Kingston International Kindergarten

Blythe_miki

Any Comments??  teachers, environment, language skills....

thanks~~~

liulokyi

My girl 讀緊 year one class. 讀

mrsho

I think your girl was borned later than October, right?  As Kingston border line is October, any child who, was borned later than October will be grouped into next year.  This is why your girl can only study in 1 year old class.
If you don't like their style then you may try HK preschool that situates very close to Kingston.  They also have the international stream.

ettawong

Yes, I agree that the 1 yr old class is more like a gathering than a class.  But in my case, my son was just 12 months when class started.  He changed quite a lot after attending school for 2 weeks.   Getting more sensitive to things around him.  

My girl is in the 3 yr old class and she enjoys school very much.  I like the curriculum.  The teachers spelled out details of what they expect the child to learn, so that parents can work together towards the same goal at home.   I can see that the school is eager to make its IB program works.  

Blythe_miki

ettawong

i like they are using IB PYP, but its so far away from my home so i am still thinking.

your girl in AM or PM class?? can she speaks fluent English now?

ettawong

Blythe_miki,
my girl is in AM class.  She can speak good English but not native, as I only speak Cantonese with her at home.  She has some grammatical mistakes here & there, but I guess that is from my Philippine helper as her english is not good.  She can pronounce Mandarin well. As she doesn't use Mandarin outside the school, I will give Kingston the full credit.  

In general, the kingston mandarin teachers are better than the English teachers.  My experience with the 2 classes is that the chinese teachers are taking up more responsibilities.  If you want your child to speak native english like other IS students, Kingston may not be the top choice.  There are no more than 10 non-chinese students in all the morning classes, as I can observed.

I also live far away, in north point.  I drive them to school everyday and there are quite a lot of mommy doing this.  I have considered other schools like Tutortime, 蘇浙 and Montessori. And I chose Kingston at the end, and still like my choice now.

ettawong

Annie&Jimmy ,

My girl has a few homework.  She need to find pictures of body parts and their functions, doing cut & paste and hand it back to the teacher after the weekend. (This only happens on some weekends, not every week)  She may need to do some line-drawing practice.  She will bring some chinese character cards home for review.

About "responsibility", there is a topic called "laying Together", in which students need to learn the proper manner while playing with classmates and following the rules of game.  The teachers emphasize training the children to become independent.  I don't worry about this part because this is more related to the family influence rather than school training, in my opinion.   

mrsho

Dear Ettawong,

May I know why you didn't choose 蘇浙 for your girl?  I am also considering to let her study in 蘇浙 for the primary after Kingston.  Thanks for sharing.

ettawong

Hi Mrsho, I do not choose 蘇浙 because of the environment.  The primary classes share the same building with the kinder classes.  When there is a recess, all the children run around the school ( I witness this when I last visited the school)  and I found it too crowded.  Also, the big school buses are parking inside the school building, a square shaped space surrounded by 4 sides of classrooms.   
If I am driving my girl to school (because I live quite close and will not take the school bus), the school entrance is a slope and is not friendly for parking.  

The second and the main reason is I prefer IB program.  I wish to put her in an IB primary school and thus 蘇浙 doesn't fit this criteria.   

mrsho, which class is your child going to ? do you like the teachers ?

mrsho

Pls check pm.