ISF Academy

[pagechan]

Great discussion

I think this is one of the best discussions on geokids. "Thank you" everyone for posting your comments, especially charlsbu, who wrote about her nephew. It's showed she really cared about his future. We all do as parents. Good luck to all parents who wrote something on this discussion.

I have twins attending school here in H.K., it is stressful to find the right school for our kids here in H.K.


Honestly, I was a bit turned off by postings by "Admin". Guess, he/she has the right to control info. Yes, we can all be control freaks sometimes, trying to police the world, making sure info is correct. "All info are subject to interpretation, it's all how it's presented to us." Hopefully our children will learn to recognize that in the schools here in H.K.

 

[cannonball]

I read all of the postings here and just want to throw in my 2cents worth. I have heard more +ves than -ves about ISF overall. However, your postings also confirmed some of my concerns. I went to the ISF open day with high expectations. I always thought an int'l school teaching style with a strong chinese, especially mandarin program is a great idea for our children. Unlike most of my friends, I was not at all impressed at the open day though. Yes, the campus is spanking new. The students were well-behaved and spoke fluently and politely. I was explained how the transition of 70% chinese to 70% english will take place and I had serious doubts how that's going to work. Actually the open day feels more like a PR event than anything. I guess that's really what it's supposed to be anyways.

But what's really important to me is I'm strugglling to convince myself that this 70% Chinese to 70% English transition is going to work. One thing also is everyone acknowleges that this is a new and evolving school. It'll be great if the transition works, but what other choices are you left with if it doesn't? Imagine yourself facing a situation where you need to transfer your kid out of the school in the middle of this transition, for whatever reason. I think it'll be a challenge to fit back into either local schools, international schools, or even ESF. Of course everyone's kid and background is different, which brings me to the point that ISF may work beautifully for some kids but not others.

For kids whose native language is English, I think ISF can be a very good compromise, whether or not the transition works. However, it may be a bit risky for the non-native English speakers.

Actually I believe English and Chinese are not mutually exclusive. Why can't your kid learn both languages well at the same time? A lot of the local schools have very strong English and Chinese programs (DBS, DGS, MCS, etc). And CIS supposedly has a very strong Chinese programs as well? Yes these are all elite schools, but ISF is charging these elite fees so I expect the same.

To me, the appeal of ISF should be similar to int'l schools which have strong Chinese programs. I agree with the principle but not the method. I think it's risky. It's a new school so great things may come out of it. But I am not comfortable putting my kid into this scheme. Tradition and reputation does count (if you're fortunate enough to have a choice, that is)

 

[happyhour]

I know absolutely nothing about ISF. I just want to point out that changing to another school is not as easy as it seems. Even if your kid's native language is English and he has no problem whatsoever with fitting into another IS, the challenge really lies with the fact that there might not be any places available elsewhere. Go to CIS, GSIS, HKIS, ESF...etc, you will notice that (1) places are few and far between (unless you are trying to get in at Year 7 which usually offers a better chance), (2) there is always a long waiting list and (3) priority may be given to certain categories of kids over yours.

I read all of the postings here and just want to throw in my 2cents worth. I have heard more +ves than -ves about ISF overall. However, your postings also confirmed some of my concerns. I went to the ISF open day with high expectations. I always thought an int'l school teaching style with a strong chinese, especially mandarin program is a great idea for our children. Unlike most of my friends, I was not at all impressed at the open day though. Yes, the campus is spanking new. The students were well-behaved and spoke fluently and politely. I was explained how the transition of 70% chinese to 70% english will take place and I had serious doubts how that's going to work. Actually the open day feels more like a PR event than anything. I guess that's really what it's supposed to be anyways.

But what's really important to me is I'm strugglling to convince myself that this 70% Chinese to 70% English transition is going to work. One thing also is everyone acknowleges that this is a new and evolving school. It'll be great if the transition works, but what other choices are you left with if it doesn't? Imagine yourself facing a situation where you need to transfer your kid out of the school in the middle of this transition, for whatever reason. I think it'll be a challenge to fit back into either local schools, international schools, or even ESF. Of course everyone's kid and background is different, which brings me to the point that ISF may work beautifully for some kids but not others.

For kids whose native language is English, I think ISF can be a very good compromise, whether or not the transition works. However, it may be a bit risky for the non-native English speakers.

Actually I believe English and Chinese are not mutually exclusive. Why can't your kid learn both languages well at the same time? A lot of the local schools have very strong English and Chinese programs (DBS, DGS, MCS, etc). And CIS supposedly has a very strong Chinese programs as well? Yes these are all elite schools, but ISF is charging these elite fees so I expect the same.

To me, the appeal of ISF should be similar to int'l schools which have strong Chinese programs. I agree with the principle but not the method. I think it's risky. It's a new school so great things may come out of it. But I am not comfortable putting my kid into this scheme. Tradition and reputation does count (if you're fortunate enough to have a choice, that is)

 

[kalrok]

ISF has a very very active PR team. If you saw the SCMP pullout on education a few months back you would have seen how they work. Very slick and very wordy about what goes on there. If you knew the involvement of the woman in the photos in the articles you would be very surprised to see her surrounded by children in them!

 

[harrypotter]

Isf

Hi ISF parents,

I like the school's education philosophy but just worry that their students all come from very rich families like businessmen or many of them live in cyberport. Can anyone please tell me what are their secondary school students' family background? Thanks.

 

[yaya]

when it comes down to ISF your own due diligence is critical!

I want to share with everyone what I learned about ISF.

To give you an idea, this is what I did in order to learn what I learnt:

1) I have been to three open house visits
2)I have volunteered at various school fund raising activities
3) I talked to 8 mothers, 3 of them moved their children, and 5 remained
4) I talked to 1 teacher who is a friend
5) I talked to the then principal or vice princinpal

So i have done my best effort on my due diligence on ISF. In the end, I decided not to send my children to ISF.

Reasons:

1) their teaching is non main stream. This is reflected in their curriculum, choices of books and material (which include materials from Macau, Singapore, Taiwan and China). So if your kids ever need to transfer or move to another schools, there could be an issue.

2) their teachers are given great autonomy of grading students. For example, if the students don't like to write Chinese, then just let him/her to do more drawing for home work and be more laxed with his/her grades. If the students like Chinese, then the teachers will push him/her more.


3) It has attracted a group of wealthy Chinese families whose parents are rather demanding and have strong idea and interference in how school should be run. An establishe elite school would not be too bothered and distracted by such interference. Not the case with ISF.

The school is new, and nobody knows what would work and what work fail. So the top leadership have less credibility to put their feet down and be firm about directions and polices.

The school needs more money to expand. So the school does want to make those wealthy parents (donors) happy by listening to them more.

The end result are frequent changes of school policies, directions and faculty members.


4) The heavy focus in Putonghua is good, but a question mark on whether this is at the expense of English standard that is competitive and comparable to other shools in HK. Look at the choice of current principal (who is from Beijing). Talk to her yourself and judge yourself how big this question mark should be!


5) the continuous focus of making new investment to expand, rather than investing for the current students.


Hope the above helps.

 

[harrypotter]

Hi Yaya,

Thank you very much for your detailed observations and sharing.

 

[yaya]

top questions to ask

hi harryporter,

you are welcome. Hope the below list of questions are helpful to any parents who are going through this exercise:

1. do talk to as many parents as possible - understand some of them could be so emotionally and financially involved with schools and might not be able to speak objectively (perhaps buyers' remorse?)

2. Ask to sit and watch parent-teacher meetings - are storeis of disagreeable and disappointed parents publicly arguing with factuly members real and common?

3. Ask to see the curriculums/books/materials and how they are collected - are they so diverse that only refelct personal preference of each teacher?

4. Ask what extracurriculum activities are offered and at what price (something usually for free at other schools)

5. Ask the princinpal how she knows the school excels academically as it does not participant in any standard education exams in HK

6. Ask what the next investment project is for the school - does the school need a covered play areas and educaitional toys for lower grade students but instead, the school has opted to build new classrooms so it could take more students?

7. Ask the princinpal concrete plans of transiting students from 70% Chinese to 70% English successfully so the students' english level are at par with students' from other schools. This includes english teachers' ratios and qualifications?


8. Ask yourself what are most important important: a complete new campus vs. established school with an old campus? grand new vision vs. prooven teaching method?

9. Check other schools with equally good Putonghua programs, if not better, including Singapore International, CIS, Canadia and Kiangsu and Chekiang.

 

[harrypotter]

Yaya,


Thanks a million for your advice!

 

[flower pot]

it's really tough to find a school that fits your child. so is this school getting better or worst???????????? my son will start in Sept. I am a bit worry.