Can't tell you how helpful it is to get such great feedback. My stress level has taken a definite dive (that being said, it's still in the stratosphere )

Still doing as much homework as I can, but it's starting to feel manageable. Whew! A million thanks for sharing your thoughts and such helpful information.

Would like to repost this question and add a little info:

"Hi. Our son will be 3 in Feb and we are moving to Shanghai in April/May. We have been looking for a school with a program that would be a good fit and are now considering
SCIS
YCIS
Shanghai Livingston American School
Although he is not yet old enough, we are also thinking about moving him to SAS the following year. We have some knowledge of the city from prior business trips but have not spent time looking at housing or school options, so we are planning to visit Shanghai in late Feb to see schools and neighborhoods in person. Any advice or suggestion would be much appreciated."

Additional information: We are adding Concordia to our list because we've heard that Puxi schools have much longer wait list than Pudong schools but the commute to work for us could be even longer. We are from the US so would like to stick with an American curriculum. Having said that, he is only 3, so the academics of a pre-school is not the highest priority. We would like him to get exposure to the chinese culture and language and have a positive learning experience. Our son is half Chinese and can understand Chinese but does not speak much. We would love for him to speak more. He has been going to pre-school here in the US. Our commitment to Shanghai is 2 years, with possibility to extend for another 2. Our office is in Minhang (near Jiao Tung University Minhang campus).

Due to the timing of our move and initial response from these schools, we will not be able to get him into school until the Fall (if they have open spots). This means we will have plenty of time on our hands and would appreciate any suggestion for summer school, summer camp, or any other activities appropropriate for a 3 year old boy. Most programs have not yet published their summer schedule or start at age 4.

Thank you in advance for any insight.

To Animal Crackers:
You are definitely looking for an American Curriculm/AP school. Don't be confused by the mention of IB. IB is a two year program and your son will only be here 1 year.
SAS, SCIS and Concordia are your choices. Check with each.
Map skills are not as important as travel time. Concordia is in the interior of Pudong, nice if you live nearby but not well-connected by ring roads. SAS campuses are at the extreme ends of the city, near the airports. SCIS - I only know the one campus. All of these schools run extensive student busing and can give you the exact times for bus transport to any compound you might consider living in.

The main thing to discuss with your present school and future school is the college applications. Most of the process will depend on records from present school, make sure they will be responsive from afar. find out how excited the future school is about doing recommendations in the fall for a kid who just moved in. How much of the process has your son done? college visits? some ideas? first crack at SAT tests?
The really top international schools guard their college acceptance rate and will want your son to have fulfilled the academic requirements. Note that grad requirements in these schools amy be different than your current school. eg. at least three years of math. Some stateside schools only require Algebra 1 and geometry.

to Carpe Diem:
There are lots of good local kindergartens. SAS doesn't enroll until 4 year old and many families don't enroll until kindergarten. There are lots of threads on preschools, do a search. Also check out shanghaimamas.org
Frankly, if you are only going to be here 2 to 4 years at primary level, and your child has good language foundations in their mother tongue-I don't think which school will make a big difference. Find one that suits your family's philosophy and live nearby.

Thank you for your feedback on pre-schools.

Great info – thanks for the limited list of American curriculum schools. As obvious as it may seem, it’s not always quite so clear when you’re checking out a slew of schools online. There’s a lot to wade through.

And thanks for pointing out travel time. It’s hard to fathom from a distance, and is very helpful as we make preliminary plans before visiting and seeing things in person. It’s just the kind of info we really need and aren’t smart enough to ask about.

We checked his math and other subjects, and he’s good as far as we can tell at this point. It’s a good reminder to us to be very thorough when we meet with the international schools. This is all new to us and we are happy for all the heads-ups we can get.

Because he’s in his junior year, he’s currently taking the ACT prep classes and is scheduled to take the ACT twice (maybe more!) before applying to schools this summer. Now we’re regrouping a little as we figure out how to handle residency requirements.

And we’re scheduling the SSAT – never even knew it existed!

Can't thank you guys enough for taking the time to answer my questions AND for not making me feel dim-witted. We'll be there in a few weeks to visit, and we're still trying desperately to sort things out.

And - uh - There's an SCIS in Pudong?

Well, somehow I was only aware of SCIS is Puxi. Even DH's company printout only lists SCIS in Pudong as going up to age 13 - I take it that's a misprint because I dug around enough to find some seniors there.

I've been scouring the boards - any feedback on SCIS Pudong campus? It looks like it might work location wise for us. Google is telling me it's 45 minutes from SCIS to DH's work - which seems manageable. And it might be a good fit for DS. So that gives me three American schools on the Pudong side. SCIS, SAS and Concordia. We've got tours scheduled for each of these.

We were thinking of living in an apt. with some amenities and lots of expat neighbors - but it looks like SCIS neighboring areas tend toward villas???


Would love to hear anything about this school and neighboring neighborhoods.

SCIS in Pudong is in an area called Kangqiao. It's kind of far out, but if you don't mind being pretty far out, then it's an option. SCIS itself is in the campus of a villa compound called The Emerald, which is pretty posh. There are a handful of other villa compounds as well. I don't really know of any apartments that are expat oriented out there, but there may be one or two. There's a lot of development going on there so if there isnt one now, there will be soon. At the moment though I am not sure what options there are for people if your budget for housing isn't up above the 40K line. If you've got a big budget and you want a larger house, it's an option. One thing to be aware of though is that in addition to the fact that there is a lot of development out there, there are also a lot of factories and trucks so although you might live in what looks like a nice new leafy green campus, you're surrounded by places that are pumping god knows what into the air 24/7.

Oh, thanks. That's just the sort of thing we need to know.
It's so great to get input from you.

We've stretched this every which way we can think of and we're back to DH making a significant drive, keeping DS in Pudong for school and living close to school and enjoying the family oriented expat community. Whew! Now we really can't wait to come in for a visit. Don't know how DH will survive the drive, but weekends will be great and DS will have a super senior year. After that, we may regroup on the housing location.

We were glad to see that SAS is willing to accept an ACT test score as well - he can't get in on the SSAT until April but his first ACT is next week. Hopefully, he'll do well enough to get in. We currently have four schools set up to tour when we come, but we may possibly get that down to three.

Thanks again for everyone's kindness in sharing information, insights, and opinions. It's kept this from being overwhelming and keeps it in the realm of a great adventure. And the saga continues.....

I am moving to Shanghai in July with my two sons, ages 4.5 and 6. We are American, but they are half-Chinese and we previously lived in Dalian for a year (where they became fluent in Chinese) -- they have had substantial exposure to the language through family.
My job is in huangpu, Jiujiang Road, Finance Square. We haven't picked out a place to live yet.
I'm looking for them to improve and maintain their Chinese; its part of who they are. But I want them to have a quality education all around. Any suggestions on the best schools. Cost is not a factor.

Look at YCIS; I think of the Int'l schools it has the strongest Chinese, especially in pre-school/primary.

wagnett wrote:Look at YCIS; I think of the Int'l schools it has the strongest Chinese, especially in pre-school/primary.

Yes my son is in pre school there. Half the day the teaching is in Chinese and the other half in English. One Chinese teacher in the class and one English speaker, It seems to me that the school (with the exception of the fees) is good.

I think if you check through the boards, many parents opt for YCIS where they can get a solid foundation in chinese when kids are younger but switch to SAS when the kids are older and need more choices socially and academically. Not an uncommon approach. I have one colleague, American Caucasian who has done this with the whole family and the eldest graduated with AP Chinese honors. Choose the school which suits your kids. They choose YCIS for the language but also for the smaller size.

I got my kid in YCIS as i want him to develop strong language skills. They seem to do a great job there

I think I'll jump in on this subject to see what recommendations you experienced Shanghai expats may have for me.

Here's my situation:
I work in downtown Puxi not far from Jing An Temple. I currently live in the French Concession but will propably move out to Hongqiao later this summer when my family gets here. It seems to be the best option for our family given both the distance to my place of work as well the way of life we prefer for our kids.

I have two children; a boy aged 13 and a girl aged 9. We are from Sweden so they are only used to the Swedish school system. The boy speaks decent English but the girl have just started taking English in school so her English is rudimentary at best for now.

What do you guys think would be a good school for them? Being from Sweden we are not big into a heavy emphasis on christianity. We do like our schools to be a bit more liberal with programs in science as well as in arts.

Also both our kids are very active in different sports so we would like a school that offers extra curricular activities in organized team sports. They don't really have any special need apart from, I guess, English as a second language perhaps. We would also like them to pick up Mandarin while here if possible.

Any ideas? (As far as tuition goes we have that covered.) Thanks!

One of the schools we visited was SCIS and on the day we were on the Pudong campus there was a little girl (4rd grade I think) visiting from Sweden where she was back after 2-3 years in Shanghai. She came to Shanghai with almost no English knowledge and spoke it very well when we saw her...
I don't know about the extracurricular activities but usually they are listed on the website and you can also email the school and they can email you back with the activities' schedules.

Thanks miniloulou. I'm not really worried about the english learning part. I'm sure she'll pick it up quite easily but, still, it's nice to hear of others in a similar situation.

SCIS Hongqiao campus is definitely on our list of potential schools. (Does anyone here have more information / experiences to share regarding that particular school?)

PM'd you Jerzy

Also take a look at WISS. There are a number of Scandanavian families there, and they place a strong emphasis on English as Additional Language. We liked the community of people, and although for us the execution of the IB Primary Years Program wasn't really what we were looking for, some people love it. While it is further out than Hongqiao it isn't a long bus ride from there.

This site is a wealth of knowledge and everyone is quite helpful. I only wish I had utilized it sooner. That being said, we are happy with the choices we have made. We just arrived in late March from NY after a too short look see visit during the first week of February. My office is in the financial center in Pudong, so we looked at homes and schools in Jinqiao and Regency Park to keep the commuting time reasonable. We were looking for a school for our six year old daughter, who was coming out of a Catholic parochial school in NY.

Based on web searches, etc., we thought we were set on Concordia, especially as we were looking for an American or British based international school with a Christian basis, if possible. We also looked at Dulwich College and at the urging of our relocation company (APP), we looked at YCIS (Yew Chung International School) at Regency Park. In the end, no one was more surprised by our decision than us. We were sorely disappointed in Concordia, we did not appreciate the arrogance that we felt from the admissions staff when we went to look at the school. It felt like we were intruding upon them. We were quite impressed with Dulwich, their attitude was great and the campus was probably the nicest we had seen of all the schools we looked at. But they had no room for our daughter. YCIS was the biggest surprise. The admissions director was so enthusiastic and passionate about the school, she probably won us over after the first 20 minutes. The key things that sold us on the school included over an hour of Mandarin lessons each day (most international schools offer 30 min), two full time teachers in each class, one Western and one Chinese, and the clear order and discipline we observed in the class rooms as well as in the hallways. As a bonus, the mandatory violin lessons were icing on the cake. As we are going to be here for three years, we wanted to ensure that Kiera got as much exposure to Mandarin in school as possible.

Seven weeks later, our enthusiasm for YCIS has not dimmed. Our daughter had a rough time for several weeks. She was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of Chinese the kids were speaking, and felt a bit isolated. However, my wife spoke with both of her teachers and they acted immediately to ensure that the other kids spoke a bit more english around Kiera and tried more to include her. Now she chatters away singing Chinese songs she has learned and is saying God knows what else. She does get a lot of homework for Kindergarten (actually she is now Year 1 as YCIS is on the British curriculum). So my wife is learning more Chinese as she helps Kiera with her homework. I am amazed at how quickly she can write her Chinese characters with a pencil. She has made some good friends and seems quite happy.

Now we have just hired an Ahi who speaks no english, so we all have an even greater incentive to learn and speak Chinese (or become very dependent on our six year old to translate...).

^gotta laugh. the mental image of being utterly dependent on a six year old to translate conjures up screwball comedy images.
glad to hear you and yours are settling in well.

cdauerer wrote:Based on web searches, etc., we thought we were set on Concordia, especially as we were looking for an American or British based international school with a Christian basis, if possible. We also looked at Dulwich College and at the urging of our relocation company (APP), we looked at YCIS (Yew Chung International School) at Regency Park. In the end, no one was more surprised by our decision than us. We were sorely disappointed in Concordia, we did not appreciate the arrogance that we felt from the admissions staff when we went to look at the school. It felt like we were intruding upon them. We were quite impressed with Dulwich, their attitude was great and the campus was probably the nicest we had seen of all the schools we looked at. But they had no room for our daughter. YCIS was the biggest surprise. The admissions director was so enthusiastic and passionate about the school, she probably won us over after the first 20 minutes. The key things that sold us on the school included over an hour of Mandarin lessons each day (most international schools offer 30 min), two full time teachers in each class, one Western and one Chinese, and the clear order and discipline we observed in the class rooms as well as in the hallways. As a bonus, the mandatory violin lessons were icing on the cake. As we are going to be here for three years, we wanted to ensure that Kiera got as much exposure to Mandarin in school as possible.

Seven weeks later, our enthusiasm for YCIS has not dimmed. Our daughter had a rough time for several weeks. She was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of Chinese the kids were speaking, and felt a bit isolated. However, my wife spoke with both of her teachers and they acted immediately to ensure that the other kids spoke a bit more english around Kiera and tried more to include her. Now she chatters away singing Chinese songs she has learned and is saying God knows what else. She does get a lot of homework for Kindergarten (actually she is now Year 1 as YCIS is on the British curriculum). So my wife is learning more Chinese as she helps Kiera with her homework. I am amazed at how quickly she can write her Chinese characters with a pencil. She has made some good friends and seems quite happy.

I have to agree about YCIS. My son has been there for three years. The bilingual teaching is good and we have had no problems at all with any aspect of the school and the staff. We will be relocating to Singapore soon however but I won't miss incredible school fees at YCIS or indeed any other international school in Shanghai. School fees are about the only thing that is cheaper in Singapore.

Hi,hi! This is Bryan from Singapore. We may be relocating to shanghai in a couple of months, but still unsure where to send our kids (7 and 10)to school. My wife will be working in Pudong, and we are considering YCIS, Dulwich or SSIS. Considering YCIS n Dulwich because of their location and British curriculum. SSIS because of the Singapore curriculum, which I take to be the least disruptive for the kids. I understand that SSIS is really far away, so is there anyone on this forum who lives in Pudong, but have their kids on a school bus to SSIS? Be good to hear some opinions. If there are any Singaporean parents who have their kids going to any of the International schools in SH, it'll also be good to hear from you. Thanks

I have a Singaporean colleague who has his kids at SAS Pudong and is very happy.

Hi! Can anyone give a comment on Shanghai World Foreign Language Primary School PYP and Fudan International School?

We moved out here last August the whole family and we chose to live in Minhang. The reason for this was the proximity to BISS wich is the school we finally decided on. My kids, 10 and 9, at the time spoke next to no english and today both are basically fluent. We are very happy with the BISS curriculum wich is a big difference compared to Sweden were we lived before. BISS have a large scandinavian group as well as many Dutch, English, Australian, Korean, Singaporean and American students and it feels very international with British particulars (Prince Andrew visited last year and we will have a Diamond Jubilee for the Queen next month). The SAS is next door and the student body is predominantly asian and it seem there is a long waiting time to ge admitted. We also looked at CSIS in Puxi but their facilities were not as good we felt. BISS will insist that children learn english first before taking on Mandarin.
Almost a full year into BISS we have never regretted the choice and our kids love the school.