Canadian vs Australian International vs Kellett - and quick advice?

[dc12345]

Hi. We are moving to Hk soon with 14 and 12 year old children. They are at great schools in Sydney and get very strong academic results. We have a place in kellett and should be able to get on in the Austrlaian school. Kellett seems very good academically but our concerns are they are untested in the secondary school so far in terms of results and there is only 1x year 10 class with 23 students. Does anyone have a view on where they would rank on academic results (expected) versus other schools. It is hard to change out of the ustralian system unless they are clearly better than the Australian school. On the other hand, the Australian school does look quite good academically with a much broader base of students for our kids to make friends. Talking to a few people, we have also heard that the canadian international school gets amazing academic results and has a good culture. hard to get in but we are about to put in applications. Their published IB results and the business magazine award 6 yesars running make us think this could be the bext school option. Any thoughts on comparisons between these schools. ps also had a look at swiss german school but have been advised against..

 

[elephantine]

All the schools you mentioned have good reputations. Kellett has an great "all round" reputation (good for academics, extra curricular, manners, and everything else you'd expect from a school) but you're right it's untested until their first GCSE results come out (expected on August 22). Not sure where your kids are at school in Sydney. The Australian school has good HSC results but overall it's probably not comparable to the very best schools in Sydney - the selectives, Sydney Grammar, Pymble Ladies, etc. Have also heard that there the Chinese and Anglo kids do not mix much at the Australian School here but not sure to what extent this is true.

A lot of schools in HK have moved to the IB in recent years but my sense is that the approach is quite different from the more structured UK/Australian system so that may be another factor you want to take into account. GSIS seems to suit very high achieving, self-motivated students who do a lot of work outside school (whether because they naturally gravitate to extra work, or their parents push them). If your children are like that, then it could be an excellent fit for them. My sense of from parents is that the school doesn't do much for other kids - a few I know have pulled out their kids (or just one sibling) who not academic stars and found that they flourished at other schools.

Have you looked at Harrow School? Know 3 sets of parents there who are very happy with the school. Just one other option.