the best way to solve such doubt is to come to talk to the students directly on ocassions like openhouse and christmas fair.  Non Asians are the minority .... in most cases of non Asians.. parents are 1 blond + 1 asian

hkparent

原帖由 ikerberg 於 14-04-21 發表
No Sing accent among students mainly cos all English teachers are native speakers from UK, US, Canad ...

Thank you for the information. It's a very strong school. First year IB average score 37.

DaddyR

Thank you for your very detailed comments!
I have heard that turnover of teaching staff at SIS has been higher than usual in recent years, have you seen this first-hand?

ikerberg

my scope of knowledge is just limited to PY1, 2 and P1.   According to my observation, all the teaching staff I know remained there and if there was some turnover, it was hardly signicant in magnitude.  For the Upper Primary and Secondary, I have no knowledge about it.  

But, it is not surprising even if there is such a phenomenon cos' there should be quite a lot of changes, esp. in Secondary, for example, SIS's secondary school new campus was established 1-2 years ago, and the IB Programme was just started at the same time.   Obviously, the school had to recruit qualified IB teachers to do the jobs.  

As far as the eligibility/qualification of teachers is concerned, I think you should have confidence in the school, e.g. my eldest son's class teacher (also the English teacher) who just joined the school in last August, though still quite young, has two master degrees from US Universities, and had teaching experience in other IS in other countries.   She is also humble, gentle, nice and knows how to master the class in an orderly way.    We are very glad to have her, so very qualified teacher teaching my son English

112200

My son is in PY 2 , no singlish and his pth is v accurate always correct my husband. He pick up a v gd reading habit while the reading atomphere us v strong and fun at sis. He brings his favourite books wherever we go on holiday...he will read when in mtr, waiting for dinner . One of the thing i want to share is : tonight he talked to himself " oh yeah..... I can go to SiS school tmr finally...."

112200

 sorry should be....." oh yeah..... I can go to  school tmr finally...." 

elock

Hi, my kid does not study in either school, but I would like to share some of my experiences in choosing school.
I am sure both SIS and CDNIS are good schools and very hard to get admitted.
By scanning some of the messages in this thread, most parents focus on Chinese.  Yes, Chinese is important and hard to grasp.  However, each day in school there is only so much teaching time.  If lots of time is spent on one subject, that means other subject will have less time.  With that in mind, does it mean private tutoring is required?  Is the tutoring meant for upgrading the kid or for surviving in school?
Also, having one working parent or two working parents make a lot of differences.  I believe many discussions have omitted thos point.  It is more crucial if the working hours are fixed.
Just to side track a bit, SIS teaches simplified Chinese characters while CDNIS teaches traditional characters.
IB is a trend now.  Whether a school gives good education framework for the students to fit IB is important.  IB score is a reference, but will your child go through all the school years in this school?
Hope to give you a different perspective!

shadeslayer

When I read this thread, I can't help but ask myself since when do we put Chinese as number one criterion in education or schooling.  Or am I completely mistaken and Chinese is NOT the number one criterion?

jolalee

elock 發表於 14-4-22 09:59
Just to side track a bit, SIS teaches simplified Chinese characters while CDNIS teaches traditional characters.
IB is a trend now.  Whether a school gives good education framework for the students to fit IB is important.  IB score is a reference, but will your child go through all the school years in this school? ...

Just to clarify, I believe CDNIS teaches in simplified Chinese. I think it is SIS that teaches in traditional Chinese?
I agree too re: IB score. SIS has only twenty odd students doing IB the past year while CDNIS, CIS & ESF has over 100 each. With such a different sample size it is not comparable. Also one must look at a longer track record and not dependent on a single year (ie. KGV had an amazing IB average 2012 but bombed a bit in 2013, so it's possible they are just lucky with a few smart students that particular year). It is best to look at the school as a whole instead on stressing on the IB score of a single year.

FattyDaddy

shadeslayer 發表於 14-4-22 13:07
When I read this thread, I can't help but ask myself since when do we put Chinese as number one crit ...

It depends on the individual family, each may have very different plans and goals.

I believe our friend ikerberg had posted before saying Chinese (Mandarin) is of paramount importance to their family, and if their children couldn't get into SIS for it's strong Chinese they would rather let them continue in local schools. The reason I remember this is because our friend ikerberg had expressed it quite a few times.

shadeslayer

原帖由 FattyDaddy 於 14-04-22 發表
本帖最後由 FattyDaddy 於 14-4-22 15:48 編輯

I don't want to comment on individual cases as they may have specific reasons they don't want to share.

Don't get me wrong, I also agree Chinese is very important in this part of the world. I just find it interesting that a tool is regarded as more important than the outcome, ie language proficiency at a certain level is more important than knowledge acquisition itself?

FattyDaddy

shadeslayer 發表於 14-4-22 18:34
  I just find it interesting that a tool is regarded as more important than the outcome, ie language proficiency at a certain level is more important than knowledge acquisition itself? ...

I don't want to speculate on individual family's reason behind placing importance on a language either, the way I look at it is, language is more than just a tool, it affects our thinking and may even determine what kind of person we become. For example, it will be very difficult for me to become an Islamic Fundamentalist if I don't know Arabic, not a good example but it proves a point {:1_1:}

ikerberg

If my first message left in this post is read carefully enough, it should have been noticed that what I had meant =. SIS is good at developing kids' BILINGUAL capabilities [not just Chinese/PTH]... and the aim  of my first message was to provide some clues for the 'post creator' DaddyR to possibly solve his dilemma - ie. to provide information/ offer insights from the perspective of a parent with small kids studying there.  So, the emphasis was what makes SIS different from other IS, and in this respect, Chinese/PTH should be a consideration if you wish your kids could develop bilingual abilities.    Afterall, regular IS could develop kids English proficiency, but if in your personal view, you value biligual capabilities, SIS may be a preference.  If my focus had been just Chinese, my choice would have been Pui Ching etc.
So, the main coverage of my first message was about SIS's Chinese/PTH.  And surely, if you ask me, what are the other pros - which would include - English skills, science and maths, digital arts, kids like going to school, through-train, better discipline etc.  But, the reason for why I just mentioned Chinese/PTH is that this feature is more distinctive, when compared to other attributes just mentioned above which I also consider as 'pros'.  

Finally, when it comes to whether you treat language skills as just a 'tool' to knowledge, or whether language skills is more important than knowledge is kind of very personal view.    It would be futile if I like orange and try to persuade you that my orange is sweeter than your apple.

So, my happiness of giving comments here is not built on successfully persuading you that my kids' school is better than your kids' and engaging in futile discussions/agruments.  My happiness is built on my messages being able to help those who are in the dilemma and help them sort out the best choice to them.  Afterall, as mentioned in my first message, it would finally come to some 'values decision' when you are choosing which school is a best-fit to your kid.   

hkparent

原帖由 ikerberg 於 14-04-23 發表
本帖最後由 ikerberg 於 14-4-23 08:50 編輯

If my first message left in this post is read carefully ...

Is the Singapore teaching and learning style similar to that of HK? That is, exam oriented, with clear content (students tend to only study those materials within the syllabus rather than researching widely), extensive drilling, memorization?

112200

re the question on " Chinese is the most important in evaluatiing an IS ?".....I think it just subject to the background of individual reader. While we are reading a page of " International school" and English is assumed more or less at the similar level. When someone ask to compare 2 IS, it is natural to compare something outside English. For example if you ask CDNIS vs FIS, for sure FIS parent will tell you something related French language and no surprise someone will say " Oh is French really that important when we evaluating a IS ?" ...etc.

For SIS, there was a v detail sharing on their curriculum, learning style, kids weekly presentation, test/ exam, homworks, evaulation system, progress of learning report . They are project oriented and as far as I know kids started to do their own project since PY2. From the comment of primary parents, kids have got good enough stimulation by teachers in class re projet topic, then kids are self motivated to busy around for the projects. For the result, parents may also like to see the IGCSE result of SIS which is also a benchmark for comparison.

For CDNIS, There were quite some thread talk about the hardware of the school and also how happy the kids are stay in school. Some parents did ask the curriculum before and quite some feedback from many parent, but each feedback is short and often concluded with kids like to go to school.   

All of above are the fact I read so far for both school. FYI and you can search it out too.

ikerberg

回覆 hkparent 的帖子

My simple answer to questions of HKParent is 'NO'.

Basically, core features of SIS's teaching methods, according our observations:
- fun/interest based
- creativity encouraged
- presentations skills enchanced through - Eng / PTH short personal presentation since PY1 & drama class since   PY1 [drama class is what we like most --- and it in fact is very effective in developing kids' multi-intelligence --- verbal skills, movements, and langugae usage etc]

- no tests in PY1-2
- from P1, bite size tests - English spelling, Chinese PINYIN to enlarge vocal base, secure the languages.

Maybe other parents / students of primary and secondary sections could add some points.

Afterall, my bottom line is not making my kids 'hate going to school, hate learning, hate homework'......
So far, what I observe is they like going to school and reading, and remain positive about doing homework.

greenspring

SIS primary has many different assessments and tests throughout the terms. Teachers always email to parents to help their kids to prepare for the tests.  My son has pressure from tests and so am I as I also need to prepare his tests. Kids are competitive in general I feel and parents do send kids to tuitions to stay advanced. Like after the Easter 's break, we have tests from three days with a week.

If you don't like tests continually throughout the whole academic year, SIS may not be a good choice.