Are all the preschools in HK really full?

[soloelsie]

Hi all, Just arrived in HK a week ago with two preschoolers and every school I try to contact is full. What's the deal? Will I have to pay an arm and a leg to give my kids basic education? Please help with advice! p.s. we are in South Horizons....

 

[penguinsix]

Some people may be holding multiple spots or on wait lists at other places looking to move up. There should be some movement when schools get started in a few weeks. Are you on the wait lists at your preferred location?

 

[0ze_Kid1]

Welcome to HK.

Schools in general are hard to get into especially the lower grades and kindy. You need to consider the ones you really like, the ones you think would be OK and then a backup in case you can't get either.

You may also want to look at putting your kids on primary waiting lists now too.

Sorry I couldn't be more help and hope you find some places.

 

[Arcana]

You may try Starters School at Wan Chai.

 

[Roger]

No they are not full. Try local ones so that the kids will learn Chinese. The Chinese word is ??? yaojiyun.

 

[carms1]

we placed our 5 year old into the local chinese school initially...they were great. He was only there for a few weeks as we now have a place at an international school, he starts next week. I couldn't fault the local school at all and we would've left him there but our eldest child had already started at the international school and trying to get 2 children to two different schools at opposite sides of the island was proving difficult
Good luck, and welcome to Hong Kong, we've only recently arrived also so places at school do become available

 

[Roger]

I've already been through the primary end, now we're facing the secondary applications which will happen this term

 

[meg]

Information on local schools

we placed our 5 year old into the local chinese school initially...they were great. He was only there for a few weeks as we now have a place at an international school, he starts next week. I couldn't fault the local school at all and we would've left him there but our eldest child had already started at the international school and trying to get 2 children to two different schools at opposite sides of the island was proving difficult
Good luck, and welcome to Hong Kong, we've only recently arrived also so places at school do become available

Hi Carms1, We are interested in sending our child to a local school. I was just interested whether you sent your 5yr old to an EMI school or CMI school? Our son has only a smattering of Mandarin and no Cantonese, so we were worried he would find it overwhelming coming from an English speaking Kindy in NZ. I appreciate any pointers you have. Cheers Megan

 

[Roger]

When I put my son in kindy, he spoke no Cantonese. After 3 months he was fluent. It might take a little longer for a 5 year old, but not much longer.

 

[carms1]

Hi Carms1, We are interested in sending our child to a local school. I was just interested whether you sent your 5yr old to an EMI school or CMI school? Our son has only a smattering of Mandarin and no Cantonese, so we were worried he would find it overwhelming coming from an English speaking Kindy in NZ. I appreciate any pointers you have. Cheers Megan

Hi Megan, it was a CMI school that we sent him to, the first language of all the children was mandarin. Lessons were in mandarin and some English, our 5yr old picked it up pretty quickly. He didn't appear to struggle at all according to the teacher. We were worried also at first as we are from Australia and both children went to English speaking kinder and school. We speak Welsh, English and German so had no mandarin/cantonese at all.
Kids are really quick at picking up on languages, I wouldn't worry too much if I were you, they can amaze you with how resilient they can be.

If you fancy catching up at all drop me a line, cheers, Carmen