Any English speaking kids studying at local kindy

[sherron]

Hi,
I replied to your pm finally!
I am sending my son to a Chinese Kindy in September. It is close to us, and therefore also close to you and my husband is the only English speaking staff there so both he and Caleb should learn pretty fast. It is a Christian school and seems to have amazing facilities. It is called Graceful.
Do you have a specific school in mind? I think it's a better option than some of the sham international kindies out where we live. email me and I'll fill you in on my experiences with those.

talk soon
Sonia

[mambo]

hi sherron,
can you give me more details of the kindergarten that you mentioned. Where is it and why do you like it? thanks.

[eplo19]

hi poppy,
what is the name of the school your daughter goes to?

[Lolipop]

hi there... (this is Poppy - changed my screen name )

Actually my daughter has been through a few schools now!

We moved to Hong Kong when she was 14 months and because I was working full time (and didnt really know much about DH's etc) we put her into the only nursery we could find that would take her so young - it was Boo Boo nurseries. We loved the school, but unfortunately because it was all mandarin (a little cantonese) speaking, and this was a time that she was just learning to talk, we were haveing major difficulties at home - communicating and it was clearly having a nagative effect on out relationship (especially as we had only just moved and she was still quite raw from that). So when she was 2yrs we decided to move her to Darling Babe nursery, to an English speaking class - but they worked with a mandarin speaking class as well. Lily managed to keep her mandarin skills up very well there.

Unfortunately though, Darling babe school has close from K1 upwards so we have had to move Lily to another school!

Now that she is 3 she has been going to Woodlands summer school in Wan Chai- I have to be honest, her mandarin has gone down hill quite a lot now (we went back to the UK for 3 months, and now she only has 2 lessons of Mandarin a week), although she seems to understand it very well. As a family we have decided that it is more important for her to be fluent in German and English rather than Chinese and English - because we now do not plan to stay more than 1/3 years - and if we are perfectly honest with ourselves, it will be very difficult to keep the Chinese language going for such a young person back in Europe! But like I say, because of the almost 2 yrs she has had of Mandarin (with some cantonese) she seems to still understand it very well, even if she does not speak it! Definitely worth it! Although it is not a huge school that everyone raves on about, I would really recommend Boo Boo nurseries (Taikoo Shing) if you want to send your LO to all speaking Mandarin school - Lily (and we) loved it, and if it were not for the problems we initially had at home (which in hyndsight perhaps we should have just worked thorugh) I would have kept her there indefinitely!

We are considering sending her to the German Swiss International school now - but looking at the web site, the Debenture seems extreemly high (and a bit extreem even if it is a very good school).

Sorry for the long post! I seemed to have a lot to say LoL

Take care

Poppy

xxx