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Hi!
We’re thinking of moving to Shanghai for one or two years in the fall and are looking for advice about local schools for our kids. I have tried to read the threads here, but most of the commentary centers on the international schools. Have any of you had success with the local schools? How about problems? Can you recommend any particular local schools?
For reference, I have two kids, who will be 7 and 9 (second and fourth grade) next year. They speak Mandarin and are learning to read and write; they are roughly at grade level. (I’m not concerned about the English instruction they will get while we live in Shanghai because they are native speakers and well ahead of their peers.) The rationale of the move is for my kids to solidify their Chinese on a daily basis with Chinese kids, so the international schools don’t appeal. Do the local kids mostly speak Shanhainese outside of the classroom?
Given the comments here, I have one main concern: the rigidity/rigor of the local school system. I don’t like this approach to education for my kids but think it will not wilt them over just one year. How long is the school day? How much homework? Also, my kids are not Asian–are there bullying issues for such kids in local schools?
Are there other concerns I should have?
Last, I’ve heard the Taiwanese educational system is more progressive than the Chinese one. What Shanghai school is popular among Taiwanese expats?
Hi!
We’re thinking of moving to Shanghai for one or two years in the fall and are looking for advice about local schools for our kids. I have tried to read the threads here, but most of the commentary centers on the international schools. Have any of you had success with the local schools? How about problems? Can you recommend any particular local schools?
For reference, I have two kids, who will be 7 and 9 (second and fourth grade) next year. They speak Mandarin and are learning to read and write; they are roughly at grade level. (I’m not concerned about the English instruction they will get while we live in Shanghai because they are native speakers and well ahead of their peers.) The rationale of the move is for my kids to solidify their Chinese on a daily basis with Chinese kids, so the international schools don’t appeal. Do the local kids mostly speak Shanhainese outside of the classroom?
Given the comments here, I have one main concern: the rigidity/rigor of the local school system. I don’t like this approach to education for my kids but think it will not wilt them over just one year. How long is the school day? How much homework? Also, my kids are not Asian–are there bullying issues for such kids in local schools?
Are there other concerns I should have?
Last, I’ve heard the Taiwanese educational system is more progressive than the Chinese one. What Shanghai school is popular among Taiwanese expats?
What about the local schools? – A Shanghainese friend of ours tried to encourage us to enroll our children in the local schools. Her children (half Chinese/half American) had been in the local schools for many years before transferring to Concordia for high school. The kids spoke Chinese at home and were fluent. When the mom left the room, her son said to my husband, “You can do that but your kids will hate you for it.” I’m sure other people will recount better experiences though.
At many of the international schools, children without any Chinese or Asian ancestry are rare. Many of the children hold foreign passports but speak Chinese at home (or Japanese or Korean).
Where do the Taiwanese kids go? – SMIC has a large Taiwanese population. The kids have Chinese every day – which is great. On the downside, they are not allowed to speak Chinese outside of Chinese class, so there aren’t many opportunities for the kids to just absorb Chinese around them.
Will the kids be bullied? I don’t know about bullied but profoundly aware that they are different. My young daughter asked if she could shave her legs because her classmates gave her a hard time about having hair on her arms and legs. They occasionally call her “whitey.” It’s nothing terrible and I consider it character building and will help her to be sensitive when she’s back in the majority, but it’s there.
I have been told that the best way to get your kids to learn Chinese is to bring them here as young as possible, hire a Chinese ayi, and encourage the kids to spend time with and speak with the ayi.
Also, remember that every day your kids will be out of their element. A new home, a new town, a place where they are constantly aware that they are different. You might want them to be at a school that knows how to deal with that. The Singapore school might be a good alternative or Ping He – the Chinese school that is the choice of locals with the money to afford private school.
Hello A-roaming. Here’s our experience, for what it’s worth.
Our daughter is in second grade at a local school. She’s a “joint venture” (Chinese-Caucasion) and doesn’t experience any bullying but she’s pretty sociable. In fact I think she sometimes gets away with a little more and is made a bit of a fuss of because she is “foreign” (I think the only one in the school.) I’m not sure how much Shanghainese is spoken but I think it’s discouraged. Certainly our daughter has never shown any desire to speak any Shanghainese.
As for the schooling itself, it is tough. The school day is from 7.50 to 3.30 and she gets about 2 hours of homework each day (at least, it takes her 2 hours). The schoolday is actually 40 minutes shorter than last year as I believe the government mandated a shorter day to reduce the pressure on children. Mom spends a lot of time every day helping our daughter with her Chinese homework and you’ll definitely need someone who can help your children with this. She was fluent in Mandarin before she started school and could read a fair amount of Chinese, although not write any, but the local kids seem to have been preparing for school from about the age of 4, so I think she was actually a little behind at least as far as writing goes. I think your 9 year old especially would struggle unless he/she is reading and writing Chinese at close to the local standard. I also wouldn’t expect any help from the school in catching up. The style of teaching is very rigid and doesn’t seem to cater for individual needs. The maths standard also seems to be fairly high – at least a lot tougher than when I was at school. Having said this, the school she is at is supposed to be a bit tougher than average but I don’t think other good local schools would be that much easier.
I don’t actually regret the fact that she is at a local school but it’s been heavy going at times and sometimes do wonder. My feeling is that she is getting a very good basic education and hopefully the ability to read and write Chinese will be something that sticks with her.
Hope this helps a little.
Regards
ciwei
Many thanks to all of you for your helpful advice.
Hello, Ciwei. It’s encouraging to hear your success story! It sounds like a local school would be great for us, if my kids are up to speed in terms of reading and writing Chinese (I will need to have them evaluated.). The lockstep educational approach and all that homework don’t sound ideal, but it will only be for a year or two–and thanks for the heads-up on tutors: we’ll need one. Do you have any say in which local school your kid goes to or are they assigned automatically based on catchment areas? If there is choice, how did you go about it? What kind of school should we avoid?
Hi, Sbergman. My impression (from posts and websites) is that the Chinese track at SMIC would provide a better focus on Chinese than the Singapore school or Pinghe (they seem to have a special section for foreigners, which defeats the purpose for us, and it also seems to be boarding only). It’s a shame SMIC bans Chinese outside the classroom. Is your child in the English or Chinese track? How is his/her Chinese? Otherwise, how do you like the school?
Adam, do you plan on keeping your child at a local school after kindergarten?
Anyone else out there with kids in the Chinese track at SMIC? How is your child doing?
Best regards
I have a friend whose children are (or has been – the eldest is now in Concordia) in Pinghe. Yes, they do have boarding facilities, but it is not necessary for your children to stay in campus. My friend’s children goes home every day (it helps, I guess, that she has a car and driver for them).
The Singapore School may have a majority of lessons in English, but we offer 4 tracks of Chinese – the local Chinese syllabus (native standard), the Singapore Higher Chinese syllabus (near-native standard), the local CSL syllabus (Chinese as Second Language) and Basic Chinese (for those with no language background). While we only offer about an hour of Chinese a day, we do have an hour of Chinese Culture a week, and Music and Art are taught in Chinese. Our children generally bilingual in English and Chinese, though each nationality has its preferred language (Singaporeans and Malaysian = English, Taiwanese = Chinese and so on).
Hmm…my boss had better give me a raise for crossing over to marketing as well! Heh.
Re. your questions about SMIC:
My children are in the English track. My daughter thinks that foreigners with good enough Chinese could be in the Chinese track but I don’t know that for sure. Only the English track kids have to abide by the “no Chinese” rule but, I’ve been corrected, they can speak Chinese at lunch. I do believe that there’s a rule that kids in the Chinese track can transfer to the English track when their English is good enough but not v.v. I’m not sure that it would be worth paying tuition for the Chinese track as you can probably find just as good of instruction in one of the better local schools for a cheaper price.
To answer your other questions – My children arrived speaking no Chinese but my husband is fluent which as been a great help with homework.
We are very happy with the school. It has a bit of a missionary population which we were unaware of when we enrolled but it has not been a big issue for us. It is an issue though for some of the teachers who signed on not knowing about this and some seem to leave each year because of their discomfort. I think it’s a bigger issue if you live near campus, which we don’t. There is a lot of homework (2-3 hours/per night) but that seems to be the norm here.
Best of luck with your decision. As I’m sure you know, education is a huge priority for the Chinese so there are many good options.
I don’t think the Chinese track at SMIC would be as rigorous as the average public in Shanghai. I am sure that there is still a lot of homework but just less so than a local school. This is just what I gather from a couple of teachers that we know at the school.
The one hour of Chinese in the English track is not enough to get your kids speaking Chinese. Most of the students in the English track are not native English speakers (e.g. Chinese, Korean) so learning English is the priority.
SMIC can be hit or miss depending on your child’s teacher. There are some excellent teachers at the school but there are also some inexperienced teachers as well. Given the rapid turnover of teachers it is highly like you could have a great experience one year and a horrible experience the next.
My son is in the international section in Pinghe. A-roaming, the term “foreigner” is misleading, most children are Asian and many of them are native Mandarin speakers – Taiwanese or Chinese back from the US. Mandarin is the usual language, except for the English and science classes. Boarding is optional.
We have been considering moving to a local school, but what holds us back is that Chinese teachers are known to be harsh. We don’t like the idea of our son being insulted in front of his classmates.
Thanks for your explanation. What percentage of the kids in the Pinghe international section are native Mandarin speakers? The website says the emphasis is on teaching English, so I imagine the focus is on getting non-English speakers up to speed, while maintaining some level of Mandarin reading and writing. Is that fair to say? Are you happy with the amount of Chinese instruction? How does the level of Mandarin instruction compare to local schools?
I think our goals (placing the kids in a Mandarin-speaking environment for both play and academics) might be at odds with those of most Pinghe parents.
We have the same concern about harshness in local schools that you have. Perhaps one year of it will be bearable given the other benefits. Friends from both Taiwan and the mainland have told us their elementary teachers were “cruel” and “humiliating,” so I guess we’ve been warned.
Michael,
I think GoPlayer was just making clear to me, a newbie, that many “foreign” kids (at certain schools including Pinghe) are actually native Mandarin speakers (though this is not necessarily the case at other schools), whatever their passports might say.
I’m talking about culture and education here, not passports.
The difference I make is that Chinese and some bilingual schools will treat the students as native speakers, while schools targeting foreigners will teach “Chinese as a Foreign Language”. The same happens in the US for English.
I’ll see if I can get some numbers for Pinghe. In my son’s class, only two boys are “whitey”, but still both are half-chinese.
The Chinese curriculum is supposed to be the same in the international and in the Chinese section, but I don’t know how they compare in practice. My wife, who is Chinese and native Mandarin speaker, seems to be quite happy with the result.
On the other hand, the English level is not very good in average, the class is not homogeneous. Some kids are bilingual while others barely understand what the English teacher says.
A-roaming, my goal is the same as yours. Again, with a local school I am concerned that my son will find himself in an environment he is not prepared for. For example he can’t stand that people spit.
Nevertheless I am still investigating this option. Some local public schools also have an international section, I would expect them to be closer to Western culture, would you mind sharing the name and address of the school you are referring to?
Taiwanese or Singaporean schools might be an option, but I have not investigated this for financial reasons.
Growing up ethnic Chinese in many places does not necessarily mean native mandarin speaker. The “misleading” part of the term “foreigner” is that most expats tend to forget that most expats here in Shanghai are ethnic Asian and MAY have a slight advantage in certain cases, but certainly the term “foreign” is used correctly to describe these schools and their enrollment; it is our responsibility as a community to make sure newcomers understand that a large segment of the expat community is Asian-based.
I think it’s also important to make the distinction because there is a sizable number of children with Chinese parents who hold American passports. Yes, the children are American but that may just mean that their mother happened to live in the States on the day the child was born. Some of these children have not attended schools elsewhere, may or may not speak other languages, etc.
In my original post I meant this in a positive way. If you are looking for an opportunity for your child to meet and make friends with Chinese-speaking friends, you may be able to find that within the context of an international school.
We’ve decided to aim for a local school (private or public), with SMIC and Pinghe as backups.
But I’m confused about the international tracks at some local schools. Is that just a separate track for non-Chinese passport holders? Or is it for local Chinese who want more English?
As mentioned, the only real downside to a local school (for us) is the old-fashioned educational approach. Are some local schools more progressive than others? Do experimental schools have a more progressive approach?
A-roaming, you have gotten alot of advice and alot of info to wade thru.
From my understanding, there are several (138 last count) local schools that are able to take foreign passport holders. Of these schools, many have international divisions – some that teach in english, some that teach in chinese – all with one period in the alternative language.
My native english speaking kids have been in HK local cantonese schools. So before we moved here, we were looking for chinese schools (I tutor english at home). I was only looking in Pudong.
I found Golden Apple (most kids board, 40 kids per class, kids were happy and enthusiastic), SMIC Chinese division (small classes at less than 20, slightly depressing environment but I went in the middle of winter, nice campus), Pinghe International Division (2 periods of english, depressing atmosphere, teachers defecting, very inflexible attitude, and no 4th grade class at the time). Discount any international school (including previously mentioned Yew Chung IS) since 1 period of chinese a day is what they offer.
when my kids took the test for SMIC, my daughter got a 38 (testing into 4th grade)! OK, so there was a traditional to simplifed issue at hand, but…. They recommended my daughter and son (testing into 2nd grade – got a 9!!!!) both drop a grade. They had both been doing B – A work in HK cantonese school. The chinese in China is difficult and the words they are expected to know is antiquated (and not the same style as HK or Singapore).
Expect that any school that has alot of Chinese or Taiwanese, the parents are clamouring for more homework and think it’s weird if there is no homework!
Since moving to SH, my friend’s son goes to a school in Lujiazhui that teaches in Chinese using the local curriculum, 1 period of english a day, takes only foreigners into this section, and is slightly better attitude than your typical local school since the mom told me that there are quite a few bi-culturals and westerns. Still, he has quite a bit of HW every night (2 hrs every night and that was 2nd grade). It is right near Yanlord Garden.
Don’t know how many kids in each class but it sounds like what you are looking for. That or Golden apple or SMIC/Chinese track. pm me if you need the exact details.
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