ISF Academy

[charlsbu]

Someone "challenged" what I said.
Fine. With everyone using webnames, I might as well want to challenge what she/he said too.
So for those that are considering ISF, talk to more ISF parents.
Do not trust what I said, or what I am going to say.
Fair enough?

It is always interesting for people to judge other's language skills by looking at the books they read. Next time, I might just ask my kids to hold some really challenging books in their hands just to look impressive.

I do not care what books some Jane Doe reads. Some students tend to choose books that are too difficult for his level; and some students tend to choose books that are too easy for his level. Leisure reading never reflect your language skills. People skip words in leisure reading. You can read for the content or context WITHOUT the need to know every word. And, language skills never mean reading skills only. The general fact is that, many people are much better in reading than in speaking or writing. Look at what English books most people read in Hong Kong. Most of them can hardly take part in casual conversation in English.

A few pupils got offers from good schools does not mean the GENERAL situation in ISF is good. You are probably talking about the top 5% at the school.

It is normal for parents to be proud of your child's school if someone at the school got into Harvard or Oxford. But, most other children are probably even be stuggling hard to get into City U (no offense to City U but we all know it is quite incomparable to Harvard and Oxford). And, btw, why would anyone want to switch to another international school LOCALLY (GSIS you mentioned) if ISF is that fantastic?

I know it is probably quite upsetting and stressful for parents to hear negative comments of their children's school. But do not hide from facts. Face it and admit that there are problems with ISF. My sister did and even if she has got no other better offers from other schools, at least she knows the weakness of the school and would try to find ways to help her son. The worst thing is to shut yourself away from facts and are only willing to hear positive things. It would be too late if your child finds it hard at high school.

I am sure some students must be good. I would be happy for you if your child is one of those top 5% But unfortunately, from what I heard by talking to other parents, it seems that many are not happy with the school.

Talk to more ISF parents. I am a full time mom and I am always helping out my sister with picking up my nephew. So I know lots of ISF parents. I know that a lot of students are struggling in many ways, and teachers are just not willing to help at all. And unfortunately, many are stuck with ISF because of their English level. It is hard for them to get admission to other international schools and most would not want to move back to mainstream local schools.

Doing more due diligence would not help with ISF. They change things so rapidly. It was IB just a year ago, and now what? With the ever changing curriculum, how can parents plan ahead.

Many schools are new. Victoria, Renaissance, or even Kingston or HLY Secondary. These schools lack the history and no one would expect them to be top tier schools. But at least they do not sway back and forth between curriculum. Parents know what they are going to get. And btw, I know some Victoria and Renaissance parents. From what I hear, the methodology of teaching at ISF is not IB style. I think this is also a reason why the failed the accreditation.

If any due diligence should be done, it should have been the school. With the money/budget, they still cannot afford an IB expert to advice the board about the strict requirements?

OK. Enough of IB, right? Because they say NOW that they do not care about IB. Oh, whatever.

And I do expect to get some more replies in red colour right?
To whoever wrote in red, did anyone tell you that to write in red is very impolite and rude, unless may be you are a teacher yourself?

 

[charlsbu]

It is rather unrealistic and unfair to expect an average kid in the primary section to have the same level of exposure of English as students in an international school. However, this is expected to be caught up later in the secondary section.

Why are you so sure students can catch up with their counterparts at, say ESF, HKIS or GSIS, in secondary section?
I am not saying individual student but the general.
And I am talking about home-grown students all the way from primary, and not those transfer students that join mid-way.

 

[kalrok]

I agree with what you are saying Crunch but you should not have this blinkered vision of the teachers being the bad guys at ISF.
Talk to them, they are as frustrated as we are (at least the English teachers, I don't speak Chinese). Their hands are tied with incompetent administration, more focus should be on the so called decision makers at ISF, fact is they seem scared to make big decisions at times.
Let's hope the wholesale changes high up next school year makes a difference...I won't hold my breath though.

 

[kalrok]

Oh by the way the "open day" today is an academic failure of the highest order brought on yet again by the inept admin. Teachers and students are rushed into two weeks of prep work for this day. Foundation kids are involved and asked to perform and present and it's a joke. They seriously don't treat foundation year any different than the other grades and that is a big mistake on their behalf. Teachers and even parents end up doing most of the work on the displays. A joke. And nothing but a publicity event for the school at the expense of two weeks of lost teaching of the essentials (eg. english!).

 

[charlsbu]

Talk to them, they are as frustrated as we are (at least the English teachers, I don't speak Chinese). Their hands are tied with incompetent administration, more focus should be on the so called decision makers at ISF, fact is they seem scared to make big decisions at times.

We tried to deal with the teachers first but if you also know they are tied. You know the administration or whoever are "looking down from above" are incompetent. So what good would it be? How can a school move forward with such mentality even if they are able to hire the best teachers?

The fundamental thing of the school is a good curriculum. I am talking about the basics of a school. Not nice ball courts, not nice libraries, not nice swimming pools, not nice campus.

We local Hong Kong people complain that the local system is ever changing. Parents are fed up and want to seek alternatives. And now what? Parents are paying the premium and expecting to get the premium. They seemed to be so at the beginning honeymoon time but now they seem to suddenly wake up from the nicest dream and realise that they get nothing much better than the free local education.

ISF and ISF parents are "NOW" stressing they are a local school. But if I am really keen on seeking for local school education, there are lots of choices. There are a lot of very good local elite schools with much better history. They all have good Chinese and English. (BTW, my friend's daughter at DGS is also able to read a lot of very challenging books, if anyone is interested.) Why pay such premium and go to a local school, which although they seem to have good Chinese standard, the English is really way behind? Even if what I wan is a Chinese schools, there are a lot of good local ones to choose.

Do not BS about the nice campus, the small class sized, etc. These are all BS. Without a strong curriculum everything else is BS.

And for my nephew, he is in fact losing. He used to be an above average student (not what someone "presume" that he has problems because Yew Chung put him in IEP) with a local elite school. Now he is still good in his Chinese but has gone much worse in his English when compared to students in local schools.

What is left with a school if the curriculum cannot provide students with reasonable English standard? Do not BS about how many non-Chinese are learning the Chinese language. I have lived in the US for years and my kids are now in an international schools. I know how the Chinese language is that important. But while everyone wants to learm more Chinese, we are not talking about sacrificing English.

The fact that students "would be able to catch up" in secondary school is totally BS. You are moving forward and so are students in DGS and HKIS. Do you presume that they would lower their gear in their English curriculum for you to catch up? IS students are doing literary critical discussion in Year 7. They no longer spend the whole day talking about past continuous tense and doing simple comprehension. Even with elite schools like DGS and SPCC, they are doing very challenging work in English even in upper primary.

I do not want to compare to the rare few English speaking ISF students. English is probably their first language. But for the general student body, they are all local Chinese families. If they do not spend more time at school on English, they would not have good English.

Of course, I agree someone, though, that everyone has different expectations. And yes, it is probably a mismatch. Poor English is never an acceptable thing to us. And probably, different people have different views of good English. I am happy for those who think the English at ISF is that good. Good for you. My view is that, English worse that most local school is not acceptable.

 

[leehoma]

If ISF is not for you, don't go for it, as you shouldn't go for it if you are not for ISF. If there is a mismatch, undo it. Simple.

There are happy and unhappy parents in every school. Sad is it that those unhappy ones never begin to find out why they are not among the happy ones.

 

[leehoma]

Some people may think that I am a die-hard supporter of ISF. Wrong. I am always aware of the problems that ISF are having and will be the first one to recognize them. I have been refraining from recommending ISF to people unless I'm satisfied that it would not be hard tough for them to fit in. Time and again I have been asked what kinds of students can survive and do well in ISF. I was asked the same question by 2 visiting parents on Sat during the Open Day. "The kids will be fine. Kids are easy; their parents are not", I said. After talking to them for 10 minutes I couldn't help asking them to think it all over again whether they should submit an application. These are people who think that a graduate from SIS who speaks Singlish is in every way inferior to a student from XIS who speaks the Queen's English, and they wish their kids can speak like Sir David Attenborough and be able write A History of English Speaking People at the same time but they have never heard of the former and never read the latter. They are what I can helicopter parents whom I (and I am speaking for myself only) do not want to see in the ISF community. I guess I'm hopelessly optimistic - I welcome the negative comments in the above posts. They may help reduce mismatches, I hope. My concept of international schools is somewhat different. A school that is stuffed with parents who are unable to recognize Chinese (for that matter, Indian, Japanese, or Middle East) culture as an important part of the international community falls short of my expectation of an international school. I am increasingly fed up with some local parents, many of them seem to have lost confidence in themselves and become control freaks and worshipper of English. Examples are everywhere: DBS has been providing nude models in art class for the students in the upper grade for decades and it is not until recently that parents think it is an issue, parents are demanding weekly report on their kids’ progress at school, it has become a sin not to take your kids to 10 extra-curricular activities and parents consider Kumon math an extra-curricular activity ... It must be the fog, suddenly I feel gloomy. Must stop.

 

[charlsbu]

If ISF is not for you, don't go for it, as you shouldn't go for it if you are not for ISF. If there is a mismatch, undo it. Simple.

There are happy and unhappy parents in every school. Sad is it that those unhappy ones never begin to find out why they are not among the happy ones.

My sister chose ISF because it was marketed to be a school she wanted. The mismatch was not what she expected. She did her homework and things are now not the way they promised.

Still don't get it?

 

[scli2000]

I'm amazed by some parents' persistent bitterness about the relatively low English standard of a Grade 4 student at ISF.

During open day school briefings, it was stressed many times that first, ISF is NOT an international school by definition - government requires it to maintain 70% local students in order to exist; second, with its focus on teaching Chinese values and culture, its curriculum is NOT like the ones in international schools or ESFs; third, because of its heavy emphasis on Putonghua in the lower grades, it's expected that the younger students' English to be delayed somewhat.

If your child's Mandarin level at 4th Grade is significantly lower than students from other schools (being it international or local), I'll be alarmed. But complaining about their low English outcome at this age - isn't it like expecting a child who goes to ESF reads and writes good Chinese after a few years???

If you do not agree with ISF's immersion language teaching philosophy, then you really should not have joined it in the first place. In an social environment where Putonghua is spoken by a minority, the most effective way to build children a sound foundation of it is to immerse them in that language. Chinese will be much more difficult to learn if exposed to it at an older age and it has been proven not the case with English learning. If you value English more than Chinese and are impatient to wait for your child to achieve the balance during his secondary years, ISF is simply not for you.

 

[charlsbu]

" My concept of international schools is somewhat different. "

<=== Why is "international school" in the picture now? I thought the school has already clarified it is a "local Chinese school". Hmmm, so it is again hopping between systems again? Oh dear, is there somethng else about the school that my sister is not aware of yet?



" I am increasingly fed up with some local parents ....... "

<=== I do not see how that is relevent to what we have been discussing. I have been talking about a school, that is not delivery what they were promised when they chose the school. And now, these parents are blamed? Where does justice stand?