any other expats with kids in local schools?

[somebodyfamous]

I have a friend who homeschools her two children (7 and 10 years old) Is she doing something illegal?"??

[Bear Lau]

Yes, in HK homeschools 7 & 10 years is illegal. Unless you can show the education department you only stay here temporary.

[somebodyfamous]

she's a resident! I better let her know!

[Minababy]

We send my son to Kiangsu (local stream) over north point and will be promoted to K2 this year. The reason we do it because my son will be attending one of the International school for the Reception Class this year which means he will have "little" chances to learn his Mandarin. English is his mother tongue.

I cannot tell you how happy my son now with Kiangsu compare to ESF Intl Kindergarten in Sheung Wan. He loves the ESF schools and miss his playtime (of course because the ESF kids do NOTHING all day, its all about playing, walking around, singing songs then again do nothing, bring home everyday with a cereal box sticking on top of other boxes and funny I have hard time to get rid of them, my son will cry over if I throw away the rubbish). For just less than a year now with Kiangsu, my son can speak FLUENT Mandarin with Beijing accent ( I mean he can read about 50 pages of Chinese school books and able to read from the chinese character). Now, we are preparing to send him to IS in Sept this year. If we keep my son in Kiangsu until P6, his level of Mandarin will be much higher than any local student in Secondary level even much higher level than a Secondary level in CIS. I love Kiangsu and the teaches is very friendly. His English teacher in Kiangsu is a NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKER, she is from UK. The teacher over ESF is LOCAL but also very nice.