Canadian School East Coast

[Acquaboy]

Hi All,

I haven't seen much at all on here about the East Coast campus at CIS. Does anyone have or know children who go there, and are they happy with it?

Thanks!

[hapa-girl]

Hi,

I have two children in the PYP programme at CIS Tanjong Katong. We have been there for a year.

I think you have to look at it in two ways. I am really happy with the teaching they have there. The teachers and assistants are very caring and its a nice family like environment. However, I have also heard from other parents that not all the teachers are as good as my two have now, so I am a bit nervous about who they end up with in the new term. My children are very happy there and I think they have a nice mix of cultures and nationalities.

The other way to look at it is from an admin point of view, and I am not so impressed with that. They have a lot of holidays, while I haven't added it up, they do seem to have more than other International Schools. Also, we at TK, pay the same Buildings and Facilities fees as Lakeside. I don't find that very fair. They have also made some weird admin decisions like building a putting green instead of a pool. I think if they had put that decision to parents, most parents would have preferred the pool.

Basically, I am happy with the teachers, the general environment, curriculum and atmosphere, but I do think that they are let down by the admin. All in all though, I am happy with my kids being there for the time being.

I can only speak for the younger kids but I hope this helps.

[BigSis]

They have also made some weird admin decisions like building a putting green instead of a pool.

LOL, what is it with putting greens in Singapore - quite a few condos have them, including mine, and I've seen people use ours twice in the 10 years that I've lived here

A putting green probably costs a lot less than a pool to maintain so I would imagine that may have been behind their decision.

As for CIS - I've got a couple of friends with kids there and they seem happy enough - at least I haven't heard them complain about it.

Mine went to Eton House, Broadrick which is in the same area - that was the only International School around there at the time so we chose it, but I might have gone for CIS instead if it had been there, it seems like quite a good school.

Sometimes it's a good thing when you don't see much written about a school you are interested in - it means people aren't complaining

[Acquaboy]

Thanks, both. It's always hard to tell just from the brief visit we made from abroad, but that sounds encouraging. Our two boys are starting there in Grades 1 and 2 in August, and they're really looking forward to it. For us, the teaching was really important but we also liked the broad mix of nationalities, which should be fun for the kids particularly in these younger years. Hapa-girl, maybe we will see you there!

[hapa-girl]

Good luck with your move! My daughter will also start grade 1 in August.

[elenamelia]

Dear parents,

We moved last year in Singapore in August when most of the schools were already started. The only school with vacancy was Canadian International School. Our son was 6 years; they accepted him immediately in Grade 1 (Tanjong Katong Campus).

His previously school was a British in Cairo where he improved a lot his English (English is not our mother tongue), his writing and reading and his math. I was happy with the curriculum, with the teacher, with the educational methods. Every week I could see a little progress.

When he started going to CIS, the progress stopped. His writing became a disaster, at CIS his teacher encouraged the “creative writing”

[mmoss]

We re thankfully moving and after 2 years t CIS.

Constant bullying, weak discipline by teachers and despite being top of the class the levels of Math and English are much lower than in other country schools.

Other parents had similar issues and removed their kids.

[jk21]

his teacher encouraged the �creative writing�, meaning �to write the words the way it sounds�... I was shocked and speechless!!! I never heard about such a method in my life and now that I now it I find it useless...

They never have any kind of tests/assessments.

They never had any kind of homework the entire year, only a book to read per week...

In various posts, I am hearing parents complain about this educational method, not just from CIS. The method that is being beat up here is the model that my children have used while learning two languages. It focuses on enjoying the learning, trusting yourself, and wanting to keep at it. As they read more and more, my kids have self-corrected their backwards letters and now use standard spelling. There is plenty of time to do these more tedious parts of learning. Do we really want to turn kids off of reading and writing with too many rules while they are still so young? It has really paid off for my kids, but it does require some faith. It is not how I learned. I believe that I was well educated, but my kids are way ahead of where I was at their ages.

[wala2.ali]

Dear parents,

We moved last year in Singapore in August when most of the schools were already started. The only school with vacancy was Canadian International School. Our son was 6 years; they accepted him immediately in Grade 1 (Tanjong Katong Campus).

His previously school was a British in Cairo where he improved a lot his English (English is not our mother tongue), his writing and reading and his math. I was happy with the curriculum, with the teacher, with the educational methods. Every week I could see a little progress.

When he started going to CIS, the progress stopped. His writing became a disaster, at CIS his teacher encouraged the “creative writing”

Let me what happened afterwards..we r from Cairo as well

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