HK next spring, infant looking for nursery/preschool

[shanghaidante]

Hi,

My baby boy Matteo will be joining me in HK next spring (I'll be there early Jan). He'll be 7/8 months old and we (wife & I) are already worring about what needs to be done to get into a nice nursery/preschool Sept08.

Even if we're not new to Asia, this will be our primer with an infant and we're 'overanxious' about the system and the correct timing and areas for our baby to go to 'school'.

If any of you mums and dads out there wanna give us some pointers we'd be very grateful.

I'll be first on a residence to check place to live at, but we're very oriented towards DiscoBay/Pokfulam. My wife would like to start working again soon ('09?) so we'd like the place to be connected, easy to go places and well as near as possible to school/hospital. Kid's mother tongues will be Spanish/Italian but I'm working on his English as it is.

:yeah2

Thanks

[joannek]

i highly recommend Highgate house for mother/child playgroup, which starts at 1 yr old. mixed culture, very loving teachers & homey environment. they have a website, just google it. it's at the peak, so if you live in pokfulam commuting shouldn't be a problem. but if you're going to live in discobay, i might suggest going to one at discobay.

my daughter's been going to highgate since she was 1. she's now in nursery. there are only 8 in her class with 2 teachers & this is how her classmates are made up: french/spanish, korean/scottish, indian/american, 2 americans, japanese/chinese, indian.

[shanghaidante]

Thanks joannek,

I had a look at the site and I might take a look at the place next year (in a month!). I find interesting the fact that they focus on creativity rather than honing for the hyper-competitive world that expects them.

However, what I'm seeing is that a helper/sitter is almost "a must" if both parents decide/have to work. Am I getting it right?

In Italy private nurseries (before K) are in the 600-800 euro range for the whole day, with no helper required. HK, my impression through websites and other sourcers, is that you'll need 5000 per month per half-day activities on selected days plus 4000-5000 for the helper. It does look quite expensive.

Further advice is warmly welcomed.