Kingston kindergarten VS ESF kindergarten

[Happyson]

Both kindergartens offer my kid K1 placement. Which kindergarten is better ?

 

[rani]

Kingston has a good reputation of offering a balanced Mandarin and English program. If Mandarin is important to you, I would choose Kingston over ESF.

 

[funkyrascals]

Just to say that my son attended ESF kindergarten for the summer term in K1, and then we switched to Kingston for K2. I am extremely happy with my decision, and my son has improved dramatically in Mandarin and is almost bilingual (we do not speak any Cantonese or mandarin at home). I am very happy with the small classes, the student support from teachers, the fact that the headmistress at Kingston has worked there since its establishment and knows both my 4 year old and 1 year old intimately and the very close communication between teachers and parents. Both my son's chinese and english teacher have worked in Kingston for over 10 years, and so everything is very well run and organised. I have made the decision not to go to ESF for P1 (even though I have alumni priority) next year. Hope this helps with your decision.

 

[Jomama1]

May I ask which ESF you graduated from funnymommy? I've just started my research on ESF and heard that individual schools could be as different as day & night. I'm looking more into primary right now as I have a K1 waiting list offer but am looking to move if necessary for primary 1 to get into a better catchment area.

 

[md23]

Kingston is much better at Mandarin (but ESF recently started a bilingual section, not sure if your offer is for one of those), but I find their class kind of rigid and there isn't enough outdoor activity or interaction across different classes. On the other hand, Kingston emphasize more academics, e.g., teach writing in kindy, etc. If you have more specific questions, I can try to answer them.