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WendyCollins-Smith
Seeker
Joined: Oct 09, 2004
Posts: 62
Status: Offline
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 Posted:
Oct 09, 2004 - 09:50 PM |
 
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| Post subject: Yew Chung International School in Shanghai |
I am moving to Shanghai soon with the family and wanted to get some first-hand feeback about the Yew Chung International School in Shanghai. What is it like for Western kids? Is is good, bad or just ok? |
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bliss
Talker
Joined: Sep 08, 2004
Posts: 94
Status: Offline
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Oct 10, 2004 - 12:02 PM |
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WendyCollins-Smith,
History:
YCIS is founded by a Hong Kong resident and started from HK. They are one of the pioneers in International schools in China.
School compound in Gubei:
Relatively small(may be only 20-30% of the size of the American school-SAS). Several new schools have bigger campuses.
Alternative schools:
Many others like SAS,British International, Canada International , Shanghai Rego, Shanghai Community, Dulwich College, Concordia and several more......I would explore others before YCIS.
Staff:
I found both their principal and course coordinators are arrogant and it is not to our liking for having such an attitude with parents, maybe nice at the beginning but not after you enroled into the school.
Their admin staff did not commit to their work well and provide empty promises, make frequent mistakes.
Many good teachers left last year, this year they have just added 27 new staff.
Students :
Mostly Asians with mix of small number of many diff countries, boast students from 40+ countries.
Several YCIS students were caught off campus dealt with drugs peddler at people square lasy year.
School activities :
Popular ones hard to get in and end up no extra activities for many students. School orchestra have a good support(from whose funds?) with annual oversea trips include several teachers in the orchestra team as well, students have to pay their own trip fares.
Marketing ploy :
They provide 2 teachers (English & Mandarin) at the same time in a class but the Mandarin teacher cannot converse well in English to parents and students donot use much time talking to the Mandarin teacher, according to one English teacher there he felt it is not much useful.
Side note:
1.Since opening school in Sept 1 after almost 2 months holiday break, new students still did not get their school uniform in full, we are talking about more than 3 months from school break.
2. They used to be good but not any more, some parents I talked to want to nake move after spend 1-3 years there.
3. Donot understand why they charge almost US$20K per year, a private run school set up by a multi billion dollar company SMIC here employing most expat teachers and the school fees is just US$4k+ per year.
The above is from my own personal opinion and experience, you may check with others (strictly without prejudice)
Good luck !!
Bliss .. |
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WendyCollins-Smith
Seeker
Joined: Oct 09, 2004
Posts: 62
Status: Offline
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Oct 10, 2004 - 02:20 PM |
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Bliss
Thank-you for your feedback, you seem to know a lot about the school. It is a really hard decision to make, especially as I have not seen any of the schools in person. What is SMIC company? Do your children go there? |
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KiwiTeacher
Newbie
Joined: Oct 10, 2004
Posts: 3
Status: Offline
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Oct 10, 2004 - 03:10 PM |
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Hey Bliss
Do you have a teaching background? What is life like at Yew Chung for expat teachers? Would you recommend it? I would like to know about the two-bedroom teaher apartments, negotiable salary, working conditions etc. |
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nicklar
Lurker
Joined: Aug 22, 2004
Posts: 39
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Oct 10, 2004 - 03:15 PM |
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Wendy, are you looking for a U.K. based curriculum in particular? There are two schools in Puxi - Yew Chung and Rego, and two in Pudong - British International and Dulwich College. All of them will cost roughly the same. Yew Chung and Rego are Chinese-owned and hence have good Mandarin programs if that's what you're looking for. BIS is owned by Nord-Anglia from Britain and Dulwich of course is an off-shoot of it's famous namesake in London. I recommend that you spend time touring all the schools and surrounding areas. Then make a decision on where to live and send your kids to school after that. |
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bliss
Talker
Joined: Sep 08, 2004
Posts: 94
Status: Offline
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Oct 10, 2004 - 04:53 PM |
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Wendy- SMIC is a semiconductor fabrication company which setup very recently and it is very sound and profit making company invetested billion of US$ in China. The school is meant for their employees children and I believe they have many expats and their children need intenational school environemnt but not willing to pay US$20K per child(say they have 100 expats with 1.5 kids each on average, this works out 3 million US$ for the company) and so they set up such school (correct me if I am wrong) but anyway, they are now open to non-employees children to have a bit of economical of scale in runing the school for diff grades, I guess it is not a money making school like the others. I have not enrol my child to that school yet. I reckon it is best for you to talk to each school and look around their facility and look at their curriculum.
Kiwiteacher - I am not a teacher there but I am one of the very concerned parents for their children. I know most teachers in YCIS are mostly from Oz or Kiwi and I believe it shd be good but I am not sure about teacher apt and salary. A 2-room apt normally rented at about 500-800 US$. Teacher salary probably depend on your teaching experience from US$3K to 5K? my guess.
Good luck to all !!
Bliss .. |
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MatildaGirl
Talker
Joined: Nov 05, 2004
Posts: 107
Status: Offline
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Nov 05, 2004 - 04:19 PM |
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I would like to know more about this school too. |
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WendyCollins-Smith
Seeker
Joined: Oct 09, 2004
Posts: 62
Status: Offline
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Nov 06, 2004 - 06:54 PM |
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Well I have sent Yew Chung a few emails with no reply. Same has happened with Concordia and a few other schools as well. Have other parents experienced the same problems? |
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MatildaGirl
Talker
Joined: Nov 05, 2004
Posts: 107
Status: Offline
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Nov 07, 2004 - 07:49 AM |
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I have emailled most schools with mixed responses. Some schools have sent heaps of information, whilst I have heard nothing from other schools. Maybe having five kids scares some of them off and they don't want to write back. |
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heyhunts
Barker
Joined: May 03, 2004
Posts: 178
Status: Offline
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Nov 07, 2004 - 08:38 AM |
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Wendy
before we moved to shang 6 months ago, i did my prep work and sent emails to the 2 schools we were interested in putting our son in: SCIS (Shanghai Community International School) and SAS (Shanghai American School). Both responded to my emails. SCIS was much more helpful. and at least took the effort to personalize their messages more, and addressed us by our last names. SAS was more impersonal. As it turned out, we didn't like the environment at SAS anyway, not to mention that it's located out in the boondogs. Our son is little, and the school is too overwhelmingly big. We settled on SCIS in the end, and things are fine. we like it. |
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MatildaGirl
Talker
Joined: Nov 05, 2004
Posts: 107
Status: Offline
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Nov 08, 2004 - 08:29 PM |
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Heyhunts
Glad you found a good school for your kids. I guess most international schools would be ok. I am interested in 'schools to avoid.' Perhaps there are not any, but it would be good to have some feedback. |
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heyhunts
Barker
Joined: May 03, 2004
Posts: 178
Status: Offline
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Nov 09, 2004 - 06:20 PM |
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girl
can't quite say which ones to avoid. when you meet new friends here who are parents, they all tell you how good their kids' school is, followed by little nightmare stories of others they've been to. i guess the best way is to assess them yourself.
i can give some comments i've collected so far, not good or bad (or maybe a little of each!):
yew chung - not balanced enough in terms of nationalities, level of english poor
rego - way too far away, an impersonal principal (don't quote me! just what i heard!!)
SAS - some drug experimentation amongst the older kids
SCIS (my son's!) - some disenchantment amongst a few of the staff
i think there's always going to be something, so really, go see for yourself and ask your own questions...... |
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bliss
Talker
Joined: Sep 08, 2004
Posts: 94
Status: Offline
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Nov 09, 2004 - 06:59 PM |
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My 2 cents:
YCIS- unfriendly principle, poor admin staff. Unattentive to problems from top down, gathered from my past 1 year personal experience.
SAS - value for your monies with lots of activities and beautiful and functional spaces in such a hugh campus.
SCIS - have teacher who is not good command in English but teaching math and so students suffered, maybe few such teachers
Dulwich - Good but in Pudong
SMIC - lowest fees, try their best to have school curriculum for their employees' children and now open to outsiders
Good luck !!
Bliss .. |
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matty
Raver
Joined: Mar 01, 2004
Posts: 447
Status: Offline
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Nov 09, 2004 - 07:30 PM |
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[edited - old text no longer relevant] |
Last edited by matty on Mar 04, 2006 - 03:01 PM; edited 1 time in total |
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B.Griffin
Lurker
Joined: Nov 10, 2004
Posts: 23
Status: Offline
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Nov 10, 2004 - 11:45 AM |
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Matty
Glad to hear you are enjoying teaching at BISS. I am an Australian primary teacher looking for employment at an international school in 2005/06. Was it difficult to obtain a teaching position in China? |
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MatildaGirl
Talker
Joined: Nov 05, 2004
Posts: 107
Status: Offline
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Nov 12, 2004 - 04:24 PM |
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I noted with interest that one of the Yew Chung campuses is located in a housing compound. The compound looked very flash and upmarket on the website. Has anyone visited this place? |
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nataku2212
Newbie
Joined: Nov 15, 2004
Posts: 2
Status: Offline
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Nov 15, 2004 - 07:18 PM |
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| Post subject: SMIC Student |
hi. i know this may be a little bit off topic, but i was reading some previous posts and SMIC caught my eye. I am a student attending SMIC School. So this entry would be probably the most detailed entry on SMIC school.
SMIC is a fairly new school (only 4 years old) but is expanding rapidly. I was here since the beginning of the school and there were only 75 kids from grades 1-9! the next year that numbered doubled from grades 1-10. Then the third year it doubled again to around 300 from grades 1-10 (the 10th grade class from the second year left). and now in the 4th year, there is over 500 students from grades 1-11. The school not only expanded population wise, but also campus wise. There is now an elementary building and a middle/high building with student dorms for kids who live far away.
If you're a teacher looking for a job, i would recommend teaching at SMIC. School lunches take some time to get used to though  . But I would say that the environment's great and the student teacher relationships are pretty good too.
If you're a parent and worried about the language barrier between teacher-student...forget about it. The CSL (chinese as second language) teachers at this school are all pretty good at english. And besides, there's plenty of kids like me in every grade to help them out in classes. Apart from chinese, all other classes are taught in English.
The parent-teacher connection is pretty good also. e-mails are very convinient here amongst the parents and teachers. Also, there will be plenty of (in my opinion--dreadful) progress reports that go out every half a quarter. Then there are report cards that go out every quarter.
BEWARE: Grades tend to drop when coming to our school. For some weird reason, straight A students are now lingering along Bs...but they do improve back up to a straight A standard. The curriculum here is pretty harsh in my opinion. There is a hard-core math teacher from Taiwan, and taiwanese teachers are crazy. GPAs will drop, however, a 65% in her class means you'll get a 90% in other teacher's math classes. But do not worry on your college stuff, she will right a very good letter of recommendation. Plenty of students under her have gotten into MIT, Caltech, GT, and Stanford. Other than her, there are AP courses being offered and Honors courses in English. And also, SMIC is a registered school on the College Board!
Taking PSAT/SATs is not a big hassle at all. PSATs are taken right at the school, and SATs as of now are being taken at Concordia (only about 10 minute car ride). And the best part is, the school treats us to Pizza right afterwards
SMIC is not restricted to only employee's children. Due to some gov't thing about not giving lisences for new international school, SMIC has not recieved "international school" status. However, SMIC i would say would be amongst the top international Schools in shanghai. Every year, the school takes in more and more students from other international schools ex: SHSID, SAS, and Concordia (CISS).
I'm not too sure about the tuition for the school..but all i know is that SMIC employee's children get's some sort of discount..yeah. And i've heard things that there might be an SMIC School in Beijing as well since SMIC is also in Beijing (Tianjing and Chengdu as well).
If you are a teacher looking for a job and are worrying about a place to live, there is an LQ right across the street that houses most of SMIC Employees. There are individual apartments (1-4 bedrooms), villas (though i think that those are only for ppl who have a certain job grade or something), dorms (that aren't that bad actually), and there's a new section that's being built at this moment that are like those new york type houses with 3 floors but each floor isn't all that big?..but yeah.
wow that was a long entry. wait, i have homework to do too!..dah.
Well, I hope that was helpful to whoever needed it. If you have any more questions, then feel free to e-mail me at nataku2212@gmail.com |
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treehouse
Newbie
Joined: Nov 19, 2004
Posts: 6
Status: Offline
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| Posted:
Nov 19, 2004 - 12:00 PM |
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| MatildaGirl wrote: |
Heyhunts
Glad you found a good school for your kids. I guess most international schools would be ok. I am interested in 'schools to avoid.' Perhaps there are not any, but it would be good to have some feedback. |
I would avoid Shanghai Rego at all costs. My son went there for a while and while he looked forward to going to school at his old school, he hated SRIS. Every morning it would be "I don't want to go to school, I don't like this school"! - every mother's nightmare. I can't begin to tell you what's wrong with this school, basically I don't think it's a suitable place for young children to be in (my kid is year 2 right now). The school is completely incompetent when it comes to working with parents, they take a very negative approach to discipline and the after school activities are of very low quality - they might as well just let the kids go home earlier. |
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MatildaGirl
Talker
Joined: Nov 05, 2004
Posts: 107
Status: Offline
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Nov 20, 2004 - 02:47 PM |
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Bliss
What is wrong with living in Pudong? |
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bliss
Talker
Joined: Sep 08, 2004
Posts: 94
Status: Offline
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Nov 20, 2004 - 11:18 PM |
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Nothing wrong with Pudong. If your office is in Puxi then it is more logical not to live in Pudong though I know few people do.
Good luck !!
Bliss .. |
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nicklar
Lurker
Joined: Aug 22, 2004
Posts: 39
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Nov 21, 2004 - 05:50 AM |
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We made the move from Gubei (Puxi) to Jin Qiao (Pudong) this year due to a change of jobs and the commute being too long. Whilst we miss the convenience of Gubei it's much quieter and cleaner here. Plus it's much closer to the airport and Jin Qiao is going ahead a fast rate. It really depends on what you are looking for. Newcomers should check out all areas before making a decision. |
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hksoccermom
Newbie
Joined: Dec 18, 2004
Posts: 1
Status: Offline
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Dec 18, 2004 - 10:04 PM |
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I no this is old thread but I jst found it. Don't trust this skool. During SARS my child is being taught by teacher whose father has SARS. Her sisters waz also students at the school. They tell us that when she leaves she is going home for end of contract - nothing about SARS. They lieing so much, just love money and prestige. Don't even care for my child safety!!! We come bak HK last year. They also have disease in HK last year but they dun tell nobody until it's too late! I am gald my child in another school in HK! |
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MatildaGirl
Talker
Joined: Nov 05, 2004
Posts: 107
Status: Offline
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Dec 20, 2004 - 07:55 AM |
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Wendy
I am visiting several schools in January with the kids and am happy to share the information I obtain with you. |
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WendyCollins-Smith
Seeker
Joined: Oct 09, 2004
Posts: 62
Status: Offline
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Jan 03, 2005 - 02:06 PM |
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Matilda Girl, Thanks. I looking forward to reading your comments. |
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Evie
Newbie
Joined: Jan 17, 2005
Posts: 9
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 Posted:
Jan 28, 2005 - 02:53 PM |
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 Hi Wendy,
We've lived in Shanghai before and have experience with 3 schools:
Yew Chung, Rego and SAS.
I can verify the above comments about Yew Chung and Rego. Even though our youngest had only two month preparation in English (for us a second language) He did not have to attent English as second language class at Rego. After half a year he could transfer to SAS and finally he is learning something and is placed in ESOL class! Also was Rego a boot camp experience for our son.
Over time we found out that it is important to have well organised school (with a steady history) with a good after school program (so they can do that together with their friends). It would be nice and practical to have a good after school bus system to drop off places near your compound.
For us SAS has been and still is the answer. Even though the school looks huge. There are three seperate buildings, so extually 3 schools. Very well organised. Great facilities. Also the Pudong campus is great. Our oldest goes there at the moment. Good luck... Evie |
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