ISF Academy

[yaya]

Vanilla Cafe

Like you, I am a native Mandaine speaker who have lived in the US for many years.

So I imagine your standard of fluent Mandarine and English are probably as high as mine.

See my earliers posts on ISF.

in the end, I didn't choose ISF, but KCS. It has the best mandarin program and the students' english writing and grammar standard is very high ( you can ask the school for its student's past standard test results and how that's benchmarked to other HK school. By the way, ISF does not participate in HK standard tests)

I had the same concern that KCS might be too rigid. But it's actually not.

Besides, i have come to believe that the only way to be truly native with Mandarin is through a rigid and proven program ( we are talking about the basic requirement of mastering and memorizing thousands of charaters before age 12!). KCS has more than 50 years history of teaching Mandarin as the prime language, and on average, the teachers at primary have been with the school for 15 years.

ISF has a grand new vision to achieve Mandarin fluency in a fun and creative (a " westen" enviornment ) - I admire that, but I am not sure if it can be achieved, due to the inherent nature of Mandarin as a difficult langauge to even master its basic!

Plus, the school is still new and is still trying to figure out how best to execute its vision.

 

[VanillaCafe]

Vanilla Cafe

Like you, I am a native Mandaine speaker who have lived in the US for many years.

So I imagine your standard of fluent Mandarine and English are probably as high as mine.

See my earliers posts on ISF.

in the end, I didn't choose ISF, but KCS. It has the best mandarin program and the students' english writing and grammar standard is very high ( you can ask the school for its student's past standard test results and how that's benchmarked to other HK school. By the way, ISF does not participate in HK standard tests)

I had the same concern that KCS might be too rigid. But it's actually not.

Besides, i have come to believe that the only way to be truly native with Mandarin is through a rigid and proven program ( we are talking about the basic requirement of mastering and memorizing thousands of charaters before age 12!). KCS has more than 50 years history of teaching Mandarin as the prime language, and on average, the teachers at primary have been with the school for 15 years.

ISF has a grand new vision to achieve Mandarin fluency in a fun and creative (a " westen" enviornment ) - I admire that, but I am not sure if it can be achieved, due to the inherent nature of Mandarin as a difficult langauge to even master its basic!

Plus, the school is still new and is still trying to figure out how best to execute its vision.

Thanks yaya! I'm sure the Mandarin program at KCS is the best in HK. How do you like their English program? Are the students able to converse in English confidently? Another concern I have about KCS is pure logistics. They don't provide school bus service for where we live (Bel-Air).

 

[x6bjmm]

Dear Good Hearted and Concerned Parents,
I am a teacher who has worked at many international schools during the past 20 years and I would like to help all of you understand what an international is. For some reason , in this blog, and in the minds of many HK parents, an international school carries some extreme status as a desirable place for your kids. International schools have always been schools for kids whose parents have been stationed in jobs around the world, away from their home country. Parents of these kids are almost always working for multinational corporations, embassies, news organizations, etc. Where ever there are kids whose parents are far from home, there needs to be schools to educate these kids. Sometimes they are servicing the needs of kids from Canada, the US, Germany -- although many times there is not enough of one country's kids to support a school, they then go to the best, or the only game in town. The ISF Asylum, while at first purporting to be an international school -- because the last Director had no idea what she was talking about as she had very little background with international schools -- was quickly informed by teachers she had mislead, about the true nature of the school's clientele. The school then quickly back tracked to a more reasonable position -- we are a local school they said. But as soon the word "local" conjured negative connotations, they changed their marketing approach and said they were a Hong Kong school with an international perspective. If, when they made this change, you asked any of the international teachers -- or any of the teachers -- where this perspective was located, the would have been hard pressed to come up with an answer. None of the international teachers were ever listened to, as all of us were told we just didn't get the local culture -- they decided that stupidity, arrogance, and and total lack of educational rigor could be explained away by telling us that it was a cultural thing we did not understand. This was about the most demeaning lie ever- demeaning to Honk Kong people, to Chinese people, to anyone who could think and talk at the same time. Over time, even this answer became confusing, so with absolutely no input from anyone but the marketing person -- who is still in charge of registration -- an amazing conflict of interest -- the school then said that they were a Chinese school, teaching a local curriculum. As you might imagine, this did not set too well with parents who started to wonder why, if they were paying such an exorbitant tuition, why they didn't just send their kid to a local school.

You have to understand that this crazy little school is nothing more than a marketing scheme. They finally decided that international teachers were too much trouble, bringing all that worldly experience to their crazy little place, and local teachers would be much more easily slotted into their way of thinking.

All of you do yourselves a favor -- find the best education you can for your kids. Find a place that will instill a love of learning, a school that will instill a strong work ethic, and a school that is filled with educators and not marketing people. Don't worry about the status you think you might find with the newest scheme on the island. Remember, you don't get to do this again. If their promises fail, and your kid can't pass the test to get into a great college, you can't do it over again. And I assure you, the test will not be in Mandarin. Find a school that will teach them, not only the content areas, but how to learn. With this knowledge, this excitement, and this guidance, they will able to learn anything when they need to. All the best.

 

[dede]

Gweipo's blog about ISF is the most honest account that I find on the internet. Trust her and other parents or those ISF haters here, it is up to you.

http://gweipo.blogspot.com/2009/10/update.html

You can find more entries in her blog about ISF. Just do a simple search.

 

[dede]

Go to the school and take a look. I am not the first one to say this but I find it so true: "Take a look of the kids, the school must be doing something very right."

There is another quote that I like: "The smart and the sensible look for the good enough schools; only the losers look for the best schools." Is it Malcolm Gladwell who said this?

 

[VanillaCafe]

I guess the reason for such a heated discussion is two-fold:
1. Anything new and different is bound to evoke some controversy, and
2. If pricing is any indication of the school's positioning, it clearly positions itself as one of the best in Hong Kong, hence the expectation

 

[chopin]

x6bjmm

As a parent of ISFA, I find your usage of "ISF Asylum" extremely offensive. You are insulting not only the staff and management of the school but also their parents, students and "international" teachers whom you have held in high regard. You are merely discrediting yourself with such outrageous and emotionally charged comments. You owe all of us an apology.

Quite frankly, I do not find you to be that well informed about the school. For one thing, ISFA has never described itself as a "local” school. It has also from day one distinguished itself from other "international schools" (especially the ones that you described as serving expats temporarily staying in Hong Kong). This is evident from the fact that it has never adopted the national curriculum of any country in its entirety. I have no idea how this issue about switching between being a "local" and an “international” school came about. It has also never adopted the “local” curriculum as you said. Its secondary school adopts the IB curriculum while the curriculum of the primary school is based on the framework and philosophy of the IB program. I also do not understand what you mean when you said “local teachers would be much more easily slotted into their way of thinking”. There are very few teachers in ISFA that are locals. The Chinese teachers are mostly recruited from mainland China or Taiwan. But I guess that won’t matter to you. Probably, in your mind, Chinese = local; western (or Caucasian?) = international.

Your understanding of international schools in Hong Kong are certainly outdated. Nowadays, the “local” kids of “local” parents constitute a significant percentage of the students of old international schools that adopt foreign national curricula. Many newer international schools (such as Renaissance College) clearly targets the local population as their major clientele. There are schools bearing the word “international” that are running IB programs and accepting mostly Hong Kong Chinese students (such as Kingston International School), and there are “local” schools that are offering IB programs as well. The schools in Hong Kong have become much more pluralistic now. International school students are no longer just from families whose parents “almost always [work] for multinational corporations, embassies, news organizations, etc.” The world has changed. Only some old colonial minds haven’t.

 

[kalrok]

x6bjmm is obviously still angry at ISF and maybe feels like they wasted their time working there; I'm sure he or she feels just.

There seems to be a life cycle for ISF teachers.
Go to ISF hope for the best- slowly realise it's not the best - things get radically worse with an inept and dysfunctional administration (especially admissions and PR) - get bitter and twisted - Leave after 2 years.

It was good that certain teachers left last year as they were "toxic" (a Gweipo word) but teachers are not the problem at ISF.

May as well end this like everyone else.....kids are happy though!