Gold Coast

[mrm97940]

I am moving to the Gold Coast with my family over the summer and am looking for a kindergarten for my 3 year old. The sales guy for Phase 2 recommended 'jing jing' and tells me lots of residents send their children here. Can anyone share their experiences with me. I have seen their website and it seems just what I am looking for but it would be good to get some advise from someone with kids there. The only other ones I can find in the area are 'sunkids' and 'new generation' What would be the best choice for an English speaking family. Thanks in advance

[clara09]

I have heard very good comments about "Jing Jing", but a lot of negative feedback about "sunkids". In the past year sunkids has lost many good teachers and at the end of this year 3 of the 4 english class teachers will also leave. During this last year the K3 class was without an English teacher for a few weeks and the K1 class went through many English teachers and did not have a teacher for long periods throughout the year. In the beginning of this school year there was a good mix of english and chinese speaking children, but now most of the english speaking children have left the school. It seems to be a very unstable environment for such young children.

[Pekkle]

I agree with clara, sunkids have had a lot of bad comments by word of mouth in tuen mun and the school now focuses more on money and business rather than curriculum, staff and children. The change of staff in the last year has really affected the children. I have heard that Jing Jing International is very good but their prices are quite high for the tuen mun area. They charge near enough to ESF prices. There is 'creativity' which is in a rural area off Tai Lam which is rather small but the teachers there are very considerate and caring towards children. The number of children are low because chinese parents do not like their children to have no homework but when my daughter went there, she got a lot of attention from the teachers due to the small number in the class and they do have some homework. The most important thing is they learnt alot of good manners by going there.

[Moriarty]

Hi,

Our daughter went to Creativity in Tai Lam for about 5 months before going to Jing Jing.

Creativity is a nice little school in a nice location, although it is small as people have mentioned. They also seemed to watch rather a lot of television!

She has just left Jing Jing prior to going in to the ESF system. Jing Jing are pretty good, it's well organised and she was happy there.

Fees (including school bus) were around $5,900 p.m.

I forgot to mention SunKids - I've also heard not very good reports about it, and they do seem to care more about making a buck.

The afternoon class in one year was down to 2 children, and SunKinds wouldn't let the parents move them into the morning class, so these two poor kids missed out on the interaction of a lager group. Small class sizes are good, but jut two pupils isn't!

[mrm97940]

Thanks everyone for your feedback.
I managed to go and see all schools. Unfortunately no children as swine flu, but got a good idea.
We have signed up for Jing Jing. We got a really nice vibe from the place. They were very welcoming and I liked the fact that they follow The National Curriculum for GB. Facilities bright and child friendly.The other schools as far as I could tell used their own made up curriculum and the staff although may have degrees, they were not Early years/kindergarten qualified. The cost is not too bad as it encludes everything. We were quoted $4800 per month for 10 months. It is more expensive than the others but lets hope it works out well. I suppose we are paying for small class and qualified teachers. Fingers crossed. Only 3 years and then worry about next school!