soon2bmom & Sedenya, I wish someone had told me to start my research sooner as I was told on September 20th that applications for 2010-2011 Nursery for my 16 month old were closed on September 16th when the applications were only made available on September 1st! In general, it looks like you need to have a pretty good idea at which schools you would like to submit applications at least twelve months in advance of the child's first day of school. Hence, I was too late!
Now, that I've done some belated research, the main factors seem to be as follows:
1. Medium of Instruction - are you looking for English, Cantonese, Mandarin or a combination of the above short-term/long-term?
2. Location - how far are you willing to travel with your child to go to school?
3. Cost - more expensive is not necessarily better, but it does help you decide what your options are; and
4. Timing - what is the birthdate of your child and work from there. Sleuth raised an excellent point about the number of places, which is pretty important. It's generally easiest to get into a school during the first year that they accept students, but that is not the case with all schools.
5. Citizenship - some schools explicitly give preference to children/parents from certain countries. For example, the Canadian International Schools give priority to Canadian citizens, Singapore International School give priority to Singapore citizens, etc.
On age, a pre-school will usually accept a child for Nursery if he is over 2 by September, but some are really strict and will follow the guideline of 2 year + 8 months. After Nursery is Kindergarten 1 for 3+, Kindergarten 2 for 4+ and Kindergarten 3 for 5+.
This website lists all the kindergartens in Hong Kong. It may give you some options that you may not have considered before:
????? Kindergartens Profile
OK, for example, these are the considerations that we took into account for my son, currently age 18 months:
1. Medium of instruction - prefer 50/50 Mandarin & English long-term, indifferent between traditional or simplified Chinese characters, exposure to Cantonese optional;
2. 15-45 minutes door-to-door;
3. Indifferent between public or private;
4. DOB May 2008
5. Singapore and US citizenship
Given the medium of instruction preferences, we were considering only a small number of public and private schools - KCS, SIS, CIS, & ISF. From there, we knew we would have easier entry to SIS because of his citizenship. SIS' first year of entry is PY1, which corresponds with Kindergarten 2. Therefore, we were looking for a suitable pre-school for the nursery and kindergarten 1 years only. We missed the cut-off for KCS' nursery program and may consider reapplying later, but obtained a place at Wisely Kindergarten, which is conducted in Cantonese, English and Mandarin located less than 10 minutes from home on public transport. We've also submitted an application for the Tri-lingual and bilingual (Mandarin/English) program at Victoria Kindergarten. In the meantime, we've just found a local church playgroup conducted twice a week, 1 hour at a time, in Cantonese to help him become more familiar with the language.
My 18 month old hasn't expressed any opinions on his preference on schools yet, but I am relieved that my older son is enjoying SIS. He entered in PY1, which has 4 classes of 20 students each. Had he entered in PY2, the class size would only increase to 22, making only 8 additional places available from PY1. At Primary 1 onwards, the class size is 25, making only 12 additional places available from PY2. After that, a place is only available if another child leaves the school. At PY1, my elder son's interview consisted of a friendly chat with two teachers answering six questions. From what I hear from friends, the entrance requirement for Primary 1, the sit-down examination is over two hours covering English, Chinese and Math!
Hope this helps. It's amazing how quickly time flies, but fortunately, I think you all have started not too late!
