06 Aug 2009 by
shoppingmum  Warning, it’s a super long post.Â
Our kids have been in their Thai preschool for more than a year, and so far, they enjoy going to school. I won’t say that it’s the best option, but it’s the nearest to our office, and it’s very convenient for me to pick them up after school, or if there is an emergency. Furthermore, the school fee is reasonable as it’s a Thai preschool.
Our decision to send them to Thai school seems to bear fruits now as Justin can speak quite well, even if some of the pronunciation needs touching up, and he recognizes a lot of Thai consonants and vowels already. He can even spell his name in Thai, write the dates in Thai and has no problem making friends. As for Isabelle, we are so amazed to see her first exam results! She scored 90% for her Thai paper. Amazing! I remember Justin just barely passed at 60% for his first Thai paper, so we didn’t put a lot of hope on Isabelle’s first exam. She’s only 3, so we didn’t revise with her. 
I know, lazy parents…
Anyway, her results are quite good, full scores for Maths and English, just like korkor last time. Teacher’s comments are encouraging too, except the fact that she “has her own way of determining things”. LOL! I guess I know why the teachers said that as our little girl can be pretty stubborn some times. But still, we are proud of her! I’m yet to receive Justin’s results.
I don’t know much about the school syllabus as my translator aka hubby takes too long to read a single paragraph in Thai (ahem!) so I gave up on translating the booklets from schools. But right now, Justin can do some simple spelling, but he’s not doing it the “memorizing” way. Last night, I thought him words like “cane, mane, lane, plane”, with long “a” sound, and he managed to read and spell them out. He gets the idea of “making words with phonic sound now”, but not a lot of words yet. We have a little blackboard for him to write the words, so it’s more fun than doing it on the paper.
On the other hand, Isabelle can recognize the letters and numbers randomly, but she can’t write them on her own. She has no problem tracing, but not writing on her own. She can’t be forced, so as long as she knows, ok la… I have very low standard only. LOL!
This morning, she showed us what she learned from Thai dancing. Good!!!! Finally!!! I can’t see her fingers movement and the way she turns her eyes to her hands. LOL! So cute.
Another thing is, I like the precaution steps taken by the school to prevent H1N1. Since the outbreak gets a bit out of control a few weeks ago, every child is required to wash their hands with antiseptic gel upon arrival, before they enter the school compound. Parents are advised to do so too, if they would like to walk their kids to the class.
The daily assembly at the field was canceled and replaced with queuing up at individual classroom. The teachers use the centralized sound system for assembly now. On some days, the kids are not allowed to play in the indoor playroom after school as the equipments are being cleaned up and sterilized, thus they will wait for the parents in the classroom. The teachers mop and clean the classrooms every day, hopefully they will use some Dettol too.
Any kid with flu and fever or not feeling well is advised not to come to school, and I remembered when Justin was down with running nose the other day, he was “stopped” at the “antiseptic gel table” and the teacher touched his head to check if he’s having a high temperature. Luckily, it’s only running nose and he’s allowed to go to school.
Our initial plan was to get the kids to learn Thai at this school, and it’s working well. But then, maybe they will still be here for another year, until Justin finishes K3. Then he will be transferred to international school. If we would to make things easy, sending both of them to the same school will save us a lot of traveling time. And thus, we will be spending more on school fees. *choking*
I’ve visited a few international schools around my area and I’ve checked through some online. For preschools, it’s like RM30k – 50k per year, just for fees. And you have to pay like RM10k – 15k registration, and dunno what other fees, so it’s like a bomb to me. LOL! Of course, I found that US syllabus is slightly cheaper than UK, and there is another syllabus. I can’t remember the term, which is available at Siam International School. No matter which international schools we choose, the school fees escalate from preschool, to primary and to high school. So, I’ll be sleeping and dreaming of more digits as my kids grow older. LOL!
There are cheaper international schools but they are too far from us. It doesn’t make sense to wake up at 5am to beat the traffic to another side of the town in Bangkok. Can die wan la….
I’m glad that I know a few expats here who told us about other options. Some sent their kids to multilingual school (with Thai, English, Chinese and etc), which is cheaper than international schools, I guess. But again, LOCATION wise is out of question. I went to a nearby French school before, it’s nice, and the school fee is something like RM15 per year la…But why am I sending my kids to French school? LOL!
There is one international school which hubby and I almost dropped our jaws when we were there. The school fee is killing us, of course. But the school is so nice, hubby wondered if he’s at a golf course while I thought I was at a resort. LOL! The moment we saw a driver drove a Jaguar to pick up a kindy kid, we knew immediately that it’s not the right school for our kids. I won’t have the chance to drive a Jaguar in my life time ok??? Siao ah…super rich Thai kids and expats punya school leh. LOL!
Oops, I got too carried away with this post liao…Anyway, I’m glad that our kids’ school is not too bad, even if they are not as competitive as the schools back home. I can’t use the same mentality of being kiasu anymore la. The way they learn is different, more hands on, more fun, more play, less paper, more outing trips and etc. So it’s different liao…As long as they don’t go back to Malaysia government schools, I think they should be fine. If they go back to Chinese school, sure cannot pick up wan…
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