We looked into schools and finally settled on YCIS (Yew Chung International School). SMIC is a school made up of 50% (I believe) students whose parents work for SMIC, and I wasn’t that into the idea of sending our kids to a school run by a corporation unrelated to schooling…. But from the website it looks ok.
There are better options. Also, a great option is Shanghai Community International Schools (SCIS). We looked at this one, and it was very beautiful, very friendly staff, and kids from all over the world. The reason we ultimately chose YCIS over SCIS was because YCIS is a bilingual school, and the location is better for us. Both were great.
My advice to you is to plan 1 or 2 days when you get here to go look at all the schools you are curious about (I would say to look at at-least 3 schools). All the international schools are quite expensive, but if you’re coming on an expat package they should give you some allowance for this.
Last, you also have the choice of some local schools (and there are some very prestigious schools that allow foreigners) which is great for Chinese immersion, but we decided against this due to the high academic demands and the very long hours (7:30-4:30 for primary school, + 2 1/2 hours of homework per night!)
