pre-nursery/nursery in kowloon - pls help!!!

B

baguette

Registered User
Hi.

My daughter is gonna be 2 years and 7 months old on Sep 2010.
She's going to the nursery here in Dubai and she loves it.
Moreover I'm gonna work so I'll not be able to stay the whole day with her.

We are gonna live either in Kowloon (nearby Elements) or Kowloon Tong.

We would have loved to have her going to PIPS in Kowloon as our friends kids are going there and they gave us a wonderful feedback but it's already full....

What other option do we have in those areas?

Whe would like a nursery in which she can learn both English and Mandarin.

Moreover, PIPS has morning class up to 11.45 am and afternoon class...is any school like this??

Isn't there the option of staying longer (9 to 16 or 9 to 15)?

I'd rather her being in a school with many kids than home alone with a nanny.

Thanks for any information you can give me.
 
there are some schools out there that do longer days (whole day) but those are generally local schools run in cantonese not english or mandarin.

my son goes to one such school in sai kung.

the whole day class runs from: 8-8:45 drop off and pick up between 4-5:30pm. it is a locally run, non-profit church affiliated school with lots of expat & mixed kids. my son loves it and it only costs $999 (whole day) or $60 (half-day) per month.

there are others out there like it, but you will not likely find them on an expat website such as this... they would be more easily found on a cantonese website such as baby kingdom. otherwise, you will have to pound the pavement when you arrive and look around your area at what is available. there are thousands of kindergartens/nurseries out there so you should be able to find something.
 
Thank you carang.
so, the expat kids in those schools just deal with Cantonese...mumble...mumble...

It would be great for my daughter to learn Cantonese but I am concerned that it would be too much for her Italian - Eglish - Cantonese....

and, moreover, we can speak Mandarin so we would understand her if she speaks Mandarin to us...but no cantonese...

I really don't know what to do.

Anyway, is it hard to get in those schools? Do they have waiting lists??
 
the school that my son goes to is used to having western kids (they even provide notices in english to parents). the teachers say that the first year, the kids listen a lot... the second they start to talk more and the third year they are starting to become fluent.


it was easy for us to get our son into this school. as a matter of fact it was the only school we applied to.

i would wait, she's still young... wait until you get here and have a look around. find out where you will be living and then start looking.

personally, i like having my helper around as well. it means that we can change the schedule if we like and we are able to be more flexible.
 
I don't know...my daughter started going to the nursery when she was 14 months and she's always been happy about that.

We will have a helper and of course it will be a great help to have her around but I think what kids do in school with more teachers and many other kids is not comparable with time spent with the maid alone.

I cannot imagine having her at home for one school year...
 
i'm not saying don't send her to school, i'm just saying that if you have the right helper, your daughter can be just as happy. BUT you need to find the right helper...
 
and that's not as easy as it may look, eh?

is there any chance to be able to enroll a kid in the middle of the schoolyear or not?

maybe the waiting lists will get shorter by then?
 
yes, thre is always a chance... again, it depends on the school.

as for the helper, like with finding any good employ, it takes time.
 
carang, can I ask...where are you from?
are you hongkongese?

thinking about what you said about the Cantonese school...uff...one big part of me in some way thinks that that might be the best option because, living in HK, it makes sense that our child learns the local language and plays with kids from HK.
this would make her experience there much more interesting I guess.

On the other hand I am afraid I am asking too much.
And some friends from Italy told me that their kid attending a school with a majority of local pupils was always on his own because he was the only one not understanding and speaking fluently Cantonese.

Ironically, we've been living in China for 12 years and when we were there I've always tought my kids would have attend a Chinese school..never even took in consideration the International ones.
Motherhood made me weak.
 
no, i'm canadian. i've lived here for 15 years, though... so maybe that counts as being "hongkongese"?

personally, i am not a person who would go to a country to live and NOT take advantage of at least trying to learn the language....i'm not fluent in cantonese, but i'm fairly well versed and can definitely get by in 99% of situations with my cantonese. my husband IS local, though, i was already here for over 3 years before i met him.

for us, to start with, it was more of a financial reason that we put our son into the local kindergarten... but, as i said, we are EXTREMELY happy with it. it's NOT like what i experienced growing up, but that doesn't make it wrong. the MOST important thing for me was that my son be happy going to school and he definitely is that. he's also less shy about speaking chinese to his grandparents when he sees them.

there are quite a few western kids at this kindergarten in particular, so your child would NOT feel out of place at all.

we have now even decided to put our son into a local chinese primary school, at least for a few years to see how he copes. if it's all too much for him, then we'll take him out. but, i REALLY want my kids to be bilingual, so there isn't much choice, really... if they went to international school, that would not be possible.

i know you said you were looking at elements/kowloon tong, but i would seriously suggest sai kung as a place to consider. it is NOT nearly as convenient at the other two, but the lifestyle more than makes up for it! the space, the green, the ocean all right there at your finger tips. chances are you will even get a place with a small garden, something you wouldn't get in either of the other two places.

you would most likely need a car though, but those are cheap second-hand...
 
forgot to say that kids adapt really well (most of them). you are right, he won't understand what is going on at the beginning, but it won't take long for him to figure it out.

just think... if you moved from italy to the USA, there would be no choice other than english schooling...he might then be the only one who doesn't speak english...but he would learn.
 
oooohhhh

I know!

but my husband works in Kwun Tong and it would take hours to get there from Sai kung.

and I will have to go often to China and it will take long as well.

ahhhhhhhhhhhh...god knows how I hate small apartments on high floors!
 
I know...

My daugher would learn a second language anyway as she will speak Italian and English or Italian and Cantonese.

But again, you don't get many chances to learn Canotonese in life while you can easily attend English classes later in life.
 
KWUN TONG is NOT far from sai kung! there is a minibus that takes 20 minutes to get you to Kowloon Bay! then it's only 1 MTR stop!

that's an EASY commute! it would take him longer on the MTR from Elements than it would from sai kung! no more than 30 minutes from sai kung (there may even be a minibus directly to kwun tong... i'll ask hubby!)... at least 40-45 minutes by MTR from elements...

going to china would be a bigger hassle, but if you have a car, you drive (highway almost the entire way) to sheung shui (i do it in about 35 minutes or so) and then it's only one stop on the MTR...there is a parking lot directly across the road from the MTR station.
 
ok..I have to check on the map again where sai kung is because I am afraid I am thinking about the wrong location.

wow...that is soooo tempting!!
 
My son goes to Tutortime in Kowloon Tong. He loves it. But it is also half-day only. As far as I know, because Tutortime run 5-6 nursery classes at the same time, it's easier to get in. But... morning classes are harder to get in than afternoon classes.

our nanny is great, so my son has an afternoon nap and goes to his extra-currirular activites that he picks.
 
yep, some nursery already told me that afteroon classes are still available but my daugher sleeps in the afternoon and I wouldn't like to pay to have her sleeping in school.
I know she will stop but I cannot force her.

Now I'll check Tutortime!
 
yes, so you can all imagine that if a kid goes to school from 1.45 pm to 4.45 pm the risk of sleeping for most of the 3 hours is big.

I am not saying I don't want her to sleep in school at all, but I'd prefer not to have her sleeping in school for one or more hours if she's there just for few hours.
 
Carang, the school does not look like a Cantones school..I mean, they talk about an English-Chinese curriculum...

Anyway it looks very nice and, by the way, I checked some properties in Saikung and they are much bigger than other houses around Hong Kong....
 
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