Hello,

My son is 6 years old. During the week he is mostly in a chinese environment, so I am looking for cultural activities in the evening or during the week-end for him to practice his English and his French, and make new friends.
Also, instead of bilingual schools is there a possibility to have chinese school during the week and English classes on week-ends? Has anybody tried this? In the US, Chinese nationals send their children to Chinese classes during the week-end.

Thanks in advance for your answers!

You can probably get private tutors who your son can practice english and french.
chinese schooling... i'd be very careful. Do lots of research and
spend some time in the school just to see what really goes on.

International schools are very expensive.

As for biliungual schools.... they're your best bet. there are several TRUE bilingual schools but you'll have to make sure that they're really BILINGUAL.

My 3 year old son goes to Wu Ai Bilingual School.... not a bad school but it IS NOT bilingual. They have a native english speaker who comes twice a month to read a book. I know of one that's really good but i'll have to get back to you. Need to ask a friend.

Thanks sobie. This was exactly my point: I would not rely on a bilingual school to make my son bilingual, let alone bi-cultural...
As for tutors, this is a good solution, but I also want my son to meet other children!

My wife is currently looking for a school, so I am very interested if you know a very good one, especially if it is in Pudong!

Our daughter goes to Pinghe, it's bilingual, in Pudong, and she loves it. It is truly bilingual, about half day Chinese, half english... 12-15 kids in her class (4rth this year). Last year was our first there, and she went from no chinese to 2nd grade level. It's a little expensive, ( about 2,400 USD per semester)but not near the cost of the international school. They have a full chinese track and an "international" bilingual track for foreigners or Chinese wit hpassports. My daughter had classmates from Italy, France, Japan, and China. The school work was difficult, they made her class keep up with the Chinese side in Math and Science, but also had music, swimming, and US textbooks for the english and social studies classes. Here's the address and phone number.

Pinghe Bilingual School
261 Huangyang Rd
JinQiao, Pudong 201206
Contact: Liu Shuiping 5031-1866

They are right next to the Concordia school.