ISF Academy

Status
Not open for further replies.
"I?m amazed by some parents? persistent bitterness about the relatively low English standard of a Grade 4 student at ISF. "



<-- You people are still dragging on the English standard and fail to address to the point that the school has changed its direction.

The school did not market itself as a "local chinese school" as it is doing now. They did stress that they have strong Chinese but they also had presented it as a school with international views and a to be IB school. But unfortunately, everything in their website is now changed.

As a parent, we never know the official requirements of IB accrediation. Whatever presented to us, we believe. They said that the school would be mainly using Mandarin, fine. They would eventually move to use more English, fine.

How do parents know that such combination is not acceptable to IBO?

Even worse, they seem to now changed their comments, that they do not really think IB is that a neccessity.

Boy, how can a school be like that? You did not think IB is that great and you still applied. Now you fail and said all kinds of negative about IB. Sour grapes!

I said so already. Potential parents now know what they are and would be more careful. I agree that this will avoid mismatch.

Unfortunately many students are now stuck with ISF, with no where to go. In fact, they were the victims. They were promised something that they now know they will never get. And they are now blamed for their present situation? Where is justice?

Also, since ISF is not an international school, please stop posting messages in "international school sections" ( including baby kingdom) to mislead parents.

In any case, I will not post any further messages. I do not have time to reply to the troop of ISF parents.

And yes, my sister has read these posts and have decided to move her child to Yew Chung soon. Even though Yew Chung may not be the best school, at least we know what we are going to get and do not have to fear whether the school would yet switch to something else again soon.
 
From day one it has been the case of ISF that it's a private independent school rooted in Hong Kong with a global perspective. It is stated in the mission statement, which is there for everyone who cares to read to read.

Many people have mistaken ISF as an international school. It does look like one, doesn't it? Anyone who sets his or her foot on ISF's campus should be able to feel the diversity, openness and energy that one does not normally see in a typical local school. It is unfortunate that the less well informed end up feeling disappointed as a result of their poor little ones being made to learn to appreciate not only the Western cultures, but other cultures such as Chinese (which ironically some local Chinese parents are prepared to ignore, if not actually despise).

To me, ISF is a compromise. I can handle my child's English but have failed 100% when it comes to his Chinese. We made the switch to ISF. Happy ever after.
 
One of my kids attends the Foundation Year and I do not find my kid being pushed to "create things" or to perform/present last Saturday. All the kids thoroughly enjoyed the presentation to the parents (which was not supposed to be open to the public) and as far as I am aware the teachers simply displayed the kids normal work in the open day without special efforts.
My elder kid spent sometime in the last two weeks on his project, which was displayed in the open day, and I could not understand why people said it was a waste of learning time.
I have visited other schools and have seen kids really spending time making banners and props for school activities, which to me were less educational that the time my kids have spent to prepare for the open day.
 
I hope when people post their comments, they could be a bit more objective rather than shooting out casual and misleading assertions out of personal grudges.

Quote Crunch: "The school did not market itself as a 'local chinese school' as it is doing now. They did stress that they have strong Chinese but they also had presented it as a school with international views and a to be IB school. But unfortunately, everything in their website is now changed."

As a matter of fact, ISF is still presenting itself as "a Chinese School with a Global Perspective". http://www.isf.edu.hk/eng/about_vmv.html

Did ISF market itself as something else a few years ago, as implied by Crunch? A curious search on the internet turned out a media report published in 2005: http://www.primecomhk.com/article/0505/0505_068.shtml For parents who read Chinese, could you please verify if the vision of the school today is significantly different from what was promoted four years ago?

Quote Crunch: "Even worse, they seem to now changed their comments, that they do not really think IB is that a neccessity. Boy, how can a school be like that? You did not think IB is that great and you still applied. Now you fail and said all kinds of negative about IB. Sour grapes!"

ISF is still saying on its web site that "The ISF Academy is a candidate school for the International Baccalaureate Middle Year Program (IB-MYP) working towards full authorization with the intent of eventually offering IB Diploma courses in Grade 11 and 12." http://www.isf.edu.hk/eng/academics_ssc.html

Unless the school briefing I attended in December 2008 was already outdated, or their website hasn't been updated for years, ISF is still applying IB philosophy and method in its secondary school teaching and I've yet to hear any negative comment about the program from them. Not getting IB-MYP accreditation last time does not mean that they are not going to teach with IB methods and "switch to something else". There were a lot mentioning about the dilemma of "mother tongue suppression" in this thread already so there's no need to repeat.

It's worth mentioning here that near the end of the above linked 2005 article, the then Principle (before Ms. Lee) said: "In Fact, because our teaching style is similar to that of the international schools, up until now people still mistook us as an international school."

Crunch, if the school "tricked" your sister to enroll her son with false information or promise, you should of course blame the school and may even take legal action for the "harm" it did to them. But if your sister's initial understanding of the school was illusionary itself and it turned out her expectations of her kid's education are totally different from what the school is offering, then it was simply a mismatch. No need to discredit the school with those false allegations.
 
Last edited:
Hi All,

I heard that for year 2009/2010 Foundation Year there are 135 places with 700+ Applicants.

Is that true? Can someone confirm it?

Thanks
 
Dear all,

Your comments are very helpful but also making me concerned and unsure about my choice of ISF foudation vs. KCI now and ISF vs. other international schools at K3 and K4.

I have talked to 10 parents at ISF, and I found the reviews are mixed. but one thing is clear that ISF does have good Chinese teaching.

My child has been at KCI local stream for 2 year since K1 and her Chinese is doing well. She seems to be happy there. we speak english at home and maderine/putonghua is important at this stage of her life, we beleive.

She is accepted by ISF Foudation this year.

I am now debating:
1) whether i should pull her out from KCI and send her to Foudation this Sept? or
2) let her stay in KCI for 1 year and then apply to Primary at ISF?

I am under the impression that most foudation children stay with Primary so they will only take 20 new students (from 100 applicants!) from outside for P1. And once they get into P1, there is few movement. So if I forgo the foundation, i am afraid my child won't have opportunity to get in!

KCI's chinese is strong and solid and my child is happy there.

I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on:

1) is it true that very few foudation students move out of ISF?
2) is it true that primary at ISF is really getting so competitive?
3) let's say we keep our child in KCI for another year, and then later my child does not get into P1 of ISF, are there possibility for her to get into ISF at P2 or P3 at ISF due to more movements?
4) let's say we keep our child in KCI for another year, and then later my child does not get into P1 of ISF, then at K2 and K2, should i just forget about ISF and send her to international schools for better English teaching?


thank you for all of your suggetions and comments!
 
Hi Singleworkingmother,

Sorry, I cant give you any advice about your question as I'm also researching about ISF.

BTW, do you know what was their total applicants when you're applying for foundation year?

thanks
 
Last edited:
So people are now claiming ISF is a local school. Unfortunately, it was definitely not how they marketed themselves a few years ago. However, I do not want to drag on this anymore.
Good bye.
 
I heard from the school that 200 students applied and they only take 120.


singleworkingmother said:
Dear all,

Your comments are very helpful but also making me concerned and unsure about my choice of ISF foudation vs. KCI now and ISF vs. other international schools at K3 and K4.

I have talked to 10 parents at ISF, and I found the reviews are mixed. but one thing is clear that ISF does have good Chinese teaching.

My child has been at KCI local stream for 2 year since K1 and her Chinese is doing well. She seems to be happy there. we speak english at home and maderine/putonghua is important at this stage of her life, we beleive.

She is accepted by ISF Foudation this year.

I am now debating:
1) whether i should pull her out from KCI and send her to Foudation this Sept? or
2) let her stay in KCI for 1 year and then apply to Primary at ISF?

I am under the impression that most foudation children stay with Primary so they will only take 20 new students (from 100 applicants!) from outside for P1. And once they get into P1, there is few movement. So if I forgo the foundation, i am afraid my child won't have opportunity to get in!

KCI's chinese is strong and solid and my child is happy there.

I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on:

1) is it true that very few foudation students move out of ISF?
2) is it true that primary at ISF is really getting so competitive?
3) let's say we keep our child in KCI for another year, and then later my child does not get into P1 of ISF, are there possibility for her to get into ISF at P2 or P3 at ISF due to more movements?
4) let's say we keep our child in KCI for another year, and then later my child does not get into P1 of ISF, then at K2 and K2, should i just forget about ISF and send her to international schools for better English teaching?


thank you for all of your suggetions and comments!
Click to expand...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

About this archive

This is an archive of over 20 years of GeoBaby and GeoSchools knowledge and discussions, kept online as a read-only reference.

Back
Top