Our search begins...

Today we visited the school we're planning to send H to. It's not like we have many choices, since there are only a handful of schools befitting our criteria. Our requirements are quite simple, really :p

1. Location - must be conveniently located, i.e. either near our house or near our workplace. We're not about to sit through rush hour traffic in the morning just to get H to school. I'm already dreading the ungodly hour we have to get up. Waking H up will also be a problem
2. Compulsory Mandarin subject - we still want H to learn Mandarin. He may not end up to be as proficient as those kids attending chinese schools, but I guess knowing the basics is better than knowing none
3. Emphasis on Asian values - while we want H to be exposed to an international curriculum and the 'international' way of teaching/learning, we still want him to be grounded in the Asian values, e.g. having discipline, respect for others, etc.

So back to the school. We're pretty happy with what we've learnt, we felt that the school provides a good balance between being international yet somewhat still rooted in the local values. Teachers are a mixed of locals and expatriates. We were assured that they do not compromise on teacher quality, we were also assured that there's no drilling - we want our kids to be active learners and not just memorise, memorise, memorise! We looked at the books and the curriculum seems interesting (way more interesting than what we used to learn in school). Although there is a strong focus on the academic-side, there is equal emphasis on the non-academic side (whew!).

However, the school building is rather old and the facilities aren't as swanky as some of the other international schools. They should really do something about this, but I guess they're good enough for reception/primary years so we aren't too fuss at the moment.

Now I have to prep H for the admission assessment next week. Since parents are not allowed to be in the room with the kid, I'm not sure how he will take it. He may start crying and decide he doesn't want to do the assessment. Stress... stresss... stress... I'm still not sure how to prep him.