What age do you send your child to International School? why

[Patrick777]

I would like to send my child to UWC but with the cost of 24k and the fact that I've not saved anything make me wonder when do I send him ...

I may not have a chance of this year as I'm rather late out of the blocks but I also don't want to mess my child round changing schools every other year etc!

My son is 3 years old, just gone on the feb 3rd this year and so the question is when and why and what will he miss out on if he doesn't start this year?

Just to give you a slight insite he's currently at a Cherrie Hearts childcare place which is more of childcare then educational at the moment! 8)

[ERIntlSch]

Hi Patrick,

I totally understand your concerns, maybe I can share my suggestions with you :

- Firstly, the usual age that a child should enter Primary/Junior School is around 5-6 years old depending on their readiness. (so you still have roughly 2.5 years to start saving! )

- If you are certain that you will be staying on this sunny island for a long time, you can consider the Good local schools. This will really save you alot of $$.

- No doubt UWC is a good school. But, there are a few International Schools that cost half the price of UWC.

Advertising link removed because you mention there are a few but only name yours.

As for your 'childcare', maybe you would like to look towards Chiltern House by Julia Gabriel. It is a good choice!

Cheers,

[uk-kiwi]

Patrick,

UWC does not take children until K1. Your son will not be eligible to enter until Aug/Sept 08. Since you didn't know this, i'm assuming you haven't seen the school? How do you know you really want to send your child there?

If you do want him to go, enrol now. There is already a large waiting list for next years K1 intake as they have very few classes at kindergarten level.

[k1w1]

ERInt'lSchl,

Does your school know that you are using their name as a handle, while making posts like this? It's not very professional, to say the least. My school would go beserk. You've also been foolish enough to include what I assume is your name. Not too smart...

[blownalot]

Patrick

Have you asked the school what the waiting list is like for admission? It may be that they dont have spaces for admission in the year you want it in which case you will have to find an alternative. We were very very surprised at how long the lists were for some of the years when we came over to view schools from the UK. I admit that none of our kids would be going in to K1 so you may be lucky but you need to get on the waiting list at least!

Good luck
Blownalot

[Patrick777]

No chance at UWC ...
My son couldn't start till next year and they are taking 66 little people and they have 126 on the list all of which have paid what ever the deposit is ... The year after they free another 20 places up so it's going to be a few years before he makes it in UWC ..

I'm currently thinking white lodge pre school they have a ration of 1:6 and prices are sensible whilst we wait on the list ...

The joys I'm told UWC is the only real waiting list and all/most but a few others you'll be in within 6 months ...

We're going to look at Tanglin in the meantime but 15k for half days don't sound that great at the moment, tag that along with deposits and enrolement fees and it's already an uphill battle for them to win me over ...

Has anyone any experince of Dover Court or Chatsworth my other possible options? I'm ideally looking for 9-2pm ish.

Cheers

Patrick

[chixchix]

Hi there ,I was working at Dover Court a short while and I find that the trachers there and the curriculum for kids,, is really catered to. Kids are so happy all the time.

But one thing I dont understand is that the foreign school fees here is sooo expensive even for nursery level. I was hoping to place my child in a international nursery but because of the costs ,I decided to put him in Modern Montessori International which is equally good and easy on the pocket.

[Nem]

Hi Patrick
you mentioned if anyone had feedback on Chatsworth, my son goes there and is in K2, it is a great school, not as expensive as some of the others and being a smaller school I feel it is much more personal. I love it, teachers are great and I think a smaller school is great for a young child in K1.
Classes are 9 am till 3:30 pm, which is a bit longer than you wanted, at the Orchard campus. I think the other campus in the East finishes earlier for the younger kids.

Pls contact me if you want to discuss further, email: [email protected]
Thanks, Stephanie

[ERIntlSch]

ERInt'lSchl,

Does your school know that you are using their name as a handle, while making posts like this? It's not very professional, to say the least. My school would go beserk. You've also been foolish enough to include what I assume is your name. Not too smart...

Dear K1w1,

Thanks for your concern! Although I'm new to this forum, I am not a new employee of my school.

Why you think its unprofessional is because your school will go berserk and mine won't. The reason is simple.

Even though I'm managing the admissions and marketing of the school, professionalism is everything to me. Every post of advise that I give to anyone, here or in the school, is to the benefit of the child and parent. Not to my personal gain. All opinions shared with each other are opinions in our own professional point of view.

I put the School name as the handle is because when people view my opinions I want them to use their discretion that I am working for the School and should I be "bias" at times, it is up to them to decide.

No offence to all so I will take your advise and change my handle and leave out my name if viewers are uncomfortable with it.

Cheers,

[sundaymorningstaple]

ERIntlSch,

I've tried to give you as much leeway as possible with regard to your advertising your school. I was going to say something last week as well but when k1w1 made mention of it I thought I'd just keep my mouth shut.

If you keep posting what appears to be advertising, we may have to treat you the same as we treat the mlm'rs. What you are doing is very unprofessional and a disgrace to a school that has the "Raffles" name attached to it. I have to agree with the assessment that your nick is a bit crass as well. You may be part of your school's marketing program. If as you say below is correct,

I put the School name as the handle is because when people view my opinions I want them to use their discretion that I am working for the School and should I be "bias" at times, it is up to them to decide.

,

then I would have to say you are advertising and as such should be treated as any other advertiser who is trying to circumvent the rules of this board. If you want to advertise, then use the classifieds section of this site.

If a poster is asking about a specific school (not yours) and you response with a sales pitch selling your school it should be construed as advertising/spamming as it is not what the poster is asking for. That is the reason I deleted part of one of your posts last week. You mentioned there are several schools but only pimped your school instead of trying to help the OP.

sms

NB: putting a disclaimer at the end of your posts does not negate the primary purpose of your mission here.

[ERIntlSch]

Dear All,

So sorry if you all feel this way. I will resign myself from this forum. Hope my 2 cents worth did help a few along the way.


Dear Moderator,

I did not in any way try to do a sales pitch here. As you can see, I'm not even very active in your forum! All I did was try to create an awareness as well as offer my services should anyone want any and I not only promoted my school but other schools as well.

Please also delete any threads that I had created that made you feel otherwise.

By the way, we are already advertising in your classified sections.

Cheers,

[sundaymorningstaple]

ERIntlSch,

We are aware that you advertise here on the board. That's is exactly why we don't want advertising pitches in the threads. Free Classified Ads in a world where almost nothing is free. It's a pretty good deal. The only caveats are that you do not advertising in the threads (although if you what to put a one line hyperlink in your signature to the classified ad is OK. If your school doesn't mind the method of advertising as Nigerian Phone sellers, Viagra Sellers and so forth, keep your nick if you like. That's an image problem that you and your employer has to deal with.

However, I would suggest that you DO NOT LEAVE the forum to cut off your nose to spite your face.......as the old saying goes. We are here to help the fellow forumers to gather as much information as possible so that they may make informed decisions. The vast majority of us do this out of the goodness of our hearts in the desire to help others, not our employers. You do have a lot of knowledge to offer. Just drop the sales pitch. Put a link in your signature line and just let it sit there. Put your schools website url in your profile. Anybody who is curious can go see the ad or profile etc., etc.

You tell me.........

Where do we draw the line with advertising? And will the next poster have the same OB Markers? See what I mean?

sms