ESF vs AIS K1 offer

kchang0202

My son got offers from those two schools for K1 this year....would like to get more opinion on which one is better and why? Tuition is at similar level and they are both happy school which we like. We live closer to ESF (walking distance) so transportation will be a lot easier. But want to know more about the teacher, culture, student mix and homework, etc.Thank you.

Radiomama

ESF

kchang0202

Why?

Radiomama

In your case, walking distance is an advantage.

Besides, you will hv a priority for entry to ESF schools which hv a very good reputation on both academic result and administration.  

kchang0202

Thank you for the reply! We also like AIS because it’s small class basis (20 per class) and it offers full day program since k2 and its has outdoor campus. But yes transportation is a big concern as I m not sure if he can take school bus at this age so a hard decision to make.

Sciencefans

回覆 kchang0202 的帖子

Both schools have pros and cons with different system - IB and AP, depends on your education plan for your kid. Just my personal opinion, IB is good for secondary and high school but not for elementary level. Kids are too free without solid foundation at elementary stage. Learning via play & inquiry may not fit for some subjects like math & science. Thus many parents for ESF kids send their kids to join lots of tutorials after school. AP has much better foundation at elementary.
Some ESF schools have less cultural diverse students and most of them come from Hongkong and India only.  One key thing to join international schools is to understand people from different culture and be a global citizen. Also each class size is much bigger and kids are easy to get infected at school.

AIS teachers have good care to students due to smaller size in class. But school scale is smaller and obviously the resource support is less than ESF, especially less extra curricular activities or support for sport and music team. Also the level for Chinese learning is not enough for HK/Chinese people.

It is definitely that kids from both schools have very good English.

kchang0202

Thanks so much for the reply. Question on level of Chinese - my understanding is that ESF is also weak in Chinese, similar to other international schools, do you mean it’s better than AIS?

Sciencefans

kchang0202 發表於 20-2-3 14:45
Thanks so much for the reply. Question on level of Chinese - my understanding is that ESF is also we ...

Yes Chinese language teaching is also weak at ESF. Chinese level for both schools is weak. Kids from both schools usually do not have much interest in learning Chinese.

wingxsunny

My son just received the offer of AIS
May I know the choices on ECA as I didn’t get much information on this
And for the Chinese curriculum , I know it is weak but heard from school there are different levels for native or non native speakers . For the native stream what sorts of support is given by school ?

Thanks a lot !

Sciencefans

wingxsunny 發表於 20-2-3 17:05
My son just received the offer of AIS
May I know the choices on ECA as I didn’t get much informati ...

The ECAs include soccer, golf, basketball, Taekwondo, chess, lego engineering, logical reasoning, coding etc
For Chinese class, yes the school offers three levels for each grade to accommodate students who come from different countries and background. But if you are a local Chinese, even the class at advanced level may not satisfy your appetite.

番薯媽

Anyone knows whether there is wtsapp group for parents? I got EC1 offer.

钧熹

回覆 番薯媽 的帖子

I got am class offer,if you want, can join our group

番薯媽

钧熹 發表於 20-4-24 10:14
回覆 番薯媽 的帖子

I got am class offer,if you want, can join our group

Yes I wanna join. We just switched to am class, could u add me/give me the link?