switching schools

[capital]

We will be living in HK for 2 years or so when my children are at about grade2/3/4 age, right now I need to chose a school here in canada for my 4 year old. I have the choice of a regular ciriculum public school, or an IB catholic school (we are not catholic) or a public mandarin bilingual school in my area.
The IB school would mean I have to drive him everyday, probably 20 minutes each way. The other 2 are 5-10 drive minutes away and I could qualify for bussing as well at those 2. The problem with the mandarin school is that it is not in the best neighborhood and it scores below average on provincial test scores, which the principle tells me is more reflective of the regular program and NOT the mandarin program in the school, but still I worry about this. AS far as transfering to school in HK eventually, would it be easiest if my child is in IB, mandarin school, or regular school here? He mostly likely would go to ESF as I do not see how we could ever afford tuition at the private schools

Have you found it a hard adjustment for your child switching to a HK school at age 7, 8 or 9?

 

[0ze_Kid]

It depends very much on the type of education you want.

When we moved to HK we had our infant on a wait list for a Montessori school in Australia. But we couldn't find a Monte program near where we lived in HK so we chose a local international school and were VERY pleased with them (not to mention the fact that she started school a full 12 months sooner than she would have back home). We then choose an IB path for her and have followed that with waitlisting on an IB school back here. It just opens up their opportunities, I think, to be in an IB program. As for Mandarin, my 3 year old did 20 mins of it a day as part of her school program and now that we have had to return home early, I plan to get her a tutor to keep the language up.

I think that doing the IB program and then tutoring in Mandarin (or does the school do Mandarin??) keeps all your options open.

I hope my example helps.